Holiday in St Petersburg

I saw a lot of Weddings Taking Place! Backdrop: Hermitage and St Isaacs Cathedral

I ran out of time to do a blog last week, since I had one day to unpack from St Petersburg, clean, and repack to go to Egypt. However, maybe I should have posted a few photographs at least as I can predict that what will take me longest in today’s blog will be deciding which photo to show at the top!

Anyway, Rachel had decided to celebrate her 50th birthday in St Petersburg. It wasn’t really somewhere that was on my radar as a place to visit for some reason (although now I’ve been, I’m wondering why on earth not!). I was a bit stressed that the others (who are all more educated than I am in terms of knowing their art and history) were reading Russian novels in advance, doing a load of research about where to go, and I was finding it hard even to find the time to get my visa (and never got round to getting my Egyptian visa in the process).

I’d forgotten that I really like a lot of Russian writers – Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Chekhov were all favorite authors when I used to read high literature. So, Russia should have been on my list of places to visit, but I’ve become a bit obsessed with sun and sea over the last five years and had forgotten these, my previous loves.

We’d booked a guesthouse for 8 people in case others wanted to join us at the last minute. However, what actually happened at the last minute – the day before we left – was that the guesthouse cancelled on us for no reason. Aaargh! High praise goes to Rachel who found an alternative flat almost immediately that was actually better because it was closer to the centre and also had a huge reduction in price due to planned works going on in the building. So, we ended up saving money and having a better flat with four good-sized bedrooms and several recreation spaces. Phew.

St Petersburg was amazing. The size of the hermitage is breathtaking, the architecture is varied and grand, autumn colours abounded, and the streets were sometimes quite wide. Alastair thought the traffic was crazy, but I thought it was civilized, so it’s all relative. I must invite him to Egypt one day.

There’s a bit of a gold theme going on in St Petersburg. It’s everywhere. It decorates the outside and inside of the hermitage, of the cathedral of Peter and Paul, of the church of the savior on spilled blood, dominates some rooms in the Russian museum, it’s lavished on the fountains and the main building at Peterhof…. You get the idea.

Rachel, as an art lover, was in her element (apart from the gold). It was great to see her so happy; in fact all of us were happy! I went with her to Erarta on the first day, a private modern art museum, which made huge efforts to get people to interact with the art and to engage. We were there 6 hours and it wasn’t anywhere near the size of the Hermitage, so I knew then I had no chance of seeing everything. But I’m with Rachel in that this was actually my favorite art place in St Petersburg just because it was a bit different. However, I saw only a fraction of the Hermitage, so maybe I can’t really judge! The Hermitage is also stunning with its lavish rooms as well as its art, of course. But everyone knows that you need to visit the Hermitage.

It had been a while since I’d really done a museum and art type holiday, so I fed greedily on the art like sampling a dish I hadn’t tasted in a while and had forgotten how good it was.

We went to the opera (the Magic Flute) and the ballet (the Bronze Horseman). I should have read up on the Magic Flute beforehand because it was an artistic adaptation and I couldn’t really follow the plot. Kerstin kindly lent me her copy of Pushkin’s “Bronze Horseman” so that I would get the gist of the ballet. I read it quickly in my favorite café that served a large cappuccino for only 100 rubles (around just over a quid or around 1.5 CHF). I’d always thought that Russia was really expensive, but I’d forgotten that the currency had devalued some years ago, so it was all fairly reasonable in price.

We treated Rachel to a birthday meal in a restaurant with singing waiters who sung an operatic happy birthday to her in Russian. 

I loved all the domes in the architecture, the buildings were varied but impressive with columns and statues. On every corner there was something of interest. I did a canal trip with Kerstin but the river was high and so the boats couldn’t do the usual tour since they couldn’t fit under the bridges any more. Oh yes, the bridges, they were also decorated with gold.

I fretted about flying back as for some reason I didn’t have a migration card. Apparently you can get a hefty fine for not having it and can be refused entry to the country again.

Going back, at passport control, the official asked me for my migration card. I replied that I didn’t have it. She sighed and explained to me that I did indeed have my migration card and showed me an example of one. I repeated that I didn’t have it and asked her what I should do. She shook her head and said that no, my answer was incorrect, I did have a migration card. I again said I didn’t, did an exaggerated shrug of my shoulders and held my arms out in despair saying I didn’t know what to do.

She let out a huge sigh and slumped down on the table with her head resting on her arms, shaking her head for a minute or two. She then looked up at me; I put on a worried face (I was wondering what all this was leading up to), she rolled her eyes and then banged her head on the table several times as if to say “look, this is really, really, bad”. I was waiting for her to take me off to the border police, but instead, she raised her head again, stamped my passport and let me pass. Phew. It was a very Russian final experience as I can't imagine a British official being so dramatic given our tendency to being somewhat reserved. Nevertheless, I remain eternally grateful that she used discretion and spared me a fine or refusal of future entry.

I would highly recommend St Petersburg to everyone! There's just so much to do and I can barely skim the surface in this blog. And a big thank you to Rachel for suggesting it and making it happen! Happy birthday, Rachel.