russia: leningrad on its birthday

When we came back from Suzdal, Tyra and I went back to my flat where she picked up her full pack, then we went straight to another train station in Moscow. I made sure she got on the right night train to St Petersburg, and said I'd see her there the next weekend.

As I said in the previous post, Tyra put a lot of thought into the scheduling of her Russian trip. She ended up spending about a week in Moscow and the surrounding area, then another week in St Petersburg and the surrounding area. 

She stayed with me in Moscow, then went up to St Petersburg. Claire and I arranged to meet up with Tyra for her last weekend in the country. It is never a bad weekend if I'm going up to St Petersburg.

After running to catch our train, we arrived in St Petersburg on time, bright and early at 0450. We'd already arranged to meet up with Tyra around 0630, so we killed time in the train station until then. Tyra's hostel wasn't far from the train station, I used the stairwell of her building to change clothes.

Claire and I left our bags with Tyra's stuff, then all three of us headed to a metro station. We rode the metro to another train station and caught an express train to start a day trip. Our destination was Peterhof.

The train station we pulled into was quite nice, though it didn't look like it got very much traffic. We left the station and started walking, heading into a park straightaway. We were following the crowds, it wasn't hard to figure out where to go.

In the middle of a park was a pond, with a church on the other side of the pond. 

The church was a listed sight in town, but it was completely closed for renovation. Unfortunately it was closed AND completely covered with scaffolding and other stuff, so there was no possibility for a decent photo. Argh.

We walked through the gates to the upper gardens of Peterhof Palace, there was no entry fee to this section of the gardens. Even though we thought we'd arrived fairly early in the morning, there were already plenty of people wandering around, most of them trying to take the perfect instagram photo. The area looked recently landscaped, the flowers were quite pretty.

After wandering a bit, we found the ticket machines. Trust me when I say Peterhof is not a cheap place to visit. We bought tickets to the lower gardens, which were 900 rubles!! That's more than I've paid for anything else I've seen in Russia. We decided to wait on anything else, and see how the day went.

The gardens were crowded, even at that hour of the morning. We started our visit by looking down at the gardens from the patio area on the back side of the palace. There is a waterfall type of fountain here, with a number of layers. 

Quite a few people were waiting around, not moving on, so we decided to wait too.

The wait was worth it. At some point the fountain water started flowing, and we realized the water was flowing in time to music. Pretty cool. We didn't go in the fountain museum, which had been one of the other options on the ticket machine. After a while, we started walking again, aimlessly wandering and hoping we'd see the whole gardens.

We ended up wandering for a few hours. Throughout the gardens there are fountains, some big and some small. 

There are statues too, some bigger than others. There are plenty of trails, none of which were too crowded. The back side of the gardens leads onto a waterway, which was pretty.

We thought about getting food at one of the cafes/food points in the gardens, but the prices were way higher than we wanted to pay.

Instead of paying for food, we chose to pay for a ticket to ride the hydrofoil back to the center of St Petersburg. I think the ride was about 30 minutes, but I'm not sure since I fell asleep. 

Tyra and Claire were kind enough to remind me that I look amazing when I'm sleeping by taking selfies with me. Sigh ;)

The boat dropped us off really close to the Hermitage, which was a great location. From there we walked through the platz in front of the Hermitage, which is normally a great place for people watching. On this particular Saturday a stage was being set up for a concert, which meant the platz was filled with temporary construction.

The sun made it feel like it was still just mid or early afternoon, but our watches said it was a little later than that. We wandered for a little bit, just soaking up the atmosphere of the city. Not only was the weather fantastic, but the city was celebrating it's birthday, so there were people everywhere.

As we walked we accidentally walked into an outdoor exhibit of the transportation museum. It was neat to see the old buses and trams, even if they were somewhat overrun by kids and parents. I love old school stuff.

We went to our favourite restaurant in the city (Namaste,) for dinner, and walked out totally stuffed. Even though we were stuffed we went for the second half of our eating habits in St Petersburg by going to a specific cafe for gelato.

From there we walked back to Tyra's hostel to pick up our bags. At that point we looked at our pedometers and realized we had walked quite a bit that day. It was all worth it, but we could also feel the sunburns from being out in the direct sun all day.

It took Claire and I a while to find the entry to our hostel, but once we were inside, we crashed fast. I'm pretty sure I slept like a rock that night.

The next morning we were up slowly, as usual. We'd arranged to meet up with Tyra again, so we packed up and checked out, left our bags behind, then went to the metro. We found Tyra again at the House of Soviets. Since it was the city birthday weekend, there was a whole lot of decoration all over the platz in front of the building.

The statue of Lenin was surrounded by the decorations and festival stuff, so we weren't able to get close. The fountain was big and actually turned on, yippee!! I love fountains, especially when they run in time to music, as this one did for a little while.

