Contrary to expectations, had no problems at the Russian Border - was shooed in sans many questions. So much for the feared Russian bureaucratic machine…
St. Petersburg (Санкт-Петербург) turned out to be quite a large city - much larger than what I expected with many more tourists than I had anticipated. Which was bad and good - bad because… well… because they’re tourists (as if I’m not one!). And good because it wasn’t as alienating an experience as some people had expected a visit to Russia to be. The city has a very wedding cake-y feel to it with beautiful pink, green, and yellow buildings all around. St. Petersburg is often known as the Venice of the North because of the number of rivers and canals that flow through it (Neva, Fontanka, Moyka, Griboedov canal…) and the numerous bridges that straddle these rivers and canals. Unfortunately, I got a fair bit of rain when I was there - but fortunately not enough for me to stop exploring or stop taking photographs.
Everything in St. Petersburg is about Peter the Great or Catherine the Great. If history bores you, skip this paragraph. The city was founded in 1703 by the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. However, the city gained much of its grandeur during the rule of Catherine the Great (grand-daughter-in-law of Peter the Great) who strove to make St. Petersburg a great city. The city has also been known by the names of Petrograd and Leningrad at various points in its existence. It was the capital of the Russian empire for over 200 years till 1918 – after the Russian Revolution, the capital was moved to Moscow. Ok, enough of history.
At St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which is one of the largest cathedrals in the world, I had my first surreal brush with the Russian language. There was an extremely old lady at the Audio-guide counter – she handed me an audio-guide with the customary grace associated with the very elderly. When I tried using the guide, it didn’t work. So I told her, in English, with ample gestures that the thing wasn’t working. She replied, in Russian, that it should be working and asked me to press a few buttons and levers. I tried explaining to her that it wasn’t working! She then took the audio-guide from me and gave me another one. Now this one didn’t work too. So same dialogue again (“It doesn’t work”, “Yes, it does”). It was the third audio-guide which finally worked. But what was odd was that all along we were ‘conversing’ with each other – I in English (of which she didn’t know a word) and she in Russian (of which I knew no word) yet we almost understood each other.
One hears stories of people being uncomfortable in Russia because no one speaks English. I, fortunately, had no such problems – because St. Petersburg is a reasonably touristy city, knowledge of English is quite common (at least at places where tourists like me loiter!). Of the four ladies at the reception of the hotel I was staying in, one spoke English and her response to any query would be ‘Oh! That is too easy!’
However, what I found more difficult than conversations was finding things / shops / deciphering menu cards – almost all signs in St. Petersburg are in Cyrillic which makes it a bit difficult for those who are not acquainted with the script. And after struggling for a few days, all I could make out was that ‘П’ meant ‘P’ and ‘P’ meant ‘R’.
I did test myself when I took a day tour of Peterhof (Петерго́ф), the palace-gardens-fountains complex of the Russian Tsars. Just to make things a bit interesting for myself (foolish, you would say), I took a Russian-only tour. I was the only non-Russian speaking person and the tour guide knew no English. So it was fun time for me. And as anyone who’s been on such tours knows, the most important bit is when they give instructions on where and when the group should meet to start the journey back. Not wanting to miss this important bit, I was paying attention to the non-stop Russian soliloquy of the tour guide even though I didn’t understand a word. I would relax whenever I would hear ‘Peter’ or ‘Alexander’ or ‘Ekatarina’ (Catherine) because then I knew she was talking about historical facts and not logistical ones. But ultimately I needn’t have worried. As soon as they figured out that I didn’t speak a word of Russian, the fellow tourists took me under their wings and treated me like a little kid who was in danger of getting lost. Whenever instructions would be given out, everyone would come to me and repeat it to me in their best English. Many times over.
Peterhof (pronounced Petergoff), built in the early 18th C, is large complex with a palace, fountains and elaborate gardens. The grandeur and opulence is much in the style of Versailles or the Schönbrunn Palace. The most breathtaking part of Peterhof is the ‘Grand Cascade’ which has 37 bronze sculptures, 64 fountains and 142 water jets (impressed by the exact numbers?).
While our group was in the gardens, we experienced a cloudburst – it suddenly started raining heavily (not the UK drizzle variety but the real Indian monsoon kind). We all got completely soaked (despite our umbrellas and raincoats). And were actually quite relieved to enter the Palace complex. Whilst being taken on a ‘Russian only’ tour of the palace, we were all given individual headphones and at one point they stopped working (not that I was paying too much attention to what was being said). Suddenly everyone started saying Nee swooshna (which I assume means ‘it’s not working’ or ‘we can’t hear you’). Such is crowd psychology that I also started saying Nee swooshna. I was probably the loudest in my protestations (as if I should have cared!).
