RUSSIA BABY - St Petersburg

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We finally arrive at the major transition stage of our trip, Russia. Transitionary as it covers a vast land mass linking Europe and Asia and it is during this leg that we cover long distances. One of the most interesting changes we are looking forward is to witness firstly: the cultural differences between European Russia and the Far East and secondly: the physical changes, the changes in appearance as we travel from European towards the orient, Japan and Korean. The sheer size of Russia is something to contemplate and as we spend days aboard various Trans-Siberian trains it will become apparent, Russia covers 6.6 million square miles and the traditional Trans-Siberian journey from Moscow to Vladivostok it 5,806 miles. There are three main journeys that cross Siberia, the classic, the Trans-Manchurian and the journey we are about to do is the Trans-Mongolian.

We arrived in St Petersburg at about 11:30pm at the wrong station than we originally thought and headed out into the dark, map in hand to find our hostel, only to find that the metro was closed so nervously we got into a taxi and headed off into the night. Tony wasn't best pleased about how much the taxi cost, 20 quid, but G was more than happy that she made it out alive to where we had asked him to take us, which was the train station by our hostel which, according to the 'paranoid planet' it informs us to avoid walking in front of the station at night as the police often shake down foreigners for visa registration violations - great was just what we were wanting to be relieved of more money, thankfully we were fine! Once we had lost sight of our taxi driver we got our map out and found our way to the hostel only to find no one was answering the door, a quick phone call later we found out the hostel had moved to somewhere we had walked past about 10 minutes ago!!!!! She reckoned she had emailed G but we're still waiting for it!!!!!

So off we go for another walk to find it. After a few calls later she finally came out to meet us and took us around a few corners and metal gates (we would have never found this on our own). Once outside she turned to us and said 'oh crazy lady with dog is here, just wait until she goes, we've just moved in and not got the correct paperwork so she’s not happy!!!!' Gulp, time is now 12:30am (thankfully it’s just starting to go dark) visions of the hostel being raided and us being arrested flashed before our eyes!!!! Eventually crazy lady went and we were shown to our room, ours was massive with a nice big IKEA double bed which was well comfy so we were happy. The place was called Tapki Hostel, was 1600r per night (for 2 people), and wouldn’t recommend it, mainly because of the lack of paperwork!!!!

The next day we were unable to get up early, for some reason we were totally zonked, plus the bed was soooo comfy. When we finally made it out of bed we ventured down Nevsky Pr a 4km road once named the quietest main street in Europe because it was paved with wooden paving blocks to muffle the sound of the horse drawn carriages. This is not the case anymore. We are staying right on this road and are very happy Mr. double glazing man has been to our hostel.

We were originally going to go to the Hermitage today but there was a queue so we headed around the area to take in the magnificent Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. This church is similar to St Basil's in Moscow with the multi domed roof but inside it truly is an amazing place. The 7000 sq metres of walls are all mosaics which took 30 artists to restore over 27 years. It was beautiful and well worth the entrance fee.

Every site seemed to charge so we didn't go into all of them. After having a mooch around outside the Winter Palace and the surrounding churches we headed to the famous Summer Garden which surprise surprise was closed. But walking past it, it didn't look that great so we weren't too upset.

St Petersburg is massive so this pretty much took up our first day of sightseeing. We then went on a mission to find some of the bars the lying planet has in it but with no avail, so we ended up in a very cool English pub eating yummy Russian soup and me drinking lots of vino!!!!

The next day started off pretty much the same as the day before, after promising to get up early we rise rather late, there must be sleeping gas in this hostel or something. Our first mission was to get train tickets to Moscow before going to Peter and Paul’s fortress. This turned out to be our only mission of the day and after 3 hours of "nyets" (an aggressively spoken NO!) and head shaking and pointing to others counters we finally got train tickets to Moscow using a note G wrote in Russian. Totally deflated we decided to call it a day and headed to a bar to get drunk.

We stumbled upon a very random bar which to us looked like a brothel/s&m dungeon (not that we know what these type of places look like but one does have an imagination!!!) We had a few beers here before heading out and finding an expat American bar playing Cuban music. We had far too much vino here and an amazing chilli con carne and burrito (Russian food really!!!!).

FYI: we are not sure what is going on but Russia is a time warp, time flies so quickly, one min its 1pm then next its 10pm!!!

Our last day in St Petersburg was once again a late starter after promising to start early as we hadn't really seen the main sights. So a few hours later than we planned we headed out into the rain to the Hermitage to find the queue was 3 times longer than it was the other day when we thought that queue was long. How annoyed were we when we could have queued for 1 hour the other day instead of 2 and a half hours which was longer than we would have in there because it was closing in an hour and a half once we got in!!!!

Now we not being art lovers did enjoy it in here but thought it weren’t worth standing outside for 2 and a half hour. Don't get us wrong, the building and its interior were amazing but there's so much art (over 3 million items) it gets to a point where you start asking yourself if you've already seen the room you’re in. G was chuffed because we stumbled upon a load of van gough work and also some Picasso although he doesn't really float our boat. Apparently, should you wish to visit all 1057 rooms and 117 staircases it’s a walk of 13 miles!!!!

The Hermitage is part of the Winter Palace which is massive; it was commission from Bartolommeo Rastrelli in 1754 by Empress Elizabeth. Catherine the great and her successor had most of the interior remodelled in a classic style by 1837. It reminds an imperial home until 1917, though the last Tsars spent more time in other palaces.

By the time we got out of the Hermitage it was too late to head to Peter and Pauls Fortress so we had a drink and headed back to our hostel to attempt to pay for a second time. No one was around in the morning, so we left our bags there with a note in hope that they would still be there that night. They were!!! So we paid some random woman and headed to some bars by the train station to pass the time before our 2 am train to Moscow.

It didn't take us long to get the picture that these bars didn't really like backpackers in there as they kept saying they were closing so by 11pm we were sitting on the floor in the main train station reading.

Tony made a friend, Dincen 'his Russian friend', the first person in Russia to want to speak English to us. We found in St Petersburg that it was near impossible to find anyone who spoke English. This surprised us massively as St Petersburg is always described as the European city of Russian!!!!

We finally boarded our train after total chaos. Two trains were leaving 5 minutes from each other and the platforms we were given where the wrong ones for each train. It was pandemonium, especially when you haven't a clue what everyone is shouting. We honestly felt that we were being bundled onto the wrong train and out of our own free will, after yet more Nyets!!!! We finally board our train and to our surprise we had beds in a 4 berth and the 2 guys below us were nice young chaps from Moscow who spoke good English. At 2 am we were shattered so went straight to sleep.

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Photos

Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood - Inside
Spot a tiny Tony