Wednesday 21st May
Russia is not the easiest nut to crack. It's not the most tourist friendly country and the recent Crimera conflict was bringing back memories of their former Soviet ways. Nevertheless, we got our papers in order and were off for another adventure, this time to the largest country in the world - Mother Russia!
After a few hours sleep the night before we were up at 3.30am to get to Gatwick for our Easyjet flight. It takes about 3 hours 20 mins from London plus the 3 hour time difference meant we landed at mid afternoon. One of the first things we noticed leaving the plane was it was hot, like really really hot. After clearing border control we were soon making our way to our hotel via the airport express train and then the metro system. This turned out to be a bit of a mission itself as the don't have English translations or our alphabet. Taking the metro turned out to be more like translating hieroglyphics but it was fun as they have some amazing metro stations harking back to the grander of the former soviet days. Seeing the statues, wall murals etc was like stepping into a faded time capsule.
We eventually found our accommodation but had little time to relax as we needed to head down town to the Kremlin state theatre for the Russian ballet we had booked for the night. This turned out to be a massive test of our endurance. The combination of wearing nice clothes for the ballet, the temperature above 30 degrees and no one being able to tell us where to go ( or understand us) meant we wasted over an hour running up and down the general area trying to find the theatre, all the while running out of time and the possibility of missing the show! As Hamish didn't have heels on he went on a solo recon mission and eventually decided to pose as a Four Seasons guest and asking the concierge who kindly provided directions. We eventually made our way there a little dishevelled as we had run out of time for dinner and hadn't eaten anything since breakfast plus very sweaty having run around Moscow!!
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| Inside the theatre |
We made our way back to the hotel still in daylight – the sun didn’t set until about 11pm!
Highlight: Making it into Russia alive and the ballet
Lowlight: Trying to find the ballet. After an early start, no food all day and heat it really sapped a lot out of us which we needed.
Interesting fact: The weather! It was 30+ everyday all day. Given how far now we were the sun rises at 4am and sets close to 11pm so it was roasting all the time.
Thursday 22nd May
Time was short so it was another early start for team Bennie. We checked out of our hotel and headed to the famous Café Pushkin for breakfast. The history of the café goes to the end of the 18th century, when a St. Petersburg nobleman, who served at the court of Catherine II, retired and moved to Moscow and wanted to recreate the way he was used to dining. It was a pretty awesome building, but the food was pretty standard for how much we paid.
Our next stop was a free walking tour. It was another beautiful day and we decided to skip the metro and walk across town to its starting point at Kitay Gorod station. Our tour guide was Elena from Siberia who lives in Moscow. The tour took in the main sites from the House of Romanov to the Red Square to the Kremlin. We also popped into the famous department store, Gum. This was where really expensive brands had their shops, and during the Iron Curtain phase of Russian history it was one of the few places where locals could actually buy any consumer goods. Sometimes people queued for days for the chance to purchase anything! There are stories of people quieting for days just to buy a new jacket or pair of shoes. Our guide also gave a candid take on life in Russia now and some interesting stories from her childhood. For example her Dad once snuck back a Mars bar from Finland before the fall of the Soviet Union. It was such a special thing they waited for a special occasion to eat it and the family then split it 5 ways.
Next stop was St. Basil's cathedral in Red Square. The impressive building consists of 10 separate chapels each with a unique and colourful spire. We popped inside and were impressed by painted walls and ceilings. We were also treated to an impromptu accapella performance of some hymns by a male quartet which sounded incredible in the arched ceilings.
The lack of sleep was catching up on us and we had a long night ahead of us on the train so we headed back to get our bags from the hotel and had a meal at a Ukrainian restaurant (one of the only ones we could find with an English menu!) We sampled Siberian beer, beef stroganoff and chicken Kiev. One of the best meals we had on our trip.
Lou slept ok primarily through exhaustion but Hamish didn't get much shut eye. Rather ominously the parting words of our Russian bunkmate were "Good luck"…
Highlight: St Basil's cathedral. It's on the cover of most travel books/posters for Russia a reason. It's was very cool and different to other famous buildings we had seen.
Lowlight: Blisters. Having been in the UK for so long, little Lou's feet ended up getting big blisters from walking in her jandals all day.
Interesting fact: Red Square is not named after the Soviet colour and Red Army or the red colour of the walls surrounding it, but because of its beauty. The word 'beautiful' in Russian is close to the word 'red' and it's simply called beautiful square.
Friday 23rd May
So we had a super early start arriving into St.Petersburg at 6.30am. Again it was brilliant sunshine as we stepped out of the station. The first thing we noticed was Russian flags lining the main street, the Nevsky Prospect. We found out later that Putin himself was in town while we were there at a Global Economic Forum, which explained the flags and increased military presence.
We recharged at a coffee shop, and then went in search of breakfast. Almost criminally we ended up at McDonalds…but needs must! We found our hotel which was on one floor of an old communist style apartment building. We dumped our bags and went off exploring.
