g&k

The downside of our efficient touring yesterday was that there was a scattered assortment of things to do today. And a lot of walking. This seemed ok until we popped out of the diminutive (relative to Mockba) metro system on the Northern side of the Neva River that dominates St. Petersburg's geography. And we then realised it was cold. Really quite cold indeed. Despite having travelled through Siberia we hadn't really been cold yet. We didn't care for it.

We moved quickly to our first stop at Peter & Paul's Fortress. A helpful advisory sign reminded us not to do a variety of unrecognisable activities.


It was to be the first of a number of interesting signs we would enjoy that day. Despite sounding awfully like a sand-castle Peter & Paul's was in fact a smart looking fortress with well preserved and presented interior buildings. It was originally designed to protect against the Swedes, who never came - there is no IKEA. The fortress saw the death of numerous prisoners but now hosts lots of children, balloons, people dressed in 16th century costumes and a spooky looking statue of a guy with a tiny head and spindly fingers. Just like Gavin's. A fact that amused a small clutch of Japanese tourists no end.



We'd like to have seen and learnt more about the fortress but it was just too bloody cold. And the arrival of a helicopter directly from 1967 we assumed heralded the arrival of KGB so we hurried away. Leaving the fortress we were greeted by the wide vista over the River Neva and the Winter Palace, Admiralty & Hermitage on the far shore.



We paused long enough for a few photos before dashing for the sanctuary of a German pub for sausages and beer. Here we plotted our next moves. A souvenir store, the site of Rasputin's murder and, time-permitting, a railway museum with specific features specific to the Trans-Siberian. What good ideas.


Our attempts to find a cool, unique souvenir lead us to a questionable courtyard and alleyway basement store with two rooms full of brand new vintage items. In trying to find the site of the romanticised and infamous monk and hemophilia-curer Rasputin we again found ourselves in an unseemly courtyard with varied alcoholics and vagrants. Instead we decided to head for what we knew. Trains. The railway museum.



At least along the way we could enjoy the sunshine over attractive canals crossed by imaginative bridges including the Four Lions Bridge, held aloft by wires protruding from the mouth of four large, white, stone lions. Nearby was a building whose decoration is clearly inspired by Piet Mondrian (Google Image him - and then explain why that's famous. But he is). And more signs that amused each of us equally. One depicting puppies for Kathryn and one of Vodka for Gavin.



By the time we reached the Railway museum we were cold, tired and arguing. This museum had better be good. The Lonely Planet describes it as "Every child's and railway enthusiasts dream". It isn't. The LP enthuses about the "fascinating collection of scale locomotives and model railway bridges, often made by engineers who built the real ones". Unfortunately this just made them more boring. Being really, really accurate doesn't make them more interesting. Probably less. Really, really less. More disappointing was the full size model of the Trans-Siberian First Class from 50 years ago. It was BETTER than today. Honestly, Russia, are you even trying anymore? But if vain attempts at atonement were beyond the Russian Railways than it was even further beyond Gavin in trying to explain why the 45 min trek had been worthwhile.

As if in response to this we witnessed our 3rd or 4th horrendous wedding party chortle by. All were ensconced in some white, or more preferred pink, 4WD limousine. All adorned with some chintzy plastic love or wedding related crap. It's like the entire wedding planning community of St. Petersburg was sponsored by the one-dollar-shop. And then putting these pneumatically enhanced, orange day-glo, make-up crusted brides in front of buildings of true beauty seemed to neatly some-up the Russian experience: A deep history with treasures of true beauty made so much harder by the people finding it difficult to reconcile with their relatively new found capitalism. Friendliness isn't their strong suit, but a history and legacy to rival any other surely is.

With this in mind we headed for Finlandskya Station for our train out of Russia and into Helsinki, Finland. The new train to Helsinki opened just last year and has cut the travel over the 415kms to just 3 hours. The modernisation was evident from the platform - once we eventually found it. Despite the fact that egress from the former USSR is no longer forbidden they still don't make it easy.


