My St. Petersburg

"Had one Vodka, then one more…” but maybe not as many as I would have liked

Friendly staff at the Soul Kitchen

St. Petersburg has a lot of hostels as it’s only a short hop for most Europeans (I’m so jealous!), but there were Australians here too. It was good hearing a bit of news from home. Australia was having elections and we now had our first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. I didn't realise that I missed it, but it was fun to have a casual group of people to go sightseeing with and with whom you could converse without having to struggle with the language. 

On the BBC news on TV – I heard that it was now 38oC and that there were four hundred fires burning in Russia. Putin was shown photogenically arriving in a helicopter and helping to douse the flames.

This hostel also had free internet and free international phone calls, if you could ever get near the phone. One young man asked me how long I’d been travelling. After I replied, “Probably since the 70’s,” he  thought for a moment and said, “That must have been hard. However did you manage without cell phones and the internet?” When I did get a chance, it was also the first time I had managed to speak to my family in quite a while.

Guide on the left - the rest of us are tourists. Johann is in the middle. Johann cooked Pelmini every night and I made salad.

There was so much to see and do here that I opted for a tour that promised a glimpse of alternative St. Petersburg, but it turned out to be pretty much the usual – a four hour forced march past cathedrals and palaces with very little of the promised action such as being able “to check out backyards and markets” or discovering “a huge metropolis living its own unique life.” 

Even worse, I had lured along another hosteller Johann, the professional nomad, who at least spent the time practising his Russian. I really wanted to stop and take photos and would much rather have wandered around aimlessly in my usual fashion, discovering those things which were not usually on the tourist register. 

Johann's shoes

Johann and I soon set off on our own. Among unscheduled events were several weddings in the Summer Garden, the first of many I was to see in St. Petersburg. Wish them luck. Over fifty per cent will end in divorce. That's even worse than in Australia. 

The Summer Garden nearby was a popular place for weddings 

Another was was a huge procession by the Blue Berets, a sort of combined force of the Army, Navy and Airforce. Don't ask me what for. My Russian isn't that great. It took a while before everyone had passed and we could finally cross the road.

this 

They came on foot, by bus, by motorbike

....and by tank

In fact, every man and his dog was there

If it's one thing Russians do well, apart from amazing buildings, it is the mass spectacle. Police cordoned off the roads and they came on foot, by jeep, by bus, by motorcycle and by tank. While we were waiting to cross the road, Johann introduced me to Chizhik Pyzhik, the little bird on the Fontanka River.

Chizik Pizick on the canal is so popular he's been stolen seven times

Back in the C19th the students of a law school nearby used to wear green and yellow outfits just like the sizik bird and thus became known as Chizhik Pizhiks. Since they were in the habit of drinking at the local pub, this little song evolved:

"Chizhik – Pizhik where have you been

On the Fontanka, had a few

Had one vodka, then one more

Now my head feels really sore"

These days both Russians and tourists throw money at him in the hope of getting their wishes granted or toss vodka into the water in order to be cured of their addictions. Neither seem to be working all that well.

If you can land your coin either on Chizik Pizik or his pedestal your wish is supposed to come true

Over the next few days I found a lot more of what I was after – the secret life of the city. There was an interesting courtyard culture for instance and there were some pretty street scenes and bridges along the canals.

Courtyard Culture - this is Lennon Street, as opposed to Lenin Street

Outside the Free Arts Foundation - closed for the summer holidays alas, but still good for a bit of nostalgia

The Beatles live on here - this is part of a Yellow Submarine mural

All you need is love

There are several canals her too - very reminiscent of Copenhagen and the Architectural style is very similar to say Vienna or other European Capitals dating from the same era. When Peter the Great had it built in 1703, he wanted it have the very best that other big cities had. 

Day at the Hermitage

The Special Tourist Price at most of the formal museums was horrendous  -Russians and students get a better deal, but on the first Thursday of the month, admission to the Hermitage, formerly the Winter Palace, which has one the world’s greatest art collections, was free. The queues were long and it was exhausting to see even one floor so I chose Modern Art and a special exhibition of Picasso’s work. The latter included material held by the family which had never been shown before. Sometimes I could understand why, but it was a thrill to see many famous pictures in real life, also some of the photos where he is just at home with his family, and the surroundings were utterly spectacular.

Queues on the free day at the Hermitage Museum and these are just the people in front of us

The building is quite spectacular, even before we get to the paintings

There's no shortage of gilt and gold leaf

See the frescoes on the ceiling

It was a bit hard to see Da Vinci's 'Mother and Child' because too many people were having their photo taken in front of it

Just looking at one floor took about four hours and that’s not counting the time spent trying to find the way out, but this was only a fraction of the Hermitage’s collection. In this building alone, there were 1057 rooms and 117 staircases. There are also four other buildings and at least twenty times more in its vaults (Lonely Planet, 2006: 244). Unfortunately, I was pretty well museumed - out after that, although St. Petersburg does have plenty of others.

