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Published: October 5th 2007
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Church on Spilled Blood
Graphic name, lovely church - looks like a packet of iced gem biscuit/sweets only much nicer Growing up in the eighties, Russia was terribly exotic. I believed there was an actual iron curtain, and that if someone could just work out how to open it, then everything would be fine. I had lots of perceptions based mainly on news reporting (biased), childish interpretations of news reporting (biased) and the occasional bad movie (or baddie in a bad movie... enough said). Ok, so I'm more sophisticated (allegedly) now, but the following could be described as 'perceptions' I had of Russia:
1. Cold.
2. Fond of war, and missiles
3. People very hungry, not much food. Fond of queueing, as if you got in queue you might get the sole loaf of bread in the supermarket
4. Lots of tragic, beautiful ladies called Nikita winsomely wandering cold snowy streets in big furry hats looking into mid distance for Elton John to take them to the wonderous west
5. Lots of angry, sadistic beautiful ladies with spiky heels and very well plucked eyebrows waiting to lure good innocent heroes such as James Bond into bad situations possibly involving injections, space and newspapers with eye-holes cut out of them. And micro-film.
6. Prodigy energetic children
who liked to spin, twirl, jump, ice-skate to within an inch of their lives for the love of the USSR
and Chess. They were GREAT at Chess.
And Tragedy. Lots of TRAGEDY.
You get the drift.
I couldn't wait to see Russia.
We boarded the midnight bus from Tallinn to St. Petersburg and stuck on the iPods, but it was hard to sleep when we were so excited. That said, I drifted off until two when we hit the border town of Narva. At the border crossing, a female guard entered the bus. All conversation was in Estonian as we were the only English speakers on board, but we grasped that our passports were required and handed them over. A lady behind Alan who had been fidgeting was addressed in a loud voice and taken from the bus along with a man. I think they didn't have passports. The rest of the passengers laughed as the lady protested to the guard but she was taken off. Outside we could hear an elderly lady speaking in a raised voice in Russian. She was sent onto the bus - I presume she didn't have the necessary papers
Sunset over the river Neva
Aw, canals, rivers, beautiful sunsets... St. Petersburgs got them all to enter Estonia.
The guard came back on a few moments later with our passports, but to her consternation she had an additional passport of a man who had never been on our bus. This got laughs from the passengers as the guard disembarked in a hurry to find the owner of the passport.
Onward the bus trundled across a bridge and to the Russian border. This time we all disembarked and were individually sent through the customs, much like at the airport. Alan was asked about his travel plans but I wasn't asked anything. We stood and waited while the bus was checked minutely and precisely, the elderly Russian lady protesting loudly all the time. A senior Russian female soldier came out and tried to answer her questions, and then we were let onboard again.
There was no way we could sleep - this was Russia. We bounced along the road which was bumpy and looked at each house and tree with great interest until I drifted off. I was awoken at five to the surprise news that we had arrived in St. Petersburg an hour and a half early.
We were at Baltica Station
Hermitage Ballroom
Where the fancy folks liked to dance pre-revolution and never had we felt so far from home - everything was closed, and there were hordes of wild dogs patrolling the station grounds. A group of men stood outside a door, and further along Russian soldiers stood outside the main door joking and laughing. I don't know how, but Alan figured out the metro map which was in Cyrillic script. The metro didn't open for a half an hour, it was Sunday, and we busied ourselves trying to look as though we fit in (fat chance with our big Irish heads and backpacks bulging at the seams). We took out some Roubles and headed to the Metro - along with young Russians returning home from the nightclubs on the first train, we were the first customers. Somehow (thanks Lonely Planet) I ordered 'Dva' metro vouchers which are like coins and we headed down the extremely long steep escalator. Immediately we were struck by the wooden escalators which look like something from Gotham City.
The trains were wider and the stations had a lot less advertising and much more marble than at home, London, Paris or any other metro system we have been on. We arrived at Sadovya and
somehow found our hostel which was located (unsign posted) through a gate on a main road. The roads in the major cities here stretch for miles, and sometimes a street number can be a whole block. The town was extremely lively for a Sunday morning, full of revellers and a large police presence.
The security guard couldn't understand English and I don't have Russian but somehow we muddled through and awoke the Hostel administrator at six thirty. She gave us some documents that are important apparently and then sent us on our way until midday so we wandered the streets like poor orphan children. That said, somehow we figured out how to order Blinis with cheese (pancakes with cheese).
After crashing out we wandered the streets that evening. It is hard to describe how beautiful St. Petersburg is in some ways - the church of the spilled blood (pictures to appear here soon!) is amazing, mosiacs inside and outside it has coloured domes and impressive art, real sense of east meets west.
Our initial impressions was that everything is familiar yet slightly different. It is a strange sensation - St. Petersburg reminds me of an enormous more
NCT Anyone?
Seriously, this was one of the better ones in St. Petes. Would not be tolerated on the roads of Moscow. Important note: car is called 'lame star'... says it all really shabby version of Paris. It has elegance and style, but is pungent of petrol and cars that are well past their NCT date. There's a much greater police and army presence than in Dublin.
In some ways it is like home - lots of international brands, some shopping stores. Then in others it is different, so different. The women of St. Petersburg seem extremely glamorous, lots of spiky heeled boots, flowing hair, red lipstick. Overall Russia evokes an extreme reaction from me - when it is good, it is possibly the best place I've been, and when I don't understand what's going on, or something seems odd to me, then I have the opposite feeling. For the first time in the trip, I think it is finally dawning on me what a wonderful opportunity this really is, a privilege, to see so many parts of the world over this period of time. When I talk to younger Russians they are so friendly, and sometimes even strike up conversation independently when they speak English. The older Russians sometimes are friendly and helpful, but not always. I don't have the language so I can't pretend I understand fully what's going on,
Empress Aoife at Winter Palace
M'lady, your Czar is taking ones photo, m'kay? but it is certainly interesting at times.
Out of all the places we've visited so far, Russia is the most on the cusp of change, and I imagine that it will change significantly over the coming years.
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Aoife
non-member comment
jealousy
I'm going home to watch Dr Zhivago and drink Vodka!