Previously gruff directions now made way for elusive and vague suggestions about how to find the 'train outta here'. But we boarded the new Allegro train and reminisced over an illuminating trip to Ruski-land. As we headed out of St. Petersburg it revealed some of its less enticing, pragmatic concrete design choices. These stark, purpose-built eyesores had been a feature since Mongolia.

Approaching the boarder our fellow passengers sitting opposite revealed they were a Christian choir troupe. Much to our everlasting relief they avoided discussing space ghosts and instead lamented that the region through which we now rode was once all part of Finland. Looking out the window it was hard not to say "Lucky, you got rid of it". But then we crossed the border. And boy did you know it. The scenery literally changed from concrete shit house...





Utterly ridiculously beautiful. I could not have believed it if we didn't see it ourselves. The most stark and stupendous land-bound border change we've ever known. Finland 16, Russia 0. Soon after the sun set which allowed 'us' time to catch up on blogging.


But things were looking decidedly easier. The Finnish were friendly, spoke perfect English and had a ridiculously good looking country with perfect reflections. We both had broad smiles as we arrived into Helsinki close to midnight. London was close.

Several years ago when visiting Austria, Kathryn & Gavin set a record for seeing every tourist site (or is it sight?) in Vienna in one day. This occasion of slick, efficient and comprehensive touring has set a benchmark that we have continued to aim for when confronted with a lot to see and not much time to see it. So it was that we set out to 'Vienna St. Petersburg. This was our only full day in the city so we were going to hit all the highlights.

Nevsky Prospekt, the main street of the centre of town, opened our enterprise in efficiency by being a tourist destination in its own right as well as providing the route to the Hermitage at the other end of town. Along the way we passed several elegant and ornate buildings. Not least of which was the one pictured.


Gold hilt lettering and impressive glass-work topping the building. All that you would expect from a sewing machine show-room. It turns out the most elaborate shop front used to be the sales room for Singer. Sew there (ah! hilarious). Also along the way was another of St. Petersburg's less admirable novelties - water. The city is noted as being one of the few first world cities where you can't drink the water cos it might hurt you. Knowing this Kathryn was forced to dive for cover several times as street-weeper machines came along the gutters spraying water as much at the pedestrians as it did the street surface. Kathryn was not about to become a victim of aerosolised Giardia.

Surviving the water-borne scourge we arrived at our major destination for the day - the Hermitage. When I (Gavin) was growing up, ‘Hermitage’ seemed an odd word - I knew it only as following the word 'Grange' (thanks, Dad). Then I played the PC game Civilisation and learnt that it was some wonder of the world. But it still sounded like an academy for hermits. Even as we were about to visit it I really didn't know just how important a place it was. And now having to describe it seems too difficult. It is too much.



The building itself is magnificent and impressive. It was the Winter Palace of the Russian Imperial Family, the richest in Europe - and they wanted you to know it. Every room is elaborate, gilded and inspiring. The ridiculously golden Jordan Staircase sets the tone as you enter room after room of palatial grandeur.


And then there are the contents. Treasures of antiquity, rarities of history and works of fine art from every century and continent. The only comparison I can think of is if you were to take the contents of the Louvre and stuff it into the Palace at Versailles. It's nuts. Having spent the last week thinking of many reasons why no-one should ever go to Russia this is one reason you should never miss it. It is epic. Completely deserving of the title a 'wonder of the world'. Even more than a school for hermits.



Inside Kathryn found her historical namesake, Catherine the Great. Kathryn is a great fan of anybody, like herself, bearing the descriptor "the Great". Roman busts lined gilt staterooms. Every character of Russian history was portraited.


And the masters of 20th Century art world were lined up like collector cards. Amongst this, the modern sense of Russian hospitality wasn't lost - I was sternly told off for taking my iPad out as they thought I was taking a photo with it. In fact I was opening the Hermitage App they have advertised in every available space. In place of an apology the stern woman gave me a look that said 'I wish I could spit on your corpse'. If only she was around when an entire family found it necessary to touch a variety of 300 year old tapestries on display. Or perhaps when this dork actually took a photo with an iPad. Really? Can't afford a camera?


