St Petersburg

The city limits of St Petersburg appear to start not long after the border. Getting over that border however is an adventure in itself. We crossed at Narva, a small town with a big fortress. The crossing process was quite long (although the wait was the longest was on the Estonian side leaving the country). Checking and double checking of passports, getting ticket for the bus, going back again getting said tickets stamped. I'd imagined entering Russia to a vastly from the rest of Europe. I'd imagined a Russia like the one I'd seen in the movies. Stern looking guards, big guns, tanks on street corners, grey buildings, snow and a lot of signs I can't read. Well, it was a lot like that, except for the guns, tanks and snow. The border was certainly an eye opener. While the male guards looked stern and menacing the female ones tried, but when you're wearing high heals and a short skirt its kind of hard to look mean. In the end we made it though and continued on our way to St Petersburg.

My first view of the Russian countryside was that there wasn't that much of it. A bit of forest comes after the border but the outskirts of St Petersburg start soon after. From there it is highways, tower blocks and industrial areas. I was amazed at how many vehicles are on the roads in Russia and around St Petersburg. From the suburbs to the city centre, cars, trucks and buses were everywhere with a traffic jam almost from the border to the city centre. In russia there are many different makes and models of cars on the road. From Lada to Lamborghini. Russian, Japanese, German or American, all makes and models are here. One thing that they all have in common though is how dirty they all are. And that traffic lights and road signs appear to be merely suggestions to the drivers, sometimes followed, sometimes not. I was also surprised to see how Western it all seemed. I'd expected something totally different. Of course I couldn't read any of the signs or anything else like that but that didn't matter. Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana and all the other fashion brands were obvious. This city has money and a lot of it.

I went on the 'optional' tour of the Hermitage museum. The Hermitage is a palace that is filled with all the famous and amazing artworks from not only Russia and those countries that it controlled, but also from the rest of Europe. The tour was supposed to tell us about some of the more famous paintings but for some reason, our tour guide neglected to order headphones for the group (this we found out after waiting outside for half an hour). Leaving everyone struggling to hear what the paintings were about as the guide didn't bother to raise his voice. I left the tour and went round the galleries myself. I got just as much information from the pictures and didn't have to rush through. When I left the museum I wandered the streets until it was time to be picked up.

The bus arrived and everyone got on the bus. We drove to the Nickolavsky Palace to drop off some of the group who were going to attend the folk evening. Or at least that is what I thought. I was expecting to be taken back to the hotel but the tour director decided to change the plan and told everyone who was not going on the bus that they would have to sit around and wait for the others at the show. That was three hours away and the area didn't look to be the best. There were only three shops close by and and a lot of closed buildings and dark alleys. Not the best spot to be dumped for three hours. For the next three hours I looked in the closed shop windows and wandered around the dark alleys. After that, I sat down on the kerbside and waited for the bus. There were eight other people who thought they were going back to the hotel but were left as well. It was not a good end to the day.