We walked through the 'Field of Mars' garden past the World War One eternal flame, over the bridge to the Peter and Paul Fortress which is the original citadel, founded by Peter the Great in 1703. In the early 20th century, it was still used as a prison by the tsarist government. which is still standing and we had a look through. The main sight here was the Peter and Paul Cathedral which has a 122.5 m bell-tower (the tallest in the city centre) and a gilded angel-topped cupola. The cathedral is the burial place of all Russian tsars from Peter I to Alexander III. The remains of Nicholas II and his family and entourage were re-interred there, in the side St. Catherine's Chapel, on July 17, 1998, the 80th anniversary of their deaths. Toward the end of 2006, the remains of Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna were brought from Roskilde Cathedral outside Copenhagen and re interred next to her husband, Alexander III.
We then wandered down the shores of Lake Neva on the sand where people were sunbathing (we still couldn't get used to this weather!) and around a few more interesting buildings. We were getting hungry at this point and randomly popped into a café that looked like it might have an English menu (it did!) and more importantly it was air conditioned. We had a weird combination of potato fritters & BBQ chicken (the BBQ was actually positioned in the restaurant) and were pretty satisfied.
Fortified, we kept walking down the main street part numerous churches and cathedrals. Interestingly, when Stalin came into power he declared that all churches and cathedrals should be destroyed as there was no religion on communism. However most of them escaped destruction by being renamed 'musuems'.
We ended up at the Winter palace which was a really impressive bright green mansion which housed the State Hermitage museum. It was also the scene of the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1905. We decided to do the museum on Saturday, and instead headed out along the river bank to the famous Bronze Horseman statue (which is also the name of Lou's favourite book so that was pretty cool). We wandered around the parks and saw the outside of St. Issac's Cathedral but didn't go in (we were pretty churched out by this stage).
By this time we were utterly exhausted so we went back to our hotel for a much needed nap.
When we got up it was still hot and sunny so we opted for a picnic in the park for dinner, we hit up the local supermarket for supplies (including vodka of course!) and camped out in the park amongst St.Petersburg locals. It was crazy sitting there in singlets & sunglasses at 10pm at night drinking vodka – like they say when in Russia…!
Highlight: The whole city is so beautiful, all old buildings and gorgeous gardens
Lowlight: No sleep on the train…and more blisters…
Interesting Fact: Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North.
Saturday 24th May
We had a great much need sleep in, checked out and stored our bags at the train station. Unfortunately the breakfast we had pre-paid for was in a café that didn't open till 11am so to kill some time we took the opportunity to wander round the Summer Garden. This is the oldest park in the city, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the elegant style of Peter the Great. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures. It was a lovely shady garden to have a nosey round.
We were starving at this stage and so when we got our breakfast of banana porridge, muffins and coffee we were very happy campers.
We then went and saw the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. This Church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and was dedicated in his memory. It was stunning inside, gold everywhere!
It was museum time now and we possibly underestimated the size of the Hermitage museum. It is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items, including the largest collection of paintings in the world.
But we attacked strategically and saw the things we wanted to see including Picasso, Matisse, da Vinci and Monet. It was exhausting and Lou's blisters were not getting any better!
We had a late lunch in another park and chilled out before getting on the next overnight train back to Moscow. We felt a bit more confident about the trip back and thought we would get a bit more sleep. That was until this massive smelly Russian man came into our cabin and went to sleep and snored continuously for the 8 hour trip. No sleep all night = grumpy campers.
Highlight: The museum was enormous and very impressive.
Lowlight: The train, no question.
Interesting Fact: The museum building was used as a fully functional hospital during the First World War, and in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the church was ransacked and looted, badly damaging its interior. During the Second World War when many people were starving due to the Siege of Leningrad by Nazi German military forces, the church was used as a temporary morgue for those who died in combat and from starvation and illness. After the war, it was used as a warehouse for vegetables, leading to the sardonic name of Saviour on Potatoes.
Sunday 25th May
We pulled into the Leningrad station at 5.30am. Tired. Dirty having not showered for a couple of days. Grumpy after getting no sleep. But we pulled our heads in and made the most of our last day in Russia.
We still had to do the Kremlin so we stored our bags again and had a picnic breakfast in the gardens outside and got tickets to the Armoury museum and the general Kremlin. The Moscow Kremlin is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow and includes five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers. The complex serves as the official residence of the President of the Russian Federation.
So it's basically like the White House complex in the States. The armoury museum displays all the gifts the Russian empire had collected from foreign dignitaries since the beginning of the time. So basically it is gold and silver and diamonds! It was incredible. Russia could basically solve world hunger by selling off their museum.
We visited a few more churches which had turned out to be the same as all the other ones we had seen…The afternoon was spent in the park reading our books and sleeping, we needed to recharge our batteries big time!
The journey home was slow but we were very happy to get home to our little flat. Russia was a real challenge, but we felt like we got what we wanted out of it and are very glad we have been to see it.
Highlight: Seeing all the jewels!
Lowlight: The journey home, always a killer.
Interesting fact: In order to stop the disruptions to Moscow traffic caused by motorcades, President Vladimir Putin authorised the construction of the Kremlin helipad. The helipad was completed in May 2013. The President will now commute back and forth to the Kremlin using a Soviet-designed Mi-8 helicopter.
