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Published: April 7th 2010
Church of the spilt blood
One of the prettiest buildings in spb.Can I start with another disclaimer? Hm, I'm not sure...This time its not about spelling (although that still applies), but about the cynicism with which this account is probably going to be written. Basically, I have to admit, my first impression of Russia was not a good one. If Berlin felt gritty, I'd have to say St Petersburg feels grimey. That's not so say it isn't pretty, it really is. Wide streets lined with crumbling European buildings, fancy plaster work, canals, bridges, squares, it has it all. The trouble is that the picturesque streets are filled with six lanes of choking traffic, the frozen rivers are scattered with beer bottles and the local people never seem to smile. It's that last point that bothers me most. In my naive state, there is nothing quite like having your big friendly grin quenched by a totally blank look or even a glare. Of course, it isn't always the case. I'd say about 1 in 5 times I get some sort of response and maybe 1 in 10 it's a positive one. Sometimes even from someone useful like a waitress! I guess if it were a lottery then those would be pretty good odds,
so it's probably worth me continuing to smile inanely. I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, I should probably pick up from where I left off; In Berlin about to leave for St Petersburg.
So, having hurridly bought food for the train (after learning that there was no food on board) and having swapped my left over Euros into roubles (after learning that you can buy them outside Russia) I found myself at Berlin Haubtbahnhof, waiting for my train. I think it was here, as swarths of russian tourists congragated on a platform piled high with luggage that Russia really began.
The train was divided into different sections, each carriage apparently bound for a different destination. This was written on the side in cyrillic, an alphabet I am in the process of mastering. I had booked a sleeper for the two night journey and found myself sharing a small lockable compartment with a teenage girl, Zoya, and her babushka (grandmother). Both spoke a tiny bit of English and quite good German. As my English is reasonably adeqaute and I did a few years of german at school, communication was suprisingly succesful! Zoya was very chatty,
Street parking
The cars were generally a bit worse for wear... and occupied herself trying to teach me Russian. We had a fun and quite useful lesson that focused more on random vocabulary than sentence contruction. To be fair, Russian grammer does look like a nightmare and even the nouns I learnt change there ending depending on their context. I guess thats a job for the trans-siberian.
The carriages were very warm and when I went to bed, I discovered that due to the slope of the roof, the top bunk (my bunk) was really small. Visa checks were plentiful and always in the middle of the night but they let me pass with no need for bribery. As we went along, the country side became spotted with wooden shacks and forests. The world got colder and we passed frozen lakes and snowy pine trees. So, with cramped legs and a copy of 'War and Peace' I travelled through Poland, through Belarus and north into Russia.
We drew into the dark platform of St Petersburg in the early hours of the morning. I said goodbye to my helpful cabin mates and set out to try and find the station exit and after that my hostel. It took a while.
Ice in St Petersburg
St Peterburg is riddled with canals, many of which were still quite icy after a harsh winter Even though I could vaugely read the street signs there didnt seem to be any. Anyway, eventually I got to Hostel Apple, at the far end of Nevsky Prospect, the main thoroughfare. As It was only just dawn, there wasnt yet space for me, so I had a snooze in the common room (something which is becoming a bit of a theme!). I was awoken by a heavenly choir which turned out to the a girls school from Irkutsk singing to thank the hostel. They cleared out and I had a bed and a base from which to explore.
Spb (as I am going to call St Petersburg from now on) took me a few days to get used to. Arriving somewhere alone and not speaking any of the language is intimidating, but my hostel, hostel apple, was very friendly and turned out to have quite a few English speaking visitors and staff. The guy at the hostel actually took me to the train station to help me buy a ticket, thats how lovely they were! Spb is a city of canals. The snow had mainly melted by the time I was there but the water still had spatterings
of ice. Peter the Great who founded spb in 1703 wanted it to be the gateway to Europe and it looks a bit like a run down version of Vienna, speckled with old Russian cars and neon lights.
