Getting to Know Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is just as beautiful as I remembered it except the last time we were here, September 2008, we were wearing our winter coats, today it’s in the 90’s with no air conditioning. We spent our day at the Hermitage Museum; it’s overwhelming, the amount and quality of the art on display, over 2.8 million pieces. The building, the past home of the czars, is a display on it own. It becomes evident why the surfs rebelled once they saw how the other half was living.

The rooms containing the “got to see artists”, such as Leonardo DeVinci, were elbow to elbow people. All the big ships are in and there have to be more then 20 riverboats docked in the area. This is their season, it’ll be 20 below this winter, the days will offer 4 hours of sunshine but the Hermitage will be empty. I suggest April or September.

We ended our day at the ballet, not something that I would normally attend but the production was elaborate, the costumes were top quality and other then the lack of any air-conditioning it was a wonderful evening.

Check out the dining room serving staff, there’s no shortage of beautiful single women in Russia.

Friday was a mixed day good = we had a great day in Saint Petersburg; bad = the DOW was down 261 points, but let’s focus on the good.

Our day started with a trip to Catherine’s Place; it knock you back on your heels at first sight through the gate and it builds from there ending with the amber room. Having red the book, The Amber Room, this held special interest to both Nita and I, it didn’t disappoint, this whole trip hasn’t offered any disappointments. The afternoon was spent on a city tour which helped see more in a short period of time, but the real adventure started when we left the tour and started venturing down the Saint Petersburg streets on our own. We had made reservations for six at the Russian Room at #4 on a Street that we couldn’t pronounce, but we did have a map full of streets that we couldn’t pronounce. As you would expect after a half hour walk and teamwork we presented ourselves to the staff of the Russian Room.

Beers all around and a decision that we wanted to experience Russian Caviar, we started with a 5oz jar of red and white caviar. The caviar was served with a blini on which we spread sour cream and caviar, rolled them up and eat like a small burrito, and of course followed with a shot of vodka, and accompanied with pickles, cucumbers, and raw cabbage. The red caviar was salty and carried a mild fish taste but good overall, the white was milder and carried a dirty flavor, a river flavor. The red are from Salmon and the white are from pike and this could explain the difference in taste.

“I wonder what the black tastes like,” was our collective question. ‘Waiter bring us some black and more vodka.” “You’ll want to switch to Beluga Vodka”, he advised. I think this was because the best deserves the best, and it was the best, both the caviar and the vodka. “Wow that was great now we need to eat.”

We ordered Pig Leg, Beef, Stroganoff and dumplings with varied stuffing, the waiter had to talk us into the Pig Leg; it was magnificent, and the stroganoff was the best any of us had ever eaten. This was accompanied by a lemon grapefruit vodka. Our waiter had become our buddy; we thanked him generously and left the restaurant at 9:00PM, headed back to the ship.

Our trip back to the ship involved a half hour walk to the Metro, a ride deep into the tubes, a bus ride and a short walk to the ship, what a last night in Russia. We all agreed tat Saint Petersburg is one of a handful of cities in the world that you could easily send two week exploring and not seeing everything.

Sunday morning we visited Peterhoff, the palace doesn’t match Catherine Palace but the grounds and water fountains are something to remember. Once again we broke away from the tour group, took the hydrofoil back into Saint Petersburg had lunch and found our way back to the boat via the Metro and bus.

We leave tomorrow morning at 3:30AM to start our journey home; it’s been a vacation to remember, friendships to build on, and stories to share.

Saint Petersburg - Day One

Saint Petersburg is just as beautiful as I remembered it except the last time we were here, September 2008, we were wearing our winter coats, today it’s in the 90’s with no air conditioning. We spent our day at the Hermitage Museum; it’s overwhelming, the amount and quality of the art on display, over 2.8 million pieces. The building, the past home of the czars, is a display on it own. It becomes evident why the surfs rebelled once they saw how the other half was living.

The rooms containing the “got to see artists”, such as Leonardo DeVinci, were elbow to elbow people. All the big ships are in and there have to be more then 20 riverboats docked in the area. This is their season, it’ll be 20 below this winter, the days will offer 4 hours of sunshine but the Hermitage will be empty. I suggest April or September.

