From Helsinki, our next stop was St Petersburg, Russia. This tour was called a 5 day cruise but was really 2 nights and 3 days in St Petersburg with an overnight boat voyage on the St Petersburg ferry line on either end. Additionally there was a tour arranged for each day with an official tour guide. Accordingly, this trip qualifies under the 72 hour cruise ship visa exemption and therefore one saves the $500 Visa cost.
First let me describe the boat trip: the ship itself was an old and tired cruise ship staffed by indifferent and unhelpful staff. Everything cost extra and the 2 restaurants were exorbitantly expensive, and you were forbidden to bring any food or drink or even snacks (well we did anyway!). But the horrendous part was the embarkation and disembarkation: there was complete lack of any organization to facilitate thousands of passengers leaving the ship and going through passport control. It took us 3 1/2 hours upon our arrival in St Petersburg- effectively a loss of a half day!
Once that was accomplished however, we very much enjoyed our stay: our hotel was old but clean, comfortable and with a decent breakfast and our tour guide, Tatiana (of course!), was excellent.
St Petersburg
So, St. Petersburg: this area used to be a swamp until Czar Nicholas (First or Second? Cannot remember) decided that this was the place for there to be a great city. He had travelled extensively in Europe and wanted this city to look European. Art and I were reminded of Florence in its architectural style and city planning. But St Petersburg also seems completely devoid of any real old history as it was all built at once beginning in 1701 in a place where nothing existed before. And of course, now its aristocratic opulence is faded and crumbling: the ruins of communism apparent just behind the facades of the palaces on the Boulevard of Millionaires along the canal.
We did not feel much culture shock and some describe it as Russia’s least “Russian” city. While the palaces, gardens, statues, and arched bridges over canals harken back to the era of the czars, the main drag called Nevsky Prospekt made us joke to each other that this was “Vegas of Russia”: jammed with pedestrian and vehicle traffic cruising high-end designer shopping stores, sidewalk musical buskers and hawkers.
We visited The Hermitage: formerly the Winter Palace of the Czars and now one of world’s greatest art museums; Cathedral of the Savior on Spilled Blood with its five onion-domes covered with jewels and enamel and over 23000 square feet of mosaic inside; the Faberge Museum; Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral (which houses the tombs of the czars and royals including Catherine the Great and the murdered Romanovs).
We had 2 notable dinners: one in a lovely restaurant described as an authentic Russian experience with the servers in traditional dress. We saw only tourists eating there and had a very nice quiet meal, 3 courses and a drink: total about $75 for 2. The other place was a basement off the street self-serve cafeteria: 3 courses including beer…$10 for 2, all while listening to Elvis singing Xmas Carols! This place is where the real Russians go, including some rough looking characters hunched protectively over their food and an old babushka with her hand held out begging for coins from the patrons. She had her own table in the corner and each time she got enough coin she would go back to the cafeteria counter and get another bowl of borscht for $1. There are many of these old women who stand with their hands out at the main tourist attractions in this city where there is little to no social net to care for the elderly left over from the communist era.
Most people we saw seemed hip and affluent: perhaps as St Petersburg is so easily accessible to tourists, Russian and non. The European heat wave was still going strong and we hoped for a cooling off before we reached our next destination, Tallinn, Estonia.
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