St Petersburg - The Regal Duchess of Russia

Friday, August 12, 2011 Eva 0 Comments

If Moscow is the young Pop Princess of Russia, St Petersburg must surely be the rich old
A strange babushka


grand Duchess reclining along her waterfront. The people and its city seem more relaxed and not hyped up on glamour like the Muscovites.  It is a beautiful imperial city where every façade and elevation, whether freshened up or in a state of decay, exudes an air of regality softened by pretty bridges and canals.
Whilst we were there in the June summertime this White Nights city turned into festive mode. I’m taking liberty with the word ‘summer’ here as during our week’s stay, days were a smorgasbord of rain, sun, wind, cloud then almost-guaranteed clear bright skies by 8 pm.  The sun doesn’t seem to set below the horizon until the wee small hours of the night and the Petroburgers were making the most of it. 

An annual fireworks show put on by the city is a point in case.  The crowds began swelling and thickening along the banks of the Neva River as Max and I stood patiently waiting for the action.  It seemed as though half of SPb’s 4 ½ million population had turned out for the event and everyone was in good spirits - literally and figuratively.  Midnight came and went, then 12.30, 1 a.m., and finally at 2 in the morning, when the sky had darkened enough, off it went with a BANG!  Luckily we hadn’t chosen to turn in for the night as yet because the pyrotechnics were deafening across the city.
Almost midnight on the Neva River

Fireworks at 2 a.m.
Our little boutique hotel was in a superb location, central to the Hermitage (St Pete’s equivalent of the Louvre) and where 3 quaint little bridges met over quietly flowing canals. This intersection of canal bridges seemed to be the spot where bridal couples arrived in their stretch Hummers and limousines to pose for photos with white doves or balloon bouquets, with the ornamental Church of the Spilled Blood in the background.  Afterwards they’d attach a padlock to one of the bridge's lamp posts to seal their love. How romantic.
Church of the Spilled Blood
One of my first tasks on arrival was to get to a hairdresser which the hotel arranged with a nearby salon.  Within a few hours I was sitting in the chair trying to communicate with the hairdresser about colour and style. She spent considerable time fussing over my hair, far longer than was really necessary, and spoke a few words of English - “not black” she reassured me about the colour and then asked “like this (hands wide apart indicating boofy hair volume) or like this (hands close together meaning smooth, no volume hair)?”.  I chose to go for broke – the big hair look.  Two hairdryers (they both packed up) and 3 hours later I emerged with almost-black straight sleek hair.  Hey, doesn’t matter – it’s only hair.  The hotel receptionist, after her initial flattery was astounded to learn that the stylist didn’t speak English.  How did we communicate, she wanted to know?  Der, what are hands for?
Hermitage Palace
Our time in SPb coincided with a world economic forum that the city hosts regularly which meant a free outdoor concert by a BIG NAME performer and paid for by the government (you beauty!).   Whilst admiring the grandeur of the Hermitage Palace and its stunning art collection, our ears construed that this year’s performer would be Sting.  We viewed the ancient Greek & Roman civilisations collections, then on through the ages, pushing through big tour groups at the most popular sections.  By the time we reached the 19th century French artworks - we’re talking Monet, Degas, Cezanne and a pile of Gaugins - we had lost interest as Sting and his band rehearsing in the palace square below distracted us from the seriously cool stuff inside.  That evening we did get to watch him perform from a distance over the shoulders of the large crushing crowd where he looked about as big as an ant and sang as if past his prime.  Despite the limited view and his vocal range struggling to hit the high notes I was only happy to leave once he’d sung a rendition of “Fields of Gold”.

There were many glorious landscapes, vistas and moments enjoyed during our visit – Petershof, the Tsars’ Summer Palace on the Baltic seaside, a mini-Versailles look-alike of fountains, gold statues, formal gardens, trick water features and pavilions; the highly decorative Church of the Spilt Blood that rivals St Basil’s in Moscow for splendour and ornamentation; drinking vodka and Azerbaijani wine in a central Asian restaurant whilst chatting to and learning about the fascinating background of the young Russian female entertainer/opera singer who also works in Egypt; and having a catch-up dinner with Max’s cousin and his partner who had popped over to St Pete’s from Finland on their travels.

Petershof, the Summer Palace

And let me describe Russian cuisine.  There are two features to their gastronomy – “sour cream” and “mayonnaise”.  When I’d had enough of it I ordered a toasted ham and cheese sandwich.  How did it arrive?  Mayonnaise embedded between the bread and filling.  BEAUT-iful. 

A last day errand was to lighten our packs by posting off accumulated souvenirs and ‘no-longer-needed’ stuff back home.  After some phone advice from the young Russian tour guide that we’d bumped into in Moscow and a reconnaisance mission beforehand to this 24-hour central Post Office, off we went on our merry way.  This little job looked like it was going to be a piece of cake – take a ticket, buy box, fill it up, take box to counter for posting.  Who would have guessed that it would be a 2 ½ hour affair to mail a parcel overseas.
Thirty three ahead of us in the queue (sigh, moan) and 3 counters for this particular service.  However, staff rotated so that at any one time 2 were working (slowly, what did we expect?) while one was on break. Ahhh, service with apathy and a frown.  Looks like some ex-Soviet ways die a slower death.  In that time slot we could have done a mini-grocery shop, written out 2 dozen postcards over a coffee and been back in time to take our place in the queue.  For a man who did doth protest with a lot of arm waving and raised voice about the length of time he had to wait, a security guard was called over to the counter.  That subdued him.  A helpful customer nearby, who’d broken out in a profuse sweat whilst going through the rigmarole of posting her parcels in the unventilated hot building, spoke a little English and assisted us with some of the paperwork (all in Russian and French) and then our little ordeal was finalised to everyone’s satisfaction.  This called for a consoling thick-as-custard Russian hot chocolate drink after that.

We headed for St Pete’s airport the following day for Uzbekistan and stood out as the only white westerners waiting for the check-in counters to open for our flight to Tashkent. Dark-skinned people with coarse features and flashes of gold teeth had gathered with their mountains of luggage.  The way the unruly masses pushed their way through and surrounded the counters for our flight, I think that airport staff should have taken a leaf out of the Post Office’s book of service and had ticket machines and burly security guards putting order into the chaotic scene.  People squished in all around us, almost causing us to topple over with the lack of foot space as we felt bodies pressing closer and suitcases pushing into the backs of our legs. I pushed back in return.  There was no such thing as personal space – space was there to be filled if given half a chance. I thought Max, normally a placid kind of guy, was heading for a heated argument as an impatient passenger tried pushing his baggage through on the luggage belt with our backpacks and elbowing his way at the counter as we were being checked in.  Some calm was restored by a staffer for the few moments that we were being processed, then the argy-bargy took up again behind us as we pushed our way through the clamouring mob who instantly filled the space we’d just occupied.  All checked in, we were then ready to leave the expansive perestroika-ed land of onion-domed churches to fly Russian Airlines….....so help us God.
 
Our journey east to west from China to Russia via Mongolia, has been a goal realised, an incredible adventure of contrasting patchworks of cultures so different to each other and yet there’s shared history and boundaries through time with all three. We've encountered flavours, smells, sounds, landscapes, peoples, languages, architecture and lifestyles far different from our own life back home and surely that is what the experience of travel is all about. Our Silk Route quest is next as we head excitedly with great curiosity into Central Asia.

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