We ended our day at the ballet, not something that I would normally attend but the production was elaborate, the costumes were top quality and other then the lack of any air-conditioning it was a wonderful evening.

Check out the dining room serving staff, there’s no shortage of beautiful single women in Russia.

Russia - Moscow to Saint Petersburg

We stopped in Yaroslavl, an industrial city of over 600,000 people. Our guide explained the economy was built around heavy industry and their economy is suffering as a result of the global economic downturn. They have sought an acquired foreign investment to move their manufacturing base to what she described as “Consumer ready products”. The hope is that this investment will put them back as the third most prosperous area behind Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

It was Sunday morning so the hubbub of a large city was is absent. Yaroslavl is celebrating its 1000th anniversary thus there’s a lot of construction and restoration taking place. The national funding for these projects did not come in time to make it possible for the city to be finished with the renovations and the new park to coincide with their calibration. It actually looked like the Russian national government had given Yaroslavl the equivalent of TARP funds to keep the population working.

The most striking structure was a new church being built from funds donated by a Moscow business man; The Church of the Assumption. It donned on me that maybe things haven’t changed all that much. In the 10th through 16th century the czars built churches in their honor in the Moscow Kremlin, now the czars of industry are building churches in their home towns to honor themselves.

Back on the ship we spent the balance of the day cruising up the river. At first I found it hard not to be active but soon adapted to the forced relaxation. The people on board are rather homogenized; most about our age, ranging from poor to good shape, most with positive attitudes, enjoying good food, complimentary wine, good service, and a taste for adventure. Strategically Viking has left a catalog in our room and we are looking at the Amsterdam to Prague trip, but that will have to wait for at least another year, we already have plans for the balance of 2010.

Today we arrived at Goritzy in what looked like the middle of the Canadian forest. This is the equivalent of the American northwest; our destination was the Kirillovback-Belozetsky Monastery. Twenty minuets up the road we found a 12th. century monastery that sat on White Lake and looked like a Spanish fortress. At its peek it housed 200 monks and 400 soldiers, today it’s the home of 5 monks, a tourist destination, and a movie backdrop. Talk about a downturn in the demand for your product. The monastery was in a marginal state of repair which added to the appeal of walking through the massive structure. I could imagine it 800 years ago; 200 religious men surviving the bitter cold, the Till of the Hun, and the Russian bears beating at their doors. Our guide showed us part of their 17th. century arsenal of over 8000 muskets. This was not an easy life, even with God on your side.

We’re back on the boat at noon, time to eat again and back to my Steven King book ”It”, I could get used to this, even in a 90 sq. ft. room. 4:00 is Russian Tea, the chiefs have prepared a vast display of pastries for the hungry hordes. They do keep us fed.

Tuesday morning starts at 7:00AM as we enter another lock; we travel through 18 locks descending 150 meters on our trip from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. As our ship sinks into the lock chamber and I look back at the mass of water behind us held back only by a steel gate, I can’t help wonder what would happen if that gate gave way and that 500 miles of water behind us rushed into our chamber. But then they’ve done this before, several times a day I’m sure, let them do their work and go to breakfast. It’s time to eat again.

Our stop today was at the Island of Kizhi. The island is a museum preserving the
wooden architecture, the farm life and the culture of the area that dates back to the thirteenth century. The sighting of the old church with its 21 steeple onions, the bell tower and the outbuildings as you move up the Volga Baltic Canal peeks you interest to learn more about these magnificent structures; particularly located here where the winter tempetures average 34 below.

We were guided over the island by a young university student who is studying history at one of the Russian Universities outside of Saint Petersburg. He spoke excellent English, was extremely knowledgeable and very personable. We were not able to enter the main church because it has fallen to a poor state of repair and is being held up by an interior system of scaffolding. In addition the interior Iconostasis and decorated alter are deteriorating. We were told that because of the political turmoil within Russia and the economic problems of the country the necessary and needed repairs and maintenance of these structures is threatened, thus I feel lucky that we were able to see this magnificent architectural structure.

