To St Petersburg with two Essi's

Note: As there were two Essi’s on the trip, I will call them Essi M and Essi. Essi M is my close friend and the other Essi is Essi M’s best friend – who is in a way my friend even though I don’t really know her :)

Monday 20^th August

Early wake up call and I got myself ready to head to Essi M’s before taking the bus to Central Station where we were going to wait for Essi. So Essi M, Essi and I went to get our money exchanged into Roubles (Russian currency) and then we were off to find our bus to St Petersburg. We walked down the road where we were greeted by a lady asking (in Russian) if we were heading to St Petersburg. We said yes, and she guided us to her bus. It cost us 10 euros to get to St Petersburg and we left around 12:45pm Helsinki time; it was an eventful trip! The lady that showed us on the bus took us under her wing and looked after us very well. She spoke broken Finnish, German, English and Russian with us. We didn’t have any problems getting over the Russian border which was nice and made the trip more relaxing. We didn’t wait too long at the Russian border and when we were waiting the Russian lady asked me in German I think if I wanted to go to the toilet – and before I got to say anything, she grabbed my arm and whisked me to the toilet. Such a sweet lady! I have to admit although the bus ride went smoothly, once we got over the Russian border, our driver was becoming restless. The way people drive in Russia is – well… mad! There are two lanes BUT they use the outer (the blank line between the grass and the main lane) as a second lane. And they love to take over each other in the lanes. Our driver at one stage misjudged the timing on the ‘over taking’ and Essi and I were just watching how close we were to the truck coming in our direction.. but as you can guess, we survived :)

We arrived around 9-9:30pm (ish) I cant remember the exact time but anyways.. So we said goodbye to the two people we met on the bus and to the Russian lady who took care of us. Off towards the metro and onwards to our hostel called Hostel Metro Tour.

We jumped off the metro and walked to our hostel. It was a nice hostel, but the best thing was that we had really nice people in our dorm, so I was relaxed leaving my stuff there during the day. In our room were two French people, one Polish man, one American elder man and some other person who the American guy hated – but the guy was quite nice to me :) So I had no problems with him.

We pretty much went to bed when we settled in, as the bus ride there was quite long due to all the stops we made.

Tuesday 21^st August

Our first day in St Petersburg. I was nervous as I had heard many ‘bad’ things about Russia – like people stealing from you, mobs picking you off from the street etc. But to be honest, we never experienced any of that; we had such a pleasant time there (however our American dorm mate got pick pocketed everyday). At the same time I was excited to be in Russia, as I had kinda wanted to go there for the last year, but never thought I would eventually get there.

So we went to places such as Kazan Cathedral, The Hermitage, Palace Square, Alexander Column, The Admiralty (well the gold point of it), St Isaac’s Cathedral, Monument to Nicholas I, Gostiny Dvor (popular shopping centre), Nevsky Prospect (popular street), Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (commonly known as The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood) and the Field of Mars (which is a Eternal Flame in a park).

We waited in line at The Hermitage for maybe half an hour and finally we got in and we bumped into Steve who Essi and I met at the Russian Consulate here in Helsinki. He showed us around for a bit, then he went his way and we went our way. The Hermitage is so massive; you can actually get lot in there. I read somewhere that it takes like 3 years (or something) to see every piece of art in there. I don’t know if that’s right, but yeah it will take forever to see everything in there. I think at one stage we got lost – well at least I felt lost. I think we were in there for 2 -3 hours and to be honest I had quite enough of being in there. Way too many people in there that you couldn’t even move; we even dared to walk the opposite direction of everyone else – bad mistake and I advise not to do so with so many people in there….

After walking for round 3 hours, we were getting hungry, so off we went to find a place to eat. We finally settled on a Indian Restaurant which was like a block away from St Isaac’s Cathedral – so naturally that was our next stop. I took some pictures (as I always do) and some video footage and off we were to find another place to explore. We decided to go back to the Kazan Cathedral and go inside. We sat down and relaxed for a while before witnessing an evening mass. It was interesting and the singing (perhaps more like hymns) sounded lovely; however the incense was making me feel sick as I hate the smell of it - interesting nonetheless.

The Church of Our Savoir on Spilled Blood (or what we called The Bloody Church for short) was the next stop. It was spectacular – the details on the church were amazing. I unfortunately was sick the day the girls went back to go inside it. I really wish that I had gone to see it.

It started to rain and we headed into a park, where Essi M recognized a place were a character from her favourite Russian TV show (Anastasia – which is based on the Russian royalty) had been sitting and kidnapped – so we went to sit by the same spot. The tiredness must have been settling in by then as Essi started talking about trees or something and silly catch phrases started coming out. Then I must have been caught up in the moment as when we were walking across the road towards the Field of Mars, when Essi M shouted ‘And a Happy New Year!’ which I mistook as ‘Comfy Beaver!’ – We were in giggles for about 10 or so minutes (not good when you have to go to the toilet…). One of the popular (and many) catch phrases of the trip!

