Russia Part VI: St Petersburg II

Our second day in St Petersburg began with an early rise and a trip on the metro to the centre of the city, from where we walked to the Hermitage.

Scenes like this make it clear why St Petersburg is regularly compared to Venice

We were heading to the Hermitage for a guided tour arranged for our group. Many people didn't make it due to the early start - the partying the night before had been quite intense. I'm glad I made the effort to go because the others missed out on the museum - we were lucky to get there just in time to miss the queues which by midday stretched for up to 3 hours. The wait was mainly down to a lack of cloakroom space (coats and bags are not allowed inside) rather than a particularly large amount of visitors.

The large square outside used to be home to military parades

The Hermitage is one of the largest, oldest and most important museums in the world. Spread across six buildings, the largest being the Winter Palace, the collection includes works by Michaelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci amongst others. In fact the da Vinci collection is considered to be enormous, with a grand total of two paintings - which makes sense when you consider there are only a handful left anywhere in the world.

The palace is also an attraction in itself

The winter palace is enormous, featuring over 1000 halls and rooms, all intricately decorated. A former winter residence of the Russian tsars, the assault on the palace is considered to be the official milestone of the October Revolution. Thankfully today it is a little more peaceful, with the exception of the chaotic cloakroom queues.

Back outside the palace

We then walked across to the other side of the rather wide river, taking several bridges on the way, to visit the Peter and Paul Fortress. A large fort on its own the island, it houses multiple museums including the museum of St Petersburg, which charted the history of the city from its early days to the present, including the monumental 300-day siege of 'Leningrad' in WWII, during which over 1,000,000 residents died.

Resting place of Peter the Great

An attractive church on the island holds the resting place of the city's namesake, Peter the Great, as well as the remains of the last emperor of Russia, Alexander the II, who was murdered by terrorists. His body, along with that of his wife has only recently been interred here, due to the Soviet attempts to delete that particular era from history.

There was a great view from the island at night

Exhausted, we took the metro back to the hotel and after a quick rest the entire group headed out to a Russian restaurant. While my experience was pleasant, again we had problems with some of the others only being told their food could not be cooked due to lack of ingredients two hours after they had ordered!

Taking a break in the club

Afterwards a group of us went out with our guide, who took us to some very strange 'alternative' bars in a rather scary looking part of town. It was an interesting experience but I really wanted to try clubbing in Russia, so we ended up going to a place called Revolution. It was clearly a very trendy place - we had to queue outside for quite a while and pay a rather hefty (by Russian standards) entry fee. It was also quite an ordeal to even get through the door - I had to empty everything from my pockets and was very thoroughly searched, more so than at any airport. Still, it made me feel a bit safer once inside. The club itself was great and one of the best I've been too, with multiple dance floors and a karaoke area. It was here that we finally met some very friendly Russians - the young ones. Whenever I mentioned I was from England they seemed very impressed and wanted to shake my hand. This was the opposite reaction we got from anybody else during our stay!

Our guide...and the Russian taxi

By the early morning it was time to leave so we did something else I had wanted to do since arriving - take a Russian taxi! how does it work? Well, you simply hold your arm out by the street, wait for any car to stop, make a deal with the driver on the price and then he takes you. There are few official taxis in Russia and even then they are unmetered so this is the best way to get around and also very cheap - just a couple of euros to go across the city. I was also happy that the particular kind of old Russian-made stopped for us - it was great fun to ride in, especially as our driver didn't seem to regard red lights as any kind of an obstacle. Once back at the hotel we got some much-needed sleep, ending our final night in Russia.

The early morning view over the city

We got up quite early again, tired but wanting to make the most of our last few hours in the city. I took the metro with a friend back to the centre and we climbed the long staircase to the top of a church for a great view of the city. After eating, it was time to head back for our 3pm coach departure back to Helsinki.