This is a new chapter in the 'dumb tourist' look. It might be because we were in our fourth week of travelling, or perhaps it was me not appreciating cultural differences but I was getting heartily sick of peoples complete lack of decency and awareness of others. Idiots stopping at the top of escalators, having group meeting in narrow doorways, pushing past me when there is plenty of room to go around. Reaching exacerbation in the Hermitage I decided to simply stand still and let the morons do as they might. What they did was to walk straight into me, push, and walk on without even looking at me. Speechlessness added to my apparent invisibility. So we left.



One of the things not mentioned as a highlight of the city-formerly-known-as-Leningrad are the canals. In the bright sunshine that we had been enjoying for weeks now they seemed just as impressive as any in Amsterdam. We followed the long bend of the Moyka (technically a river but whatever) admiring the blatantly European architecture. We were on our way to a lunch stop at an (according to the book) famous Russian pie shop. The major difference between Russian pies and other meat pies are the disdain with which they are served.


By this stage we were so used to unfriendly service it passed almost unnoticed - particularly as the server seemed happy to not be further infuriated by idiotic Americans speaking in progressively louder and slower English or the Russian who seemed to think that paying almost enough for the pie should be good enough. The decor was more inspiring than the pie or service. It did look as though it may not have changed since somebody first, uttered "Communism? Well I've never heard of it but it seems like a good idea to me...".


From here we continued our ruthlessly efficient tourism by visiting the evocatively named Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Similar to the Church of the Blood in Yekaterinburg this marked the site of the violent death of a Tsar, this time Alexander II. Externally it was more similar to St. Basil's in Moscow with its multi-colour spires and domes. However unlike St. Basil's it was never turned into a stable by Napoleon so its interiors were preserved in their technicolour ecclesiastical glory - similar to those in the Kremlin. Dissimilarly, though, here in St. Petersburg we were allowed to take photos. And so, dear readers, we share these images with you.


Happy, suitably impressed and satisfied with our conquest on the city we made our way back to the hotel along Nevsky Prospekt. Coming in the opposite direction was a growing tide of sky blue clad football fans. On reaching the hotel and turning on the TV we discovered these were Zenit St. Petersburg fans. It was last day of the season and they were playing Dynamo Moscow for the title. Gavin was very happy he had chosen not to wear the Dynamo Moscow shirt he had bought as a curiosity the day before. Russian fans have a reputation of being passionate and rather stabby. But the game provided appropriate contemporary Russian entertainment for our meal of vodka and zakooska. And they won the title. Go Hobos!

We only had the morning left in Moscow and having been denied yesterday today we were determined to see the it's showpiece. So like Napoleon before us we were staged for a lightening attack on the Kremlin, a blitzkrieg of Hitler's dreams. We set our targets, synchronised watches and then, like any famous military assault, we bought our tickets from the little booth out the front. This seemingly straight-forward step was made slightly more baffling by the ticketing instructions.


The tickets for the armoury, holding all the treasures of Russia, were sold in "Séances". We presumed this meant 'sessions', not 'communications with the dead'. The first 'séance' was at 10:00 am and tickets must be purchased 45 minutes before. The booth selling the tickets opened at 10:00am. So perhaps we were indeed meant to take out our Ouija boards and communicate with people from the past in order to buy tickets 45 minutes before they're available. In the end we bought tickets and went straight for the queue at the entry point.

The queuing was divided along racial lines. A 20 metre long 'blob' of Chinese tourist being corralled by Kremlin staff to keep out of the way and a thin queue of everybody else. On arrival of the surprisingly youthful and disinterested Chinese tour guides they tried to force their large group sideways into the 'others' queue. Finally we had Russian brusqueness on our side as the Kremlin staff chastised them and forced them to the 'groups' entry to queue properly. They moved off in matching beige resort wear and overtly branded cameras. We shuffled past the stern looking guards - they seemed positively annoyed that the Cold War was over and we outsiders were entering the inner sanctum of their Soviet World. Too bad, Comrade.


