Chapter 2 - First days in St Petersburg, Russia

In 2018, we embarked on an ambitious journey to go from Europe to Asia mostly by land. It was a fantastic trip, and I shared the highlights of this trip on a now-defunct blog. I'm republishing these travel stories here, for myself, to share with family and friends, and hopefully to inspire some strangers.

This article was originally written and published on August 17, 2018

Read Chapter 1 - Last day in London here

We just spent six days in Russia!

If you asked me a few years ago, I would have never thought I’d get to visit this country. But here we are, in St Petersburg ( or Санкт-Петербу́рг), the great imperial city on the Neva river!

We landed on Thursday, August 16 early in the afternoon, a bit anxious and excited about the trip to come. A really austere border control lady, who looked like she last smiled under Yelstin, checked my visa really attentively. Asked me where I came from, tourist or business? Stamped my passport, gave me my immigration card, and let me go. I was officially in Russia!

We decided to take public transportation to go to our hostel. We had to buy some sort of Oyster card / Pass Navigo (60₽ each) and we took the bus and the metro to Gorkovskaya station for a great total of 80₽ / person.

Day 1: Landing in Russia and checking in

We then arrived at our hostel and checked in. The woman at the desk spoke a great total of no English so we had to get inventive. We gave her our passport for visa registration.

Visa registration is a relic from Soviet times when your host had to register your visa on the Foreigner register. Your hotel should normally do it for you, and we had to pay 250₽ per person for the favour.

It was mid-afternoon. We decided to walk around and aim for Botanika, a vegetarian Russian restaurant Beejal found online. We had to cross this monumental bridge and got a glimpse of St Petersburg's amazing landscape. It’s a vast city! We then walked across the Summer garden and then along a canal until we finally reach our destination. The restaurant was lovely, with great food and great service. We also got the assistance of a nice waitress who spoke perfect English. We got some Pirozhki, potato ravioli, Russian vinaigrette (a typical Russian salad), carrot cake, and beers. We then walked around the area and decided to head back home for a good night of sleep.

Or so we thought. While we were chilling in the room, our main light went out. We ask the receptionist and she basically explained to us that they had no idea why it happened. After some detective work, it seemed that our lamp was connected to a switch in the (communal) kitchen. Every time someone went for a snack, our light would turn on, or off.

The lady at the reception decided to help by turning on some lights on the ceiling. We’ll call them Satan’s lights. We have no switch for Satan’s lights in our room. So when we go to bed I asked her to switch them off. She did and we went to bed.
Then, just before I actually fell asleep, Satan’s light turn on. Someone somewhere had switched something on. I ask the lady at the reception again and she ended up having to play with the electrical system for 15 minutes, randomly starting
the printer at 01:00 am, and finally surrendered and turned the main off, leaving us finally in the dark. We could sleep.

Day 2: Churches, Soviet market, and fancy neighborhoods

The second morning, we headed to the Church of the Savior of Spilled Blood, the famous SPB church. We paid 150₽ (sneaky ISIC card) each, and it was well worth it. The church is gorgeous and well worth a visit. The dome and painting inside is amazing:

We then headed to the nearby Kazan Cathedral, which is in use and has service running all day. The contrast was massive. Much more austere, with people praying in the corner and women wearing scarfves around their heads.

We then went to Apraskin Dvir, an open-air market that the Russians on tripAdvisor describe as a Soviet dump, and the foreigners call it typical and charming. It kind of looks like a scene out of Borat with tons and tons of people selling all sorts of clothes and shoes, millions of cigarettes, and even vegetables. Interesting but I don’t think I was fully ready. The contrast with the imperial parts of SPB was strong.

After a nap, we headed to Rubinstein St, near Nevsky prospect (the biggest avenue on SPB), a guy on couch surfing told us it was worth a visit as it’s the place where people go out on the weekend. It was nighttime when we started walking and the city is just gorgeous. The classic architecture, large avenues, the waterways, and the lights create a really romantic atmosphere. It’s a really beautiful city. Everything is super clean and the Russians are super quiet, even the kids, it’s just really nice to walk around.

We arrived at Rubenstein st and I immediately felt even more underdressed than before. The name of this blog does not come out of nowhere (these were originally posted on the now-defunct "shorts and sandals blog"). Everyone was looking great and the long street was full of trendy bars, cafes, and restaurants. I even saw a group of middle age Russians in suits smoking massive Cohibas in a Cuban restaurant. We then went for a beer to some cool hipster hangout on the eastern side of the Fontanka river embankment before heading home.

Day 3: Hermitage museum and New Holland hipster hangout

On our third day, we headed late in the morning to the Hermitage Museum, one of the greatest museums in the world. It is located inside the Winter Palace, the former winter residence of the Tsar’s family. It was beautiful and interesting, but the place is huge and you’ll have to walk a lot. We managed to get free entry thanks to Beejal being a genius and getting us some ISIC cards.

We had a picnic lunch in the park near the museum and then headed to New Holland island, where there were some outdoor music, a food market, and a barbecue. It was lovely and sunny, and we relaxed there for the best part of 2 hours. We got surprised once again by the quietness of the Russians and even witnessed a group of 6 kids on a swing playing in complete silence.