Yes, we stayed in the Hotel Moscow...in St Petersburg

The trip back was fun, with us stopping just before the border to spend the last of our Russian money on cheap goods. I bought a 1 litre bottle of vodka for just 3.50EUR (~£2.00), as did most of the others along with enormous quantities of cheap chocolate and snacks. The border was quite a process - we had to get off the bus twice for passport checks (once on each side), as well as a couple of searches through the bus. In all, my passport was checked six times just to leave Russia! Once we finally crossed the border our guide shouted out 'Welcome back to glorious Finland!' and everyone cheered and clapped. It was great to be back, although I had an amazing time in Russia. For a while we all unanimously agreed that we had fun but would never go back again...ever. However, I find my opinion changing slowly and in a way I miss the sheer hectic craziness of Moscow - St Petersburg was nice but to me wasn't nearly as interesting. So I get the feeling I'll be back...one day!

Russia Part V: St Petersburg I

The overnight train journey was much more comfortable than the previous and we arrived in St Petersburg early in the morning relatively well-rested and awake. A tour bus met us at the station ready to take us around the city, helping to give us a good feel for the place. The weather had not improved since Moscow - it was still very grey but not too cold. My first impressions were that the city seemed a lot nicer in comparison to Moscow, with better architecture and more historic buildings.

This is probably the most edible-looking building I've seen

We stopped at a couple of churches, which were very impressive from the outside but both were currently closed to tourists for some reason. We got to see many of the main sights of St Petersburg from the bus (which saved a lot of walking) and like with Moscow stopped to take photos every now and then.

The Winter Palace, home of the famous Hermitage museum

The sheer amount of water in the city was quite surprising. St Petersburg is nicknamed 'The Venice of the North' due to its large number of canals, bridges and interesting architecture. The bridges themselves are quite an attraction - the main river is lined by draw bridges that raise overnight to allow ships through. This literally cuts the city in two and means if you are stuck on one side of the city late at night, you have to wait until morning to get home! Thankfully we weren't caught out.

The Cruiser Aurora

One of the key sights was the Cruiser Aurora, the Russian warship that fired the first shot of the October Revolution. Preserved by the Soviet government, it is now a museum ship and can be entered. The shot fired was actually a blank, being symbolic rather than a shot in anger, aimed at the royal Winter Palace which now houses the Hermitage Museum.

An all too-common sight

While the city was much cleaner than Moscow, it was still relatively dirty and the cars filling the streets were the same filthy grey mud-covered colour. The people were also nicer and more open to foreigners (and we even found some that spoke English!), yet we still unfortunately encountered a lot of rudeness.

The city is very colourful at night

After a day of sightseeing we went to the hotel to leave our bags and then headed out with our knowledgeable guide to a rather obscure underground bar/club where we watched a string of live acts. The first in particular was very good and we had a great time listening to the Russian music.

It took us a long time to realise that this band was singing in English

Afterwards many of us went to another bar, quite a distance away on foot down the immensely-long main shopping street. It was packed with students, most of them international-looking, so we didn't exactly get the Russian atmosphere there but at least the beer was cheap...

I think we had drunk one too many by this point

We took the long walk back through the night to our hotel where more partying occurred before heading to bed. Our last full day in Russia was approaching!

Russia Part IV: Moscow III

Our third and final day in Moscow began with a trip to the nearby market. It was absolutely enormous, the size of a small town and took us about two hours to get through from beginning to end. Every time we turned a corner expecting it to end there was always more!

There were a bewildering array of signs and stalls

Touring the market was probably the most interesting experience I had in Russia. There was a fascinating range of things available to buy, from ex-soviet gas masks and fighter-pilot helmets to traditional Russian food and knock-off branded goods. It was quite a challenge when buying from the stall owners, you really had to argue to get the price down from the usually ridiculous initial value.

