Pictures from St Petersburg

Our first morning in St Petersburg we grabbed some quick food (packaged mini waffles) from a nearby grocery store, and then headed to the river for a free walking tour. The tour was given by a local woman who spoke pretty good english (it’s free, but you’re expected to tip the guide aftewards). We walked around and saw various sights such as the church of spilt blood, St Paul’s castle, some more large churches. There was also a lucky cat statue, which was mounted up on a wall. The idea is that you’re supposed to toss coins up towards it, and if they land and stay on the statue, you get some luck.

We walked past the Hermitage (a former palace, and currently a very large museum). The tour ended near the old Singer Sewing Machine company building, which looked kind of cool. One interesting factoid during the tour was that the church of spilt blood (which looks fairly fancy and ornate) was used for dead body and potato storage during Soviet times.

After the walking tour we went back to the hotel for a rest, and then out for crepes for lunch. After lunch we tried to buy tickets for the circus, but it was sold out for that night, so we bought tickets for a different night instead and got ballet tickets (Swan Lake) for tonight instead. We went for another walk, this time along Nevsky Prospect, which took us back to the church of spilt blood and to a big park. After a pistachio ice cream bar in the park, we went and wandered around a fancy grocery store (which had lots of macaroons and very expensive caviar) and then made our way to the ballet.

Our cheap ballet tickets corresponded to not very good seats where we couldn’t see much of the ballet, but from what we could see it seemed ok. After the ballet we headed back to the hotel and sleep.

On our last day in Moscow, we went for another breakfast at one of our usual cafes. After breakfast, Roman and I went to try to cancel the SIM card we had purchased on the first day (because they told us to make sure we canceled it when we left, since I guess they don’t sell prepaid cards). When we got there, it turned out they hadn’t put the paperwork through, so they had us sign up again and then cancel (for some reason). This involved filling out five or six forms, and took a bit longer than we had expected.

Eventually we finished and took the metro to our train station, where we wandered around for awhile until we were able to find our bullet train. The train was fairly nice and modern, had food (I had pancakes with ham and cheese), and had a cool speed display in the car (we got up to 220km/h). Sadly, there were no noticeable train surfers.

Once we arrived in St Petersburg, we attempted to switch to the subway to get to our hotel. This turned out to be more difficult than expected, as the subways were significantly more crowded than in Moscow (it didn’t help that we were trying to navigate through them with our suitcases). We eventually made it, and got checked in to the hotel.

It was getting fairly late, so we went for a walk to begin exploring the city, and eventually found dinner at a french/european restaurant (whose name I also forget). It was one of the better meals of the trip, I had beef cheeks with a white risotto. Roman had a rabbit stew which was also very good, and we had profiteroles for dessert.

We started our day by taking the subway to a big church. The site originally held a church which was demolished by Stalin in the 30’s (I guess he didn’t like churches), and the intention was to construct a giant tower in its place. They never quite finished that, and during world war 2 the partially completed structure was taken apart for war materials. After the war, a giant public pool was built, which Roman’s Dad has apparently swam in. In 1995, they got rid of the pool and re-built a church, coming full circle.

After spending enough time to sufficiently appreciate the church, we started doing a walking tour (I think from Cynthia’s guidebook), and headed over to the Kremlin. We circled around a bit, saw the presidential entrance, then stood in line for awhile to pay to go inside. Once inside, we walked around, looked at some more churches, as well as a very big cannon and a bell.

After the walking tour we went to the Elki Palki near the Ritz-Carlton for lunch. Elki Palki is another fast food place whose theme was the forest or nature or something (apparently all of these places have themes). After lunch, we went back to red square to see it properly (i.e. without being quite as severely jet lagged), and took a bunch of pictures. We went back into GUM for refreshments, then continued the walking tour, on which we saw the Bolshoi. The tour ended once we reached KGB headquarters, which is across the street from Kids World (a toy store).

After taking the metro back to the hotel, we headed out to a more “russian” restaurant (whose name I forget), where I had wild boar and buckwheat (which was actually pretty good). After dinner, we went to red square yet again, in order to take some pictures in the dark.

Feeling more adventurous today, we decided to venture to the All Russia Exhibition Center. We were able to take the subway, so getting there was fairly convenient. Upon exiting the subway station, we were met with a large crowd of food vendors and smelly toilets. We walked over to the exhibition center, which is basically a collection of very large buildings showing off various aspects of soviet industry and provinces.

Highlights included crazy giant statues, a full-size rocket and the atomic energy pavilion.

While walking around, various people try to convince you to come and eat at their restaurant/food stand. Because we were starting to get hungry, we eventually gave in and stopped at a meat kebab restaurant. The menu was a bit confusing, but the prices seemed reasonable, so three of us ordered pork kebabs and Cynthia ordered vegetables. No questions were asked by the waiter, but when the food came out, we each had massive portions (i.e. enough for two or three meals), which seemed fairly generous, given the price. Naturally, when the bill came it turned out the prices were per 100 grams, so this became the most expensive meal of the trip (and most of it was thrown away since we didn’t have anywhere to store it in the hotel).

After our first experience with being ripped off in Russia, we wandered around the exhibition some more, then headed back into town. We decided to take a boat ride/tour of the Volga river, which was actually fairly nice.

For dinner that night, we went to an italian restaurant called Venice, at which I didn’t actually have carbonara for some reason.