St. Petersburg

I wanted to come to Russia for many reasons. Some of it stems from my past early life experience steeped in the Cold War. But much more than that- some of the great artists, literary figures and intellectuals that the world has ever seen are from Russia. Russia has a facinating history. Russian people are legendary for being friendly once they get to know you. But also I think that I wanted a real travel challenge.

I studied Russian for a year and a half and it is a good thing that I did. Most Russians speak very little English. Then there is the Cerilic alphabet. I have had a good chance to practice my Russian when odering meals and mostly asking for directions. "Pajalista, gdea..." "Pardon me, where is..."

A little update: When I arrived in Finland Station, the same place Lenin arrived on the eve of the Russian Revolution, teams of taxi's were waiting for me. But I wanted to get some rubles first so I walked around to the front of the station to the ATM. When I came back, only one driver was left and the remains of a mass of Japanese tourist about to go. I toyed with taking the Metro but I am happy that I didn't.

As one is suppose to do I asked "how much is the fare to Hotel Nevky Grand?" "There is four Nevsky Hotels", he says. I reach in my pocket and find the address. He nods, "one hundred rubles". I think, "Holy shit, one hundred rubles, I am going to like this place." One dollar is about 30 rubles, so I thought that my taxi ride would cost about 3 dollars. He knew just where it was. Had I taken the Metro, I would have been lost, with my bags for a very long time. I only had rubles in the 1000's from the ATM. When we arrived I gave him a thousand (say $32) expecting about 900 rubles change. Quickly he said, "Oh, I mean, one thousand rubles." He laughed and shook my hand. He did not get a tip.

Breakfast at this hotel is everything a Russian Grandmother would be proud of. It comes with the room and maybe a choice of 30 different dishes. I will give you some idea: hot dogs, macaroni, rice, lintels, hard boiled egges, bread, meats and cheeses, several kinds of sourkraut, mayonase filled mixtures, cheese cake, nice apple fritters and I can't remember what else. I can tell you that it keeps me going until about 5 PM.

I decided that my first stop would be the Hermitage. How can I tell you about the line? I met a nice young student from Ukraine who helped me practice my Russian. I met a couple- the woman from Russia and the guy from near Naples. They lived in Baltimore now. I practiced my Italian with him. So there we stood for three hours.

When we finally got in I made my way to the Dutch Masters. By the way, the Hermitage has more than three million pieces of art and someone estimated that it would take six days of walking for 24 hours to see the entire collection. (Much of that is in storage.) Of the Dutch paintings I saw a room full of Van Dykes, twenty one Rembrants- all of them very large except two, I never found the Vermeers but I saw I would estimate about a thousand works by Dutch masters.

That was from 2 PM to 5 PM. For my last hour I just rushed through the French, the Italian, skipped the British and others and took a quick look at their amazing collection of Roman artifacts.

(By the way, it is now ten minutes before midnight. It actually looks like it might get dark. It is like 8 to 9 PM in California. But it never gets dark. In an hour it will be getting light again. That is why it is so hard to get to sleep in this town. Also the town stays open all night. Crowds still fill the street at this moment.)

Today I decided to take a famed walking tour of St. Petersburg that was to begin at 10 AM. I thought that giving myself one hour to walk what seemed to be a reasonable distance was enough. I was in the neighborhood within 45 minutes. Then the chaos of Russian street organization hit me. It seemed simple enough. Sovietskya Ulitza. Despite flawless initial directions and multiple repetition of the words "Gdea Sovietskaya Ulitza, pazjalista?" I could not find it. Eventually I found the street, but I could not find the address.

Russians rarely put numbers on the flats, atleast in St. Petersburg. Well, let's be more honest. The flats are numbered on maybe two of block long street. Then there are these confusing numbers on places, that I still do not understand- 20-10. It has nothing to do with the street address as far as I know. Finally I found Sovietskaya Ulitza, not the International Hotel and wandered around some more. I saw what I thought was a nice Russian, and he was- and asked him first "Pazjalista, Gaverete pa anglese?" (Do you speak English?) He said, "yes, little." He was really trying to help. Then he was joined by three of his fellow office mates. Together they agreed that it was the next street over. What I did not know at the time was that there are three Sovietskaya Ulitza's - all fortunately parellel. I had obviously missed the tour. The hostle was friendly. (It just struck me- the word "hostle" has strange overtones.) They also gave me a good reference where I could book my trains. More about trains in another blog. I have really gone on tonight in the other land of the midnight sun.