It was so big, it really was a super-market. Err...sorry

It was also one of the more intimidating places we visited, with the large crowds thronging the tiny alleys making us feel particularly vulnerable and I spent much of the time checking my pockets. The sellers also had a nasty habit to literally grab us and pull us to their stalls, making it a bit like running the gauntlet, trying to evade the arms clawing at us. At one point someone shoved a hat on my head and commanded me to buy it. I politely declined.

The Evtek group in Red Square

After buying a frankly silly amount of stuff (I bought some ex-Soviet medals, stamps, poster and some Russian dolls) we headed into central Moscow for a last look around. We made our way to Red Square to see it in daylight for the first time where we found out that Lenin's Mausoleum was closed for 2 months, so that explained why nobody was queuing outside.

Lenin's Mausoleum

We later walked around to some of the more obscure sites we didn't think we'd end up having time to visit and then took the metro on something of a 'mystery tour' stopping off at a random station and having a look around.

The Kremlin and waterside at night

We walked along the riverside to take some photos of the Kremlin at night from a bridge, which afforded quite a nice view. To be honest by now we were just wasting time as we had to get the train to St Petersburg at night and had already seen everything in Moscow we wanted to.

At night time it's actually quite an attractive city

After a while we went back to the hotel and had a meal in the restaurant there. Again we had a rather nasty experience with the service but by now we had come to expect it and I enjoyed my traditional Russian dish of...whatever it was.

Traditional Russian food with traditional Russian Pepsi

We collected our things and met with the others in the lobby, before heading en masse back into central Moscow, to the Leningrad railway station for our night time train. By now the hectic experience of taking the metro had become something of a running joke, with the chant of 'be aggressive!' frequently ringing out before we charged into the stations, sometimes coupled with the rolling up of our sleeves before entering. Once we even had a mock team huddle on the platform before boarding the train in rush hour!

Waiting in Leningradsky terminal

We waited inside the station next to an enormous bust of Lenin's head until our train arrived and then boarded ready for the overnight trip to St Petersburg. The train was much more comfortable than before and we actually managed to get some sleep this time. I was quite happy to leave the bustling metropolis of Moscow behind, especially after being promised by our guide that our next destination would be much more 'civilised' and European in character!

Russia Part III: Moscow II

Our second day in Moscow began with a guided bus-tour of the city. This was a nice change from all the walking of the previous day, with us being driven around the major sights and stopping at key points for a closer look.

The Monastery

After visiting a church, our next stop was a monastery on the edge of the city centre. It was surrounded by a very attractive park with a lake populated by hundreds of ducks. But as with the other nice parts of the city, there was a nasty contrast if you turned your back to the monastery...

The view in the other direction

After more driving about, with our very knowledgeable guide who filled us in on all kinds of interesting history, we stopped at the memorial to Soviet war dead from WWII. It is an enormous spire at the end of a long walk with a section for every year of the war. The weather was quite poor while we were in Moscow so anything tall, like the spire, faded into the mist.

War memorial

We saw various other sights from the coach, including the enormous Olympic stadium that hosted the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and the former residences of Soviet leaders. We also stopped on a hill giving us a look over the unfortunately-misty city. Strangely, there was a terrifying-looking ski jump on the hill. I wasn't tempted to use it.

Mmm! Haven't had a tasty CrapDog in years!

After stopping for food our tour came to an end in the centre of the city and we looked into visiting the Kremlin. Annoyingly there was an official function with hundreds of people queuing at the main entrance, so we were forced to walk around to one of the other gates to get inside.

That's one big cannon

Once inside we explored the grounds of the Kremlin. We only bought the cheaper tickets which don't give entrance to the museums, but there was enough to see outside, including multiple churches and the enormous Tsar's cannon and bell, both of which are basically stupidly-large versions of the normal varieties.

Either that's a big bell or those are very small churches.

The cannon was built to defend the Kremlin and never used, which is fortunate because I have the feeling it would have taken out most of the fortress if fired! The bell was also never used as construction of its tower was never begun. I can't imagine what kind of noise it would make but it would probably be the last thing you ever heard if you were too close.