We watched people and took in the fun, then started walking. We didn't have to go far to get to one of the most moving WW2 memorials I've ever seen. This one was in the middle of a big traffic circle, and honoured the city as it fought through just short of three years of seige during the war. For nearly 1000 days, the citizens struggled, but they won. 

The monument is a nearly completed circle, with an obelisk off to one side.

There was a museum under the street as well, which was also fantastic. Surprisingly, the entry fee for foreigners was less than that for Russians, I've never seen anything like that before. The museum had photos and information and items, all related to Soviet life, with the war being the main focus. (Of course.)

After leaving the museum we walked to a church. This one was unusual on the outside, in that it was dark pink, with thin white vertical stripes. 

The inside wasn't as neat as the outside, but not every church can be amazing.

The metro took us back to the city center, then we walked to St Isaacs. Claire had seen it before, but this time we wanted to go up to the walkway around the rotunda, hoping to see the views over the city. With the amazing weather, we couldn't resist. The views were indeed really nice, but we didn't love all the people trying to take selfies. The walkway around the rotunda is big enough for 1.5 people, so if someone is taking a photo, or having a photo taken, there isn't enough room for people to go around. 

From there we went back to our hostel to pick up our packs, then head to dinner. We went back to the same place as the night before, because we love it that much. We also got some of their dishes to go, we really do love it that much.

We ate gelato on the way to the train station, where we found souvenirs for the upcoming World Cup tournament. As usual, we boarded on time, departed on time, and arrived back in Moscow on time.

I will always be happy to return to St Petersburg.

russia: st petersburg and the ice fantasy

At some point during the fall I found a list of ice festivals around Russia, one of these festivals was supposed to take place in St. Petersburg. Since I knew I'd be happy to go back to that city, I told Claire about it and she was keen to join up.

We had a hard time finding information about the festival, as it wasn't mentioned in my guidebook. Not only was it not in the guidebook, there was no current information online. We ended up choosing the dates for the trip based on the listed dates of previous years, and hoped the festival would be taking place. 

The train I booked arrived at 0615 Saturday morning, at a train station closer to the edge of the city. It was quite a bit further out than the station at which I'd arrived for my first trip. Since we'd arrived pretty early, and we both like walking, we didn't mind a long walk to our accomodation.

We were rather surprised by the weather when we arrived. It was the end of January, but there was no snow on the ground, just the occasional patch of slush or mud. So far I was totally disappointed by my first Russian winter, it hadn't been nearly as cold or nearly as snowy as I'd been led to expect.

As we walked we took the occasional night photo. My favourite was while we crossed a bridge, I was able to capture some of the ice on the surface of the river.

Eventually we arrived at our hotel, and were able to check in straightaway. This ended up being a good thing and a bad thing. We warmed up and relaxed, but spent far too long doing so. Oh well. It was during this time that I figured out what I'd forgotten to bring along for this trip: a plug with which to charge my electronics. Argh. I always forget one thing, sometimes that thing is more important than other times. 

When we started walking, we walked along one of the city's many canals, arriving at our first sight of the weekend: the Hermitage. It was originally a royal palace, and still looks it. This particular building sits on one side of a huge platz, an important gathering place for people of the city. We noticed that buses are not allowed in the platz, which I think is awesome.

The Hermitage is the second largest museum in the world, with a LOT of display space. It was established in the mid 18^th century, so it is already more than two centuries old. The (main) ticket covers the whole museum, which is spread out quite a bit.

We arrived early enough in the day that there was no queue, yahoo! We bought tickets from the convenient vending machines in the front courtyard, then went in and put our coats into coat check. Everything I'd heard and read told me that the number of items on display in this museum is huge, and it isn't worth it to try to see everything in one visit. We decided to set our limit at three hours, whateva we'd seen during that time would be enough for this visit.

I'd tried to do some research ahead of time, but there was just too much to see. The one place I would've loved to have a team photo was the way most people enter this building, so I knew it would never be empty. 

The Jordan staircase has mirrors and red carpet and gold and columns, and is generally stunning.

Each time we got to a place where we could go in different directions we made a random decision. Some of the rooms through which we walked were truly stunning. Others were simply okay. Every room had smaller works of art and larger works. Some were sculptures, some were paintings, and sometimes it was the room itself was the main thing on display. There were chandeliers and lamps in each room, everything was well lit.

I also noticed the floors. Mostly made of wood, each room had different patterms, some of them very intricate. I have no idea how they keep the floors in such good shape, considering the number of people who walk through this museum.

After three hours we were well and truly arted out, but knew we wanted to come back for another visit in the future. After getting our coats, we exited the museum, onto the platz in front. Across the way was a government building, with a series of arches running through the middle. It's a really photogenic walkway.

We walked through there, and followed the streets until we arrived at our second sight of the weekend: St Isaacs Cathedral. I mentioned this church during my first trip; since I loved it so much I had no problem visiting again. Claire liked it too.