Later that day we got back home to have a rest, then went out for dinner to a Georgian restaurant. I have never seen any Georgian food before this day but it had been strongly recommended to me by close friends. The smell, when we entered the room, was amazing, a perfume of dough, bread, and cooked tomatoes. We ordered some spinach and vegetable dumplings, a Katchapuri, and a whole liter of wine and enjoyed our dinner. It was a feast.

Day 4: Peter and Paul Fortress, rain, and Sevkabel Port

The weather forecast announced some rain later in the day. We decided to visit the nearby Peter and Paul Fortress. We paid 350₽ each with our student card. The fortress is big and contains at least 4 museums, all really interesting. We went to one museum about the history of St Petersburg, which was well made and fascinating, with a correct amount of English content.

We then went to the Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology. I’m a big fan of space stuff and engineering feats in general and this was really good. Lots of cryptic science text in Russian, and many models of rockets, pipes, and tubes. Anyone interested in the history of space exploration will know that Russia was at the cutting edge of rocket technology for a long time, basically until the Americans put a man on the moon. That made for a great museum.

We then visited the Peter and Paul cathedral where some of the Tsar's family is buried. In some curious twist of fate, we discovered that the Orthodox Church and the Russian state basically discovered the remains of the Romanos family in Yekaterinburg, where they were massacred by the Soviets, and brought them back to St Petersburg to be buried in the church. Even stranger, they were made saints by the Orthodox Church.

We also visited the prison inside the fortress. It’s quite depressing but as always fascinating. So many political prisoners, from anti-tsarist movements to counter-revolutionaries!

After all these museums, we decide to take a break from the awful rainy, cold, and grey weather and go back to our glorious electrical masterpiece of a hostel.

When the weather got better, we headed to Port Sevkabel for the 2018 edition of the Leningrad bridges festival. We took the tram and arrived at what looked like an industrial estate on the bank of the river. It looked like what I imagined a cool place in Berlin to be, even though I’d never been. The place was as cool and hipster as it can get. Massive industrial hangars overlooking a modern bridge over the Baltic Sea, cute coffee stand and craft beers, and of course a music scene. We played some giant Jenga and Badminton in the hangar, got a beer, and just sucked up the atmosphere. It was a beautiful evening.

Day 5: meeting with Olga

Beejal has been in contact with the really active Couchsurfing community of St Petersburg. We’ve been messaged by Olga, a Russian student living in St Petersburg, to meet up and chat. We met next to Doystoievsky station and she gave us a walking tour around the center of the city: the massive Nevsky Prospect (the Champs-Elysées of SPB), Kazan Cathedral (apparently only half as big as it was originally planned), the Church of the Saviour on Blood, and we finally stopped in the Summer Gardens to relax. She told us she was born in Siberia, then moved as a kid to Krasnodar, close to the Black Sea, then moved later to Irkustk (one of our next destinations). She moved to St Petersburg and lived here for 7 years. She was showing us pictures of her winter holidays in her sister’s Dasha in Siberia. We both really enjoyed spending time with Olga. So far we have had really good interactions with everyone, but actually getting to speak to a Russian person and spending time with her, and being able to converse in proper English (she speaks great English, as well as French) was exactly what we needed.

Meeting someone who grew up in Siberia is completely normal in Russia (millions of people live there), but for us Western European, Siberia evokes wilderness, arctic cold, political exile, and gulags. So far this trip has been just this: a shock between our preconceived ideas Russia and reality.

First impressions of Russia

Years and years of terrible Russian accents in movies drilled into our minds an image of Russian people as cold and intimidating. In Russia, being professional and respectful means not smiling. At first, lots of people do not smile. But as soon as we mispronounced some Russian to them or look completely useless (several times a day in our case), they are really helpful. From the girl who helped us to top up our metro card the first day, the electrical wizard's lady and guy in our hostel, the old lady who wanted us to get the tube because the tram was closed (she was right), the great Olga, the lovely Belarussian guy working on a tanker in our hostel, and so many others, people have been nice and helpful with us. And patient, really patient.

St Petersburg felt really clean and safe. It put France to shame (not hard) and even London. There are no paper or cigarette butts in the streets. No one harasses you to sell you rubbish souvenirs (looking at you le Sacré Coeur). People and families hang out really late in the streets. Granted we stayed in the central part of town, but it was nice.

People are so quiet. I don’t know if this is a St Petersburg thing or a Russian thing but everyone is very quiet, even the children. It’s quite surprising. Russian people seem to have a way of speaking to one another with quite a low voice, almost a whisper (unless people are drunk), and the whole place is calm and serene.

We’ve been lucky to have some great weather for the first 3 days, 26 degrees C and sunny, and then some more classic St Petersburg weather, rainy and cold. Quite similar to London summer barring the heatwave.

Public transportation is excellent. Metro/tram/bus run on time, metro stations are immense and beautiful, and station names are in Cyrillic and English. Fares are cheap for us (40 ₽ a ticket for any distance).

St Petersburg is gorgeous, vast, and walkable. The distance between stations is big and you’ll spend your whole day walking.

Our first days in Russia have been really positive and surprising and we are both looking forward to visiting Moscow and the rest of this immense country!

Thanks,

Jules

Note: ₽ is the sign for roubles, the Russian currency, at the time of writing 100₽ =£1.17 = €1.30 = $1.49 ‘