The weather is unusually hot for this part of the country as we approach Saint Petersburg, thus the balance of the day consisted of afternoon showers, relaxed cruising, an international dinner and the day ended with our group of six celebrating the day with vodka shots in the Panorama Bar before heading off to bed.

Wednesday, we’re making our way closer to Saint Petersburg but today we are stopping at Mandrogi, a town that had been burned down in the war of 1941 to 1945, I don’t know why they don’t refer to it as WWII, but they don’t. In 1996 a wealthy Muscovite rebuilt the current Mandrogi. As I walked off the ship I smarted off to Nita “this is nothing more then a tourist trap”, with party pavilions a um-pa-pa bar and thaskii shops. As it turned out it’s everything that I thought it was but much more complex.

This rich Muscovite built a commune for artisans to practice their crafts, (pottery, glass blowing, painting, wood carving, blacksmith, weaving, jewelry making, mamushka making, everything a tourist could want and more) and market their goods to a steady stream of tourists coming off the river as well as offer an escape destination to the local surrounding population.

There are 150 people living in the commune, they have a school that includes summer overseas travel for the children and living quarters for the residents. They pool the revenues from their sales and provide for the 150 residents; this sounds like Communism, go figure. The quality of the merchandise for sale was the best that I’ve seen on the trip, they even had a Vodka Museum (I’ve learned that I really don’t like vodka) even though drinking and stealing is strictly forbidden among the residents.

We only spent two hours in Mandrogi, which was adequate, and then we were bake on the river in time for lunch. Dinner was the Captains Dinner which meant “dress-up” and picture night. I encourage all single men readers to check out our servers, all single themselves. The evening ended with the passenger talent show, there was a definite lacking of talent on this cruise. The show ended at 11:00PM; I shot a picture of the sunset as I went to my cabin.

Rollin On The River

Departing Moscow on the river substantiated my conviction that people are people no matter where you find them. The banks of the river were littered with people enjoying the cooling waters adjacent to their tall apartment complexes. Families swam, picnicked, camped, boated, fished and sunned. The further we traveled up the river towards Saint Petersburg the more the landscape looked like any river community in the United States or anywhere else; gone were the high-rises replaced by single family homes. Saturday morning our boat maneuvered the river dotted with fisherman all fishing in one man small inflated boats. The Mc-Mansions started to appear, not as prevalent as you might see tin the U. S. but the money of Russia has found its way to the shores of the river.

The days are growing longer and we are told that it won’t get dark in Saint Petersburg. Moscow is at the same latitude as Anchorage Alaska so Saint Petersburg must be at the same latitude at Fairbanks. In Moscow we had lunch at the Café Pushkin, rated by Zagat’s as one of the best restaurants in Europe , so I am searching the Internet, when I can, for a comparable experience in SP. We’ll have to eat dinner and make our way back to the ship, a thirty to forty minute Metro ride, and are taking comfort in the fact that it shouldn’t be dark on our journey back to the ship.

The food aboard ship has been great, local wine is served with dinner, and the servers are cute and gracious. Tonight I told the restaurant manager to either promote or give Olga a raise, a Linzie Lohan look-alike from Siberia.

Our first stop out of Moscow was in the small village of Uglich, whose largest employer is Tyco Corporation. Our guide was a 29 year old girl who learned her perfect English at Moscow University and teaches English at the local high school an works as a guide in the summer. We were entertained by a six man singing group that sang “boatman” bring Goosebumps as a result of the quality of their performance.

I had been of the opinion that religion had not been aloud in the Soviet Union, but some how four hundred year old well used churches have appeared all over Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union twenty years ago.

Moscow On Our Own

Thursday morning we decided to pass on the ships provided excursions on our own by use of the Moscow Metpo. The system is a complex series187 miles and 182 stations of trains making the entire city available to the more then 9 million Moscowvites moving through the second largest subway system in the world.