Inside the Kremlin

As I said in my previous post, the Kremlin really is quite impressive and is clearly the jewel of Moscow. In fact it seems to be the only clean and well-maintained part of the city! It was getting dark so we headed back to the hotel for a quick rest before going out for the night.

The former KGB building

Again we came back to the metro station near Red Square (seems everything interesting is near there) and were led by our slightly-crazy-but-nice Finnish guide, Jukka, to a somewhat hidden restaurant/bar located in a basement. On the way we passed the imposing building that was formerly the headquarters of the KGB. Apparently there is a museum inside, but you need to inform the authorities 48 hours in advance of when you want to go and must state your purpose of visit. Sounds like a very mysterious kind of museum to me.

Inside the bar

I was very hungry so I ate first, while the others got a head start on the cheap vodka. Strangely, I was served my dessert of ice cream long before the main course came. This was just one of many problems we had in restaurants in Russia, but I'll forgive them as it's always been a bit of a childhood dream to have dessert first!

Paying the restaurant bills was always fun with the piles of Russian money needed

We were treated to a performance of Russian reggae by a group who had clearly taken far too many drugs to be coherent. I didn't want to drink too much but others kept buying me drinks and it would have been rude to turn them down! We eventually stumbled back to the hotel and continued with the drinking in an Irish person's room.

View from the hotel at night

We spent the rest of the night drinking far too much and eventually drifted off to bed in the early morning, ready to get up in a few hours for more intensive sightseeing. Unfortunately, Rachel managed to forget where she left her shoes and we spent the morning looking for them, but the less said about that the better!

Russia Part II: Moscow I

After the exhausting overnight trip and the frankly scary arrival and journey to the hotel, we headed back to the metro to go right into the centre of Moscow, getting off at the stop next to Red Square.

Statue of Marshall Zukhov, hero general of WWII, near Red Square

Despite my pleas we did not enter Red Square immediately and instead embarked on a tour around the outside of the Kremlin. The Kremlin itself looked very impressive and is very imposing - constructed as a fortress it is at the centre of the city and located on high ground.

I'd recognise this anywhere

Right outside Red Square is a McDonald's, which would no doubt make Lenin spin in his Mausoleum. Interesting you had to pass through a metal detector to get inside, which is probably due to all the issues with terrorism Russia has been experiencing. I never actually went in, but friends told me that the staff didn't even know the word 'big mac' in English when ordering food!

Roads in Moscow are quite chaotic

After a while we came across one of the big highways that ring the city. It's quite an experience crossing these as drivers do not always stop at red lights, but we made it over in one piece. The strange thing is that most of the cars in Moscow seem to be one shade - grey/brown because of the dirt. Even the newest cars are coated in thick mud and dirt. The same goes for the streets - our shoes and trousers became filthy after walking around the city. If everyone cleaned their cars the city would seem like a much brighter and colourful place!

Church of Christ the Saviour

We made our way to the biggest and probably most impressive of the many churches in Moscow - the Church of Christ the Saviour. It has an interesting history - demolished by the anti-religious Stalin, with the aim of constructing a giant statue honouring Soviet leaders. Due to WW2 this never happened and the massive hole dug as the foundations was turned into one of the biggest open air swimming pools in the world. Thankfully, the church was reconstructed in the 1990s following the collapse of the USSR and is now the main church of Russia. Inside it really is beautiful and absolutely huge, but unfortunately photos were not allowed.

The main shopping street

Having not even eaten a real breakfast yet, we were hungry and headed toward the main shopping street to look for somewhere appealing. It's an interesting street - one side packed with shops, bill boards, advertisements and colour, the other lined with dull, grey Communist-looking apartment blocks. It really does reflect the recent history of the city.