I think we then went to the supermarket and headed back to the hostel where rest and sleep were awaiting us!

Wednesday 22^nd August

Hmmm its now been 3 weeks since I was in St Petersburg so I am a little confused as to what we did on this day… lets see if I can remember…

Things that we saw were St Petersburg Mosque, Peter and Paul Fortress, St Nicholas’ Naval Cathedral, Alexander Nevsky Bridge, Trinity Bridge, Egyptian Bridge, Leutenant Schmidt Bridge, Exchange Bridge, Italian Bridge, The Cabin of Peter the Great, The Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns, St Petersburg State University, New Amsterdam, The Mariinsky Opera and Ballet Theatre. I think after that we went to the hostel and chilled there for the rest of the night.

When we were at the Cabin of Peter the Great, we walked across the road where there was this water way with two lions on both sides. It was really nice to sit down on the steps and be so close to the Neva. We even got to touch the water of the Nova which was in my opinion cool.

It was also cool to walk around the Peter and Paul Fortress and see the outer walls were people sunbathed and fished.

Thursday 23^rd August

My memory is becoming really bad now as it has been more then a month since I was in St Petersburg….

On this day I think we went to Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin) which is 25km from St Petersburg to see the Catherine Palace (which was Catherine The Great’s summer palace). It was really nice there and the gardens were spectacular. We didn’t get to see all the gardens as we kinda got free into the garden area as we told the young guy at the gate that we just wanted to get a souvenir for Essi’s mum.

The Palace from the outside was amazing – nice and blue and gold. The statues on the building was cool also – half naked men made out of gold.

The tower of the palace was being re-furbished so we didn’t get to see it which was a bummer, but these things can’t be helped.

Next stop was Pavlovsk Palace in Pavlovsk (30km from St Petersburg) just 5km south of Tsarskoye Selo. It was also very nice and very peaceful! We got to walk around the palace gardens for over an hour and we saw lots of statues.

After Pavlovsk we went back to St Petersburg were we went straight to see Alexander Nevsky Monastery ( I got to see a Russian monk) and we went to the cemetery of where Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky and Glinka were buried, and of course many other famous and popular Russian people and I think some international people.

From there we quickly had dinner and went to buy some food for our boat trip around the city. The boat trip was nice and we had a really great tour guide telling us about the history of St Petersburg. We saw all the main sights which I have mentioned throughout this blog and also St Michael’s Castle.

A beautiful sunset was coming down as out boat trip was coming to an end – breathtaking!

We decided to walk the Nevsky Prospect after the boat trip. It was so gorgeous to see the city at night with lots of lights and I have to say that the town comes alive then!

We bought some Russian beers and ciders and walked the street while drinking - it was so pleasant! I was talking to the Essi’s when two ladies in front of us turned around and asked if I lived in St Petersburg. I said to her that I didn’t, and that I was visiting. They then asked if I knew what the bridge in front of us represented, but I couldn’t remember. One of the ladies then asked if I were Australian, and I replied ‘Is it that obvious’? These ladies were from London and they were also visiting for a few days. Essi M gave them the instructions on how to get to Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlosk by the mini buses.

We walked to a park were Catherine the Great’s statue stood and sat there for a while and drank the rest of out drinks and chatted. The atmosphere was great and I loved it. Such a relaxing feeling just sitting there and taking in the fresh summer air.

Friday 24^th August

I woke up not feeling well on this day. I went into the city to quickly buy souvenirs for family and friends, and then I went back to the hostel and slept all day. I was very disappointed as I wanted to see the Smolny Cathedral so much.

The Essi’s came back with a slice of pizza for me and we ate at the hostel and then we decided to play UNO and card games all night – and did I mention that we got drunk? As our French friends wanted to sleep, we moved into the kitchen and played the UNO there. Essi M and I stayed up late and got even more drunk. We should never be left alone – we took loads of pictures and then we stuck M&M’s up our noses and took pictures. I took the M&M’s out of my nose and I went to look for them, when I noticed that one was missing. I asked Essi M if she has eaten it, and to that she replied ‘Yes’. Haha that was funny. That was such a fun night!

Essi M and I found a cockroach in the kitchen and started getting frantic about it when I started to poke at it and it getting closer to us.. lol…

Saturday 25^th August

We woke up early for our taxi to take us home to Finland. The trip home was ok, no problems, however towards the end of the trip the driver started getting frustrated and tired and also the Russian lady in the taxi with us.

Again we didn’t have any troubles on the customs front (thank goodness).

We got home to Helsinki by 5pm and I have to say that I was really tired and I was glad to be back home and see my friends and Ilari!

That was our trip to Saint Petersburg! I would hope to return back there one day!