The Armoury contains the 'treasures of Russia'. This turns out to be quite an interesting array of homewares, clothing, weapons and transport of the extinguished Russian Imperial household. I have always wondered what 18th & 19th century monarchs wore on their feet and here I could see. The comprehensive clothing section revealed just how tiny Royal women were and just how fat the clergy could be. The weapons display included several examples of what to get the King that has everything - pistols for ceremonial shootings, guns for large slow animals, gold plated spikes. The gilded carriages attracted only slightly less attention than Gavin did when he set off the alarms for pointing too close to one of them. An irritated museum woman arrived to tell him off with a stern glare and a gold-plated spike. Upstairs were solid gold gravy boats the size of birdbaths and intricate chocolate fountains that looked like miniature water slides. There was even a genuine Faberge Egg complete with tiny, jewel encrusted model Trans-Siberian Railway train inside! Like a very up-market Kinder Surprise. All in all a good visit. Unless, of course, you already have lots of gold everything in which case it could drag.


It turned out that our tickets to the Armoury did not get us into 'the rest' of the Kremlin. So we ducked by the ticket booth for another séance. We then headed up the distinctive big red walls - walls so well known they were used by German bombers as a navigation aide, so the Russians painted them white. And so we entered the world's most famous kremlin, "kremlin" meaning fortress, the Kremlin (of Moscow). Surprisingly for the nucleus of a formerly brutal regime based on a philosophy of ardent atheism the grounds are full of churches. I suppose that's why they kept them hidden behind walls. Most were topped with distinctive golden onion-tops in varying numbers.


The Lonely Planet told us that one of these churches contained the original wooden throne of Ivan the Terrible. Of course it didn't. As a tour (rather than travel) guide the LP was perpetuating the Russian stereotype of 'figure it out for yourself, I'm not helping'. The church was however a startling introduction into the dazzlingly colourful interiors of Orthodox Russian churches. Unlike Roman Catholic or Protestant churches, which can impress with their scale or architecture but are generally pretty dour & dull, Orthodox churches hit you full in the face with a riot of colourful icons and tableaus on every surface.


Like kaleidoscopic religious wallpaper. In order to protect this technicolour ecclesiastic wonderland fortress the Russians have installed the world's biggest cannon, complete with world's even-bigger cannon balls. So big they don't even fit in the cannon. Probably just as well as it faces inwards towards the barracks. Finally, in order to guard the masses against all this religious ardour, the Communists have stamped their own serious mark inside the Kremlin. A huge concrete block known as the Palace of Congresses. Nothing provides better relief from colourful artistry than big solid concrete.


We continued our lightening attack of central Moscow with a return to Red Square with the intention of seeing the big dead man himself. Lenin. We arrived at the mausoleum where his body is, prepared for the protocols of visiting, having read-up last night. Unfortunately, however, the father of Soviet Russia wasn't available. The mausoleum was closed. It would seem Lenin was having a lie in. He was dead tired. He was confined to bed. He's being doing this for years and he's stuffed. He simply couldn't get up. After all the Lenin puns we could think of we decided to Let It Be.


Beside and behind the mausoleum we saw the bust of Lenin's former tomb-mate, Stalin. He was kicked out in 1961 by Khrushchev as they tried, sensibly, to distance themselves from Stalin's legacy. It is understandable that communists would want to preserve the recognition of a former leader and deny any real wrong-doing by their system of government. As such a bust might seem explicable. However the current "democratic" maintains it is interesting.


I don't know of any Mussolini or Pol Pot monuments. (Although Indians or Irish might point to British monuments of Victoria). What was also interesting was to see the reactions of several veterans, presumably of WWII, who were filing past the busts that make up the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. A few stopped and gestured to Stalin and talked amongst themselves. I would love to know what they were saying. We watched and studied their responses. Then we considered our own response. We gave him the finger and left for the metro.