It is obviously an easy system to maneuver through to anyone who speaks and reads Russian. The six of us, Gene and Chris, Tom and Kaco, and Nita and I don’t speak or read any Russian thus our day presented a real challenge. Although my first impression of the Russian people was not attractive and cold I have to add extremely helpful. On more then one occasion we found ourselves totally lost and confused, I would walk up to usually a young and attractive woman and blurt out “Do you know Travauak Station?” and hold out my map. In 90% of my attempts they would look at my map to read the station name that I was mispronouncing and then motion the six of us to follow them. In many journeys through the miles of connecting tunnels I an convinced our voluntary guide altered their path to their destination to accommodate our destination. They would give me a small hand motion to follow, no smile, only Russian words and we would maneuver through the mass of humanity on to a speeding pack train, they might hold up 4 fingers to indicate 4 stops, then they would direct us off the train and we would find another helpful Moscowite to assist us on our search for a museum or restaurant.

We went to one of the best collections of Impressionist artists that I have ever seen and ate at the Pushkin Café , one of Europe’s Top Restaurants by Zagat. Sea Bass, borsch, salad, Russian bread, Russian beer, and exemplary service provided an ample reward for our enduring search through the Metpo.

Our day ended at midnight after a two hour tour of Moscow by night. I’ve decided that the people of Moscow are some of the nicest and helpful people of the world and their city is full of beauty despite their historical and political needs to build for necessity rather than for aesthetic appeal.

Seeing Moscow for what it is!

Our first day in Moscow didn’t meet my expectations. It’s a big city, it’s the center of Russian trade, the people although not attractive and cold, are not as intimidating as I expected. The whole city is not as intimidating as I had expected, but then I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s when Russia was the evil empire that at any moment could rush our shores and change our way of life.

Red Square was a large paved parade ground bordered on one side by the Kremlin and on the opposite side by the Gum, an upscale department store featuring Dior, Versace, St. Laurent. There were no soldiers, no tanks, Lenin’s tomb was hardly guarded and there was no line to view his body, no one seemed to care. The Kremlin is a mixture of the old and the newer; first a government center much like Washington D.C. office buildings, and the churches built by the Czars as monuments to themselves most of which are not open to the public.

The people of Moscow remind me of country people trying to keep up with the “big city people” and not confident about how their doing. It’s obvious that the Russians are attempting to become “westernized” on a limited budget.

Welcome to Moscow

We landed in Moscow on a grey day. As we approached the city I looked out the window and saw what looked like a display of tens of thousands of beige to grey Legos on a sandy landscape all connected by a thread of highways filled with bumper to bumper automobiles. What I was looking at was the Soviet Unions answerer to the social economic problem of the 20th. century; everyone works and everyone has a home.

The two hour ride from the airport to the river port reminded me of the United States of the 50’s. Along the highways were sprawling shopping areas with no rime or reason, no zoning and no sign restrictions. Each merchant attempted to promote their establishment with a bigger sign thus making any vision of the business itself impossible.

We arrived at the river port to find our boat adjacent to an expansive park filled with families riding the rides at the carnival and picnicking along the river. Our boat is a considerable distance from downtown Moscow but close to the Metro line.

With an eight hour differential our bodies didn’t know what to do but welcomed bed at 10:00 PM Moscow time only to wakeup at 3:30 AM and not able to go back to sleep. At 5:30 AM I was up running the pier and familiarizing myself with our home for the next three days.

We hooked-up with Gene and Chris, another couple from Birmingham, who we met through Avie and Ron, for breakfast and coordinated our activities for the next several days.

Our cabin is small, 160 sq. ft., the shower is part of the bath i.e.… the shower head is above the sink and the shower curtain keeps the water off the commode and towels. We’re adaptable. This afternoon and evening we will go into Moscow and attend an evening musical performance.

Waterways of the Czars
There are two sides to Russia: her great cities Moscow and St. Petersburg, and ancient villages like Yaroslavl, Uglich and Goritzy. On this river cruise, We'll spend several days touring the cities’ important landmarks—Moscow’s Kremlin and Red Square, St. Petersburg’s Pushkin, Peter & Paul Fortress and the Hermitage—and also discover the history and culture of Russia’s heartland.

We fly out today at 1:05, our travel buddy Ron will take us to the airport, he and Avie won't be joining us this time - Ron don't fly - we will be doing an east coast/ Canada train/auto/ship trip in Sept/Oct with them.