Day one in Russia

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Saturday was our first full day in St. Petersburg and a chance to do some sight seeing both formally and informally as well as simply rest.

Breakfast was at 9:00 followed by a bus tour of historical St. Petersburg. The day began overcast and rather cool, but the trip was nice to get a feel for how things are laid out so that we were more comfortable later on when we venture out on our own. We started in St. Isaac’s square which is home to St. Isaac’s cathedral, a park, and surrounded by several buildings with incredibly interesting stories too long to mention here. We continued to the river front (the Neva) where we had a view of Peter and Paul Fortress (founded in 1703 to defend against the possibility of an invasion by Sweden) and the original port of St. Petersburg. Finally, we came around to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood which is an incredible mosaic covered church near the summer gardens. The tour was too fast and short in my mind, but it was nice to get a chance to see the city.

After the tour, several of us decided to head out on our own and see some things. Among other things, we went back to St. Isaac’s cathedral and climbed the 200+ steps to the colonnade to see the view of the city.

We will see if I am smart enough to attach a few small photos of what I described!

Russia is incredibly interesting so far. I still repeat the feeling I mentioned the other day of being incredibly “off kilter” due to the language barrier. Even in Hungary I felt like I knew what I was doing and that I could use pigeon German as a middle ground with people. Here, pigeon German amounts to nothing, and I simply didn’t learn anything useful in Russian. We survive with pointing and gesturing and hope that we aren’t being too offensive (the server in the café today was very fed up at one of our party who couldn’t make her desires clear).

The other thing that Russia has against it is that our hosts here were SO worried about warning us about pickpockets, scam artists, and abusive drunks that they have made me rather skittish. Normally in a strange town I am comfortable being off and looking around with at least a moderate level of security awareness. Here, I will probably never leave the hotel without someone accompanying me, and certainly never after 9:00 even in a group. The “tourism vendors” are very aggressive near the tourist sites, but if you simply say no and walk away they TEND to accept that (we had a Matrushka doll salesman today who didn’t want no for an answer).

All in all though, I am enjoying myself so far. I wish there was a little more organized time with the group, but we will accept what we get!

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