We were now heading for St. Petersburg via our hotel. Along the way we were passing through some of Russia's most impressive railway efforts. Firstly at Revolutionary Square Metro station where the stirring soviet murals really made you understand the grandeur and awe that the soviets were aiming to imbue into the people. Marble walls, gold raised relief lettering and militaristic coat of arms. It looked as much a headquarters as a tube stop.



Next was train number seven of our transplanetary rail route. The 200km/hr Sapsan (meaning falcon) express from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Like in China, this new, sleek high speed train was a vast contrast to the almost antiquated looking long distance trains across Siberia. Now we felt back in the 21st century. Part of the reason may be explained (if Wikipedia is to be believed) by the fact that this is Russia's only profitable passenger train route.


The trip was generally comfortable taking 3.5 hours to cover the 650kms. I say 'generally' as Kathryn had a silent breakdown as she was driven berserk by the two women talking across from us. One nattered non-stop while the other kept a relentless series of "Mmm...uh-hmm...mm...uh-hmm..." grunts in reply. If you ever want to make Kathryn really mad then reply with a loud "MM, uh-hmm" to something she says. You are warned.

We arrived to stirring music being played over the platform at St. Petersburg. We don't know if this is a new thing for the Sapsan train or has being going on ever since the railway was installed (or if even it was for us). But it made the trip seem all the more significant. Our hotel was right next to the station so after dropping our bags and a quick check that CNN and BBC are still saying the same things on the hour, every hour we headed out for dinner. St. Petersburg felt another step further into 'proper' Europe. Attractive buildings, wide boulevards, impressive monuments. We passed quickly up the main street, Nevsky Prospekt, to our dinner venue, Terrassa.


On entering the restaurant it was apparent it was somewhat more 'la-di-da' than we are. But to her credit the cosmetically enhanced greeter that greeted us at the lift doors smiled broadly and spoke very good English and showed us to a table on the terrace at a suitably large distance from the more important, rich & beautiful people. The restaurant was impressive with a very nice dusk view over the town centre and menus printed to make them look like glossy newspapers. The menu itself contained a great variety of international fare- tapas, sushi, rabbit pie, pizza, anything.


As the sun sunk lower it got decidedly cooler and we wrapped ourselves in our jackets and scarves in a step wise manner and finally cocooned ourselves in the blankets that were offered to all outside. We enjoyed our food as the sun set changed the colours of Kazan Cathedral.

A town we rolled through today had been flooded, perhaps from the flow of melting snow upstream. And we arrived into Moscow. Beyond this nothing really happened. We got up late (cos there was nothing to do) and resumed our respective electronic pastimes.


We were visited briefly by the train's crazy cat lady, all dressed up in her flowy mu-mu, mad red hair and a very hirsute black cat with luminous eyes but a sedated stare. She chatted away happily in Russian, quite aware that we couldn't understand a single word she was saying. Eventually she returned to her nest.


After a few idle hours we were there. Moscow. We were relatively unceremoniously dumped onto what felt a bit like a side platform rather than the culmination of an epic rail journey. So we marched along behind the army recruits onto the street and faced the 8 1/2 lanes of mad traffic. Driving in Moscow seems like driving in the rest of Russia just more. And faster. It’s as though when cars were first invented the Government laid down a few basic rules- red is stop, drive mostly on the right- and then said "Off you go!"


Given this relatively free framework drivers aggressively make the most of it. The wider boulevards in Moscow allows more room for serious speed to be achieved. Routinely cars would accelerate, hard, down empty lanes of busy roads only to break just as hard at the other end. This was also the case if pedestrians were crossing. The preponderance of powerful European SUV's, especially Porsche Cayennes, made increasing sense. Nowhere else we've been could you truly make use of formidable acceleration and also require a good few inches of steel cocooning you. The end result of pedestrian accidents must be gruesome. Fortunately our hotel was easy to spot occupying one of Stalin's 'Seven Sisters' - grand skyscrapers that were designed to match, and surpass, those going up in New York in the first half of the 20th Century. The full set was supposed to include an eigth super-tower. The top was to be adorned with a massive statue of Lenin complete with a library in his outstretched hand and a conference hall in his head. This awesomeness was never realised. The site that was earmarked for it was occupied by a cathedral.