Unlike the Church on Spilled Blood, St Isaacs Cathedral functions only as a museum. As far as I know, no religious services take place in the church. The current building is the fourth church to stand on this ground, and has been around since construction began in 1818.

After the church we took a break in a cafe, we were hungry. This served as dinner, even though it was basically a bunch of snacks. After eating too much, and debating what we wanted to do for the rest of the evening, (the weather hadn't been great, and if it was raining we didn't want to be outside for that much longer, but if the rain had stopped, we were keen to keep going,) we walked again.

By this point the rain had stopped, so we decided to do/see the main reason we'd scheduled this trip: the ice festival. After a lot of googling, I'd figured out that the Peter and Paul fortress was hosting the festival, so we walked in that direction. 

We crossed a bridge or two, and the water in the canals was still enough that I was able to take a couple nice reflection photos.

We entered the fortress, hoping to spot the ice straightaway. That didn't happen. When we finally found the location, we were more than a little surprised, as it was inside a tent that was almost hidden in one corner of the fortress. It was NOT a big tent, not nearly big enough to be called a festival.

The sign said it was called Ice Fantasy, and we knew just from the size of the tent that it would not be a fantasy of any kind.

We paid the ridiculous entry fee, and went inside the tent. There were probably around 20 ice sculptures on display, some better than others. There were characters from movies, as well as a castle, and a few animals. We took pictures of everything, because of course.

Near the end there was an ice throne, with a queue of people waiting to take photos while sitting on the throne. We joined the queue, pretending we were royalty.

Since it wasn't super cold outside, there were a number of air conditioners running inside the tent, trying to keep the sculptures from melting.

Basically, it was loud, and small, not a fantasy in any sense of the word.

After leaving the ice 'festival' we stopped at a grocery store to pick up breakfast and snack foods for the next day. When we got back to our hotel we were able to put the food just outside the window, on a ledge, as a natural refridgerator.

Late the next morning we packed up and checked out. We opted to walk around 'our' neighborhood a little, going whicheva way caught our eye. One of the closest buildings had a small fountain on the side, and had some newly laid flowers for a memorial of some kind.

Across a canal we found the entrance to the Summer Gardens. 

Since it wasn't summer, and we couldn't see anything on display, we weren't keen to explore. Still, we saw a sign that said there was no entrance fee, so we stepped inside the gates just because we could. I wonder how long the 'no entry fee' season lasts.

Our next sight was the Church on Spilled Blood. I loved it just as much this time as I did during my last visit. The scaffolding on part of the roof was still there, I made a mental note to find out how long the renovation was scheduled to last. (Side note, scaffolding will be there a while, until 2025, argh.)

After that church, we walked to another church, the Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral. I loved the outside just as much as previously, and was as unimpressed as before with the interior of the church.

We walked past a Roman Catholic church and stepped in just because it wasn't an Orthodox Church. In comparison, this church was rather plain, but still felt like a holy place. We saw a sign that said masses take place in Russian, English, and Polish. Impressive.

Our next sight was the Faberge Museum. I'm guessing all three of my readers have heard the name Faberge, and automatically think of very fancy decorated eggs. 

This is what the jewelry house is probably most famous for creating, though the museum showed us they actually made a whole lot of very intricate jewelry and useless kitsch.

There was a time when owning a Faberge egg was a real sign of social importance, as these eggs were first created for the Russian Tsars. The jewelry house has been around since 1842, having been founded by Gustav Faberge.

Not surprisingly, there was a bit more security in this museum. Each item was under a case, sometimes by itself, sometimes with other items. There was a security looking person in each room, keeping an eye on all museum goers.

We loved the museum. We got to see eggs, cigarette cases, tableware, and more.

After the museum we found a cafe in which we ordered tea. We were not happy to find a service charge on the bill, good for an extra 10%. I asked for the menu, and found it listed, on the back side of the menu, in fine print. 

When I mentioned this later in my review of the cafe, they responded and said it was noted. In my head I said yes, it is, but on the back side of the menu, where there is no other information, and in very small print. I hate feeling cheated that way, I was glad we hadn't ordered more food.

After the cafe we decided to explore the metro system a bit. I'd looked at photos ahead of time and made note of some of the stations that I thought would be interesting to see. Many of the stations in St Petersburg were just as gorgeous as some of those in Moscow. Russians take their metro systems (and decor,) seriously.

Dinner was at an Indian restaurant called Namaste. It was so good that we planned to come back during our next St Petersburg visit, even though we didn't yet know when that would be. SO GOOD.

As we were leaving, it started to snow. It was wet snow, almost like rain/sleet. Not fun to walk through, we were glad it had started only at the end of our trip. We walked back to our hotel to pick up our bags, then to the train station (not the far away station,) to catch our train.

The next morning we arrived back in Moscow, already dreaming of our next trip up north.