Eating in an American diner...in Moscow

Most of the restaurants seemed to cater for fast food, so we settled on an authentic American diner, mostly for ironic effect (and definitely not because I love hamburgers). Interestingly, none of the staff spoke any English and the menu was entirely in Russian. Definitely a strange mix!

Too many choices!

In some cases the Russians seem to have over-done the whole capitalism thing, with a worrying array of billboards as can be seen above. Another strange feature of the street was that they were playing pop music down the whole length. It was a weird experience to be walking through Moscow with the Black Eyed Peas as the soundtrack. [Shaky-cam video]

One of the many street traders

After more walking we headed for a historic pedestrianised street (the name escapes me) and explored some of the souvenir shops and stalls. Here we experienced one of the unfortunately common bursts of Russian rudeness when a previously-nice stall owner told us he hoped we 'didn't come back' after we said we didn't want to buy anything at that time but might the next day. Anyway, we were tired and thirsty so it was time to look for somewhere to have a coffee...

One of seven 'Stalin Skyscrapers' or the 'Seven Sisters' depending on which name you prefer

...and we couldn't resist Moscow's Hard Rock Cafe. Despite another rude waitress who actually huffed at us as we came in, it was a nice place to have a drink and they were playing Radiohead, my favourite band on all the screens as we entered so that made me feel at home.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

We walked back toward the Kremlin, passing the Tomb of the Unknown Solider on the way, which honours the millions of Soviet soldiers who died in WWII. There is still a very military feel to Moscow, with many soldiers in uniform on the streets which almost seem to outnumber the police.

St Basil's Cathedral

We finally entered Red Square, which was very impressive and definitely the nicest part of the city. On one side there is the Kremlin and Lenin's Mausoleum, the other side is a very upmarket shopping centre and at the end is the strangely-attractive St Basil's Cathedral. [Video]

Our 'Russian Bar'

After an exhausting day of sightseeing we headed back to the hotel, stopping to buy some drinks on the way. The beer was quite cheap, at least compared with Finland, but the vodka was ridiculously so. We had heard many horror stories about fake Russian vodka but this was from a proper supermarket so we decided to take the risk. However, we did later find that all the beer we had bought was more than 2 months past its sell-by date! The consumption of said alcohol and playing of cards ended our first day in Moscow.

Russia Part I: Arrival, Culture Shock

I spent the last week in Russia, taking the overnight train from Helsinki to Moscow on Sunday, spending 3 days there and then moving onto St Petersburg for another 3 days before heading back. This was a student trip and there were about 35 of us, and one guide. To be honest the whole experience of going to Russia was a bit overwhelming. It is by far the strangest, most different place I have ever visited, and I have been all over Europe. It was a place of massive contrasts, both in its people and the cities themselves.

The group meets at the station

A lot of us were actually quite nervous about going to Russia. Just look at some of the travel guides on the internet and you'll see why - racist and xenophobic attacks are on the rise, corruption has invaded every level of society, especially the police who are not to be trusted and have been known to extort money from foreigners and on the news you'll see things like Russia being ranked almost bottom in the world for press freedom. Right before we left a leading critic of the government was murdered in Moscow.

Don't let their smiles fool you. Unfortunately, nearly every uniformed Russian we met treated us with contempt.

Anyway, with all these worries pushed to the backs of our minds, we met at the station and I have to say I was becoming extremely excited. All I had read about Russia, how it seemed to be so different and far away and unwelcoming somehow made me even more interested in going. The visa alone was quite a hassle - you had to specify exactly where and when you are staying. There's no such thing as a standard tourist visa in Russia!

Nothing in Russia, even on the international trains, is in English.

I was going with seven others from my university and another five friends from Helsinki, so I knew quite a sizeable amount of the group already. After meeting our guide, Jukka, we boarded the 18.30 train. This was our first shock. Compared with Finnish trains it was very dated and quite obviously ex-Soviet. The Russian staff on bored spoke no English at all - the first indication that our time in Moscow was going to be quite difficult.