Such theistic ostentatiousness was an affront to the Soviets so it was promptly demolished and turned into a swimming pool. However it was after this that Stalin realised its 'special energy' derived from its astrological and numerological significance which made it the appropriate spot for his mega-structure. Obviously some super natural mumbo-jumbos are more acceptable to Communists than others.

Having filled up on the train we both just wanted a snack for dinner. A quick walk around the block yielded little but a familiar sign with unfamiliar letters. It was a Subway. The toppings were less familiar. Where we expected lettuce there appeared to be cabbage. There was also unidentified orange blobs. Nonetheless we dived in with our worst Russian. Puzzled by what we were trying to say the 'Sandwich Artist' asked "Chicken Sub?" in perfectly understandable English. Tis was a welcome surprise. As was the quality of our subs which we enjoyed back in our room. We turned on the telly whilst planning our assault on Moscow - Hitler & Napoleon did just the same thing. A scroll through the channels revealed the usual list of traveler friends - BBC world, CNBC, Bloomberg and CNN. CNN with Anderson Cooper. And CNN with Becky Anderson. Kathryn doesn't like Becky Anderson. Pausing mid-mouthful, "I can't stand Becky Anderson and her face. Her eyebrows dancing all over the place.", she exclaimed. Watch out Moscow, Kathryn's coming for you. Better keep those eyebrows where we can seem them.

Today we left Asia. But not before we had a few hours to kill. We went for a repeat meander of downtown Ekaterinburg. It seemed a good day for an ice cream but yesterday we learnt that everybody tends to drink a beer in public, so we went looking for a beer. All we could find were ice-cream stands. No thank you, that's so Western. Instead we headed somewhere more foreign - a Scottish Pub. A Scottish pub is a curious thing, there's no globally famous beer like Guinness, and the decor is very 'British'. There is Scotch, but that's not really a pub drink. Instead there are just random St Andrew's crosses about the place. And the dozen or so dwarf-sized mannequins dressed in kilts & sporrans in all the window fronts.

After a lunch of Russo-Scotch food we headed to the supermarket. We had learnt our lesson regarding the absence of platform food and the goodness of Zakoosaka on the last train. As such we stocked up on finger food and vodka. Picking vodka is not easy.

There are about 20-30 to choose from, they all cost about the same and have no readily distinguishing characteristics. So we bought some 'pretty' ones. With supplies in hand we spent our last hour or so in the hotel lobby before taxiing back to Ekaterinburg Vokzal.


It was all very familiar on the train by this stage. We were even in the same carriage, compartment and seat numbers. A complete facsimilie of our last trip two days ago. The train stop times were the same as last time. Almost everything was just like 48 hours ago. It was like we had slipped out of the time-space continuum for 48 hours and reemerged now, smelling a little better. And with more vodka. One thing that remained exactly the same was the impact point on Gavin's head of the all too solid head rests.

They are seemingly positioned to deter people from sitting too close to the window. So when you suddenly lurch over, having seen something of interest beside the train, you will connect, headways, with a very solid object. Having walked around for two days with a constant headache from a few such blows to the head on the previous trip Gavin was not keen to repeat the effect. Unfortunately the neurological sequelae of these head traumas was an ironic amnesia. And so he immediately launched head first into the head clunker as soon as the train started to pull away from the station. If any readers know Gavin's Visa card PIN or favourite colour could you please leave a comment - he subsequently has forgotten them. He did not, however, forget a large number of excellent swear words.

If things on the train were pretty much the same, things off the train were changing. A little. The birch/larch/pine forest was a little more diverse with rivers and clearings here and there. There were more settlements including some quite pretty villages but also more industrial areas.

The increasing number of rivers were crossed by numerous bridges. As the day drew to an end we wondered if we would recommend this trip to others. If the long time spent on the trains and difficult visas and challenging communication was all worth it. In short, was travelling the Trans-Siberian worth it? I dunno. We'll tell you tomorrow.