One of my favourite things so far about Russia is the 'straight from the internet' English translations. For example, a sign in the hostel bathroom read "Dear guest, please do not put anything heavy on the tube". So not only was I the wierd smiling westerner but also the one that giggled everytime she went to the toilet. There were some excellent translations in the musuems too, which usually had sporadic english texts. The best of these was in the siege of Leningrad musuem- a rather sombre exhibition which for me was unfortunately funny. That visit got off to a good start. Firstly the museum was entirely run by little old ladies. They were everywhere and really little. One of them sold me my entrance ticket then shuffled down to the cloakroom to take my coat. Having established that I spoke no russian and she spoke no English, she gave me a very enthusiastic, uncomprehensible, 20 minute talk on the subject
The summer gardens
"closed due to technical reasons" of the museum. It was, as far as I could tell, in Russian but interspersed with random european words. I picked out 'Kartoffel' (potato in german) and 'napalm'. She then handed me the english guide to the museum- a 2 inch square bit of paper with the words 'siege of Leningrad- 900 days' written on it in pencil. In the actual museum, I learnt quite a lot, although it was hard work! For example I learnt that Alexander Pankratows "was the first to close the embrasure of the enemys weapon emplacement with his body." Not so funny when you think about it.
The museums in Spb were generally stunning, if a little hard to follow. They were usually set in magnificant palaces, so even if the subject was dull, the chandeliers never failed to amaze. I spent a whole day at the Hermitage, the world biggest museum. It is set in the tsars winter palace and filled with everything from Egyptian mummies to rooms of Rembrants to the malachite dressing room of the tars wife. Everything is set out in splendor amid colomns and velvet curtains. I actually ended up buying a rough guide to st peterburg in the
museum bookshop purely for the purpose of not to get lost. I'm very glad I did, because it led me to the slightly hidden room of 'trophy art'- basically stuff the Russians nicked off the Germans at the end of WWII. They included some rather impressive impressionist paintings, of which I am a fan. The Rough guide was also useful at the end of the day; I could find the exit.
The Russian Museum and the Peter and Paul fortress were also great to visit. The former was good for me as I know nothing about Russian art and it covered it all in chronological order from the icons of the 15th century to modern day. An interesting stroll through a few hundred years of ideas. The Peter and Paul fortress was a walled island in the river neva in the heart of the city. It was a hauting place, a city within a city; Inside, there were several cathdrals, museums and a rather nasty looking old prison.
Apart from the funny translations, my favourite thing about Russia is the Churches. They are simply beautiful. They are also simply everywhere. As well as a few western looking structures
there are the typical Russian cathedrals. Often white marble affairs, they have brightly coloured onion domes and decor that makes the Hermitage look plain. Inside they are truly spectacular, non of the grey echoing church of england halls. Here, the main church is not one room but warrens of passages. Each leading to tiny chapels with frescos and icons coating the walls. In Spb, the church of the spilt blood, founded on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated, was particularly breathtaking. The inside is made entirely of mosaics, brightly coloured and detailed. You feel almost like you are inside an enourmous jigsaw puzzle. I took rather a lot of photographs of this one!
What else is there to say? I met some nice people in the hostel, a nice girl from Korea who I ate sushi with, a guy from England who came to a cathedral with me and a group of teachers from New York who bought me dinner and took me out to a jazz cafe. Here a long-haired guitarist crooned old pop songs to jazz piano while Russian women stared blanky forward and smoked skinny cigarettes. Russian women seem to do a lot of
both of these things. In Spb they were as skinny as their cigarettes and all dressed up to the nines. I do mean all. I am the only person I have seen in Russia so far whose trousers are not skin tight. Although my walking boots do look rather odd next to all the stiletoes, after days of walking I only have one blister.
I am sure there is more to say but this entry is long overdue (and also long) so I'll leave it at that. I am now in Moscow and have been for a few days. "And how is that?", I hear you say. Well, that is another story...
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Mummy
non-member comment
well done!
keep smiling - sooner or later you will get one back! perhaps it is all the ice - rol on springtime! xx