Relaxing in our cabin

We had a 14 hour overnight journey ahead of us. Although we had beds, most of us had no intention of sleeping at least until the early morning. I spent much of the time drinking beer and playing cards with the others. My first trip to the restaurant car was another major shock - the staff seemed to completely ignore my presence and it took 15 minutes to get served. The waiter kept walking into me as if I wasn't even there and didn't once utter 'sorry' or 'excuse me'. I would later begin to realise that this is quite normal behaviour for Russians.

A typical view from the train

The next shock came at the border. After the rather terrifying Russian border patrols had boarded the train, searched our cabin and taken our passports, we finally moved over into Russia itself. Apparently the Finland-Russia border is one of the most starkly contrasting in the world. Finland has the world's lowest corruption rating and one of the very highest standards of living. Russia, as you might have guessed, is the opposite. Even though it was dark, we could still see the enormous difference immediately after entering Russia. It was like night and day. Clean, respectable houses gave way to enormous, filthy factories belching smoke from massive towers. There were less street lights, the cars looked like they were decades old and the ride got a lot bumpier as we left Finnish tracks.

Our view immediately after leaving the station

We were awoken in the morning by a very loud Russian lady banging on our door and urging us to get up, despite being over 40 minutes from arrival. When we eventually did get there, tired, slightly hungover and confused, we headed out through the crowded station into the city. This was one of the most uncomfortable moments I've experienced. Everybody appeared to be wearing black. Everyone was wearing fur hats. Everyone was staring at us. We looked completely different and really stood out as foreigners. The Russians all had glazed looks on their faces. It was an incredibly depressing sight, combined with the grey bland look of the station square and compounded by the typically-dull Moscow weather. But things were about to get more interesting as we headed onto the metro...

Inside the Moscow metro for the first time

Our guide told us one thing before entering the metro - 'Be aggressive'. He was right. The Moscow metro is regarded as being one of the few ex-Soviet institutions still running as well as it ever did. It really is quite impressive - the stations are large and ornately designed, they are attractions in themselves. They also tend to be quite deep below ground, with many being designed for dual-use as nuclear shelters. It's fast and efficient and I must say that coming from London I was quite impressed with the sheer frequency of the trains - you rarely have to wait more than a minute. The problem is that it is very very crowded, sometimes with queues to get into the stations and then queues for the escalators and you really have to force your way onto trains as others don't seem to care if they get in your way.

Sights like this in a metro station remind you of where you are

We arrived at our stop, Ismailovsky Park, where our hotel was situated. If anything the area looked even more depressing than the earlier scene in central Moscow. Huge, bland concrete monstrosities stretched into the sky. It turned out one of those was our hotel. Originally built as the athletes village for the Moscow Olympics in the 1980s, the tower blocks had now been turned into a series of enormous hotels. We stopped to change our money into roubles, coming out with big piles of cash. Of course we were always worried about pick-pockets, so it was worrying to be carrying so much. We also had to carry our passports at all times (as police have a habit of checking) so it was quite a test to keep it safe, sticking out of my pocket in a crowded city for a week!

One of these was our hotel

We checked into the hotel and I was given a room on the 23rd floor. The hotel itself was quite pleasant on the inside and it was nice to have a TV in my room for a change. I had a look at BBC World for the first time in months and the main story was the dying Russian ex-KGB agent, a critic of the government, who had been poisoned in London. Nice!

The view from my hotel room.

After a quick rest it was time to head into the city for some sightseeing, which I'll write about later. I must say that while I have been very negative in this post, I think it was down to a mixture of paranoia and the shock of entering a very strange place. Things got a whole lot better, and while my first hour in Moscow is one of the most unnerving experiences I've had, by the end of the first day we had grown used to the 'charms' of Russia and were having a great time.

I'm heading to Lapland tonight and won't be back until next week, so stay tuned for more on my trip to Russia. It'll be much more upbeat, I promise!