Continuing the pattern of immersing myself in a language of which I hardly knew any words (apart from Spaseeba (thanks) and zdrastvooytye (hello)), I went to see a Russian film sans subtitles. The lady at the ticket counter, when I asked for tickets, politely pointed out in her broken English that this was a Russian movie with NO subtitles. I told her, yes I know, but I still want to see the film. She shrugged and gave me the ticket. The hall was an extremely ornate one and though there were 10 people in the hall, we were all allocated seats and that too next too each other (so that we don’t feel scared in the dark?). I’ll refrain from repeating what I thought was the plot of the movie. To cut a long story short, I walked out about after an hour (carefully avoiding the lady at the ticket counter and her probable ‘I told you so’).
One of the most visible symbols of St. Petersburg is the giant equestrian statue of Peter the Great (unveiled in 1782) as a tribute from Catherine the Great. Locals call the statue ‘The Bronze Horseman’ after Pushkin’s poem on the statue. However, it is The Hermitage that is most closely associated with St. Petersburg. I spent an entire day at the museum (well chosen, since it was raining cats and dogs outside!). Built by Catherine the Great to house the Tsars’ increasing collection of art, The Hermitage (pronounced ‘hermitaaj’) now has a staggering 3 million exhibits. Obviously, it is too large, and justice cannot be done to it in one day (or perhaps, even three). However, I can report that my time there was quite well spent and I managed to see a fair bit of the galleries even though I skipped large portions.
While at St. Petersburg, I also took a childish joyride on the Metro. The stations are not as elegant as apparently the ones in Moscow are. But the uniqueness of the St. Petersburg Metro lies in the fact that it is the deepest in the world. Deep or not deep, the faces of the commuters were the same as they are world over in metros.
One interesting practice that is visible all over St. Petersburg is that of newly-weds going to the scenic/iconic (hence touristy) parts of town and getting themselves photographed in their wedding attire (there were quite a few such couples inside The Hermitage too!). It is always a rather funny sight – the newly weds followed by an ‘official’ photographer with a humungous camera. And with them would be an increasingly inebriated and loud bunch of friends with champagne flutes in their hands…
St. Petersburg, like any European city, has a large number of churches, but the most photogenic one is the ‘Church on Spilled Blood’ (so named because it was raised at the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881). The Church, with its onion domes, and the mosaic interiors is oh so Russian (see the photographs). Across the river Neva (which cleaves St. Petersburg) is the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, the tallest building in St. Petersburg (not counting the TV tower). This church is the last resting place of Tsars - Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and the rest of the royal family lies buried here. In 1998, the remains (?) of the last Tsar of Russia (Nicholas II) and his family were also interred here. An odd practice in this church is that flowers are only placed on the tomb of Peter the Great and on no one else’s tomb.
One of the more bizarre museums in St. Petersburg is the Kunst Kammer – commissioned in 1718 by Peter the Great - this museum has many exhibits on different cultures of the world including Saree and Salwar-Kameez-clad mannequins in the Indian section. However, the oddest bits at the museum were the ‘curiousities’ that Peter the Great had ordered to be collected. These include pickled foetuses with deformities – with two heads or with fused limbs - it is quite gross really. Peter the Great had them collected and displayed so that his citizens would not regard people with deformities as ‘monsters’ (rather progressive for the 18th century!).
The Russian Museum predictably had a number of works by Russian masters. At the museum, there were a large number of icons of ‘Mary with infant Jesus’ (of course the most famous one, used by Mel Gibson for his Icon production company, is in Moscow). Outside the museum, in the Arts Square, is a giant statue of Pushkin in the act of reciting one of his poems with a flourish. Arms outstretched et al.
That’s all from Санкт-Петербург. Next stop Tallinn in Estonia.
PS: Food
1. I’m not one for experimenting culinarily (The Indian restaurant in St. Petersburg, Tandoori, was the best Indian meal I’ve ever had outside of India). But I really loved the Borsch which is a spicy beetroot soup which is a staple in Ukraine.
2. A fun place to visit was the local fast food chain (Teremok). The Russians seem to be striking at capitalism with a vengeance. Naturally, there is an overload of McDonalds, Subway, Baskin Robbins et al. But what surprised me was the number of shops that are open 24/7.
3. No, I didn’t visit a Baskin Robbins or a McDonalds (even to pee).