Instead I went to visit some of the smaller, more unusual ones and also Pushkin’s Flat Museum. It was closed the first time I came,  “Zaftra” meaning tomorrow, being almost as common an expression in Russia, as “Remont” -under repair/ renovation, or “Robotta,” meaning broken. Expensive though it was, the Pushkin Flat Museum set along the charming Moika Canal - a delight in itself, had English language audio casettes to explain what was going on. It seems that despite living on credit and being in debt, Pushkin lived quite well. After a while though, visiting the shrines to dead writers seemed a bit depressing, especially seeing the lock of Pushkin’s hair- a bit like touching relics, and his death mask, so I didn’t go on to visit any of the several places Dostoevsky* had lived in, expecting more of the same.

Sigmund's Museum of Dreams

Instead, I visited the Sigmund Freud Museum of Dreams in the Psychological Institute.There’s another one like it in Sigmund’s home town Vienna, and another in London. It was also closed the first time I called. Though it was wonderfully relaxing with dark rooms containing memorabilia and illuminated images which are supposed to trigger your own dreams and fears and had pleasant dream-like music,  I am not sure that it entirely fulfilled my expectations. However, unlike most things in Russia, including the Museum of Erotica, admission was still free as shown in the guidebook. I had better not say that aloud.

I also took a look at the sprawling flea market with its acres of secondhand clothes, Lenin memorabilia, swords and samovars. After a while though, it all began to look much the same and I came away without spending anything. En route, I saw quite a lot of the St. Petersburg’s Metro. This was even grander than the one in Moscow, with themed stations – technology, sport, the revolution and of course – Pushkin. Deep underground was definitely the best place to be.

 

Flea Market

It's official the escalators in St. Petersberg's Metro are the longest in the world - 142 m

Not the Opera House - just one of the many beautiful Metro Stations

Pushkin has his own Metro Station

Knowing that I only had a few days left on my Russian visa, I contacted Saddy, one of my train friends, because I felt I owed them a meal and a drink.  We ended up in a tiny Georgian restaurant. The food was delicious, but we had only managed a jug of wine and a couple of shared entrees before I had to borrow 2000r to cover the cost. I don’t know how my hostel buddies managed to go drinking every night. Maybe Vodka is cheaper than food.

Georgian food is delicious, but I only got as far as the entree before running out of money

Later we were joined by Robert and the two of them took me on a quirky little tour of their own. Robert is Portuguese, lives in Italy and works in Russia, but we still didn’t have a language in common. It was terribly hot and sweaty and the skies were dark and thick with smoke as we raced through the Mariinsky theatre district past the curious horses by Pyotr- Klodt on the bridge over the Anichkov Canal - the genitalia of one is said to have been modelled after the sculptor’s wife’s lover or possibly Napoleon - and then, when I said I liked street art, to a little Park featuring the wizard of Oz. Still linguistically challenged, Saddy’s boyfriend Sergei arrived to translate and joined us for drink in one of many nightclubs under the Gostiny Dvor.

Saddy and the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz

Typical Morning After in the hostel

I wasn't the only one feeling the heat

 As Dostoevsky wrote towards the end of The Idiot, “ …  the dust and heat of St. Petersburg pressed down on him like a weight.”

I  prayed for rain – and got it! After big thunderstorms hit St. Petersburg that night, the temperature was still 37oC but the humidity had risen to 50%. Suddenly, sightseeing and travelling didn’t feel like fun anymore.

As I was lying in the hostel nursing my foot and paralysed by the heat, a girl breezed in from Boston. “You know what,” she said, “You’d love Iceland.” She had just had a stopover there on the way to St. Petersburg and was going on about hot springs and glaciers.  I was sure I would. I’d always wanted to go there and would be unlikely to be this as close  again. A search on the internet showed that the fares were really cheap, provided you didn’t mind night flights and an all day stop over in Stockholm, and the next night I was off on the night bus to Tallin.

Banya 

The showers didn't work in the hostel that morning, so I thought I would try one more typical Russian experience, I hadn't had yet - The Banya! The one near the hostel was very traditional in that it still used birchwood which gives off a lot of heat. Inside women were beating themselves about the body with bundles of birch branches. Perhaps it was part of the Russian obsession with misery and suffering? Perhaps it was more fun than it looked? I only survived about ten minutes. I think it is the sort of experience, like banging your head against the wall, that simply feels good when you stop. I did feel thoroughly clean afterwards and the heat outside didn't seem quite as oppressive.

You've heard of wood -fired pizza. Now I know what it feels like

Café Culture 

For my last few hours in St. Petersburg, I thought I would do a bit of a café crawl as some of the ones mentioned in my guidebook sounded really intriguing. First port of call was Russky Kitch with its over-the-top decor. I didn't dare ask how much the coffee was but I did have one at the next place. St. Lenin wasn't much bigger than a broom cupboard, but had such a nice atmosphere that I tried a snack as well. Lastly, I visited The Pregnant Spy's Suitcase. How could I resist a name like that? It was quite hard to find, being in a basement, but much bigger inside than it looked. There was at least room for a torture chamber bar and several other accoutrements such as a car and even a few tables, though I have no idea what the food was like.