I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get a Russian visa. So once I got mine, I convinced David to get one too and meet me in St. Petersburg over the weekend.
Like I mentioned in the previous blog, usually I’m a good planner but this time around I didn’t do much. Luckily Jenn, Joey’s wife, was travelling with us. So she scheduled both our weekend in St. Petersburg as well as our following weekend in Moscow. One thing we did leave until the last minute, though, was train tickets from Moscow – St. Petersburg. We thought it would be better to get them all together through the concierge at the hotel but then it turned out there were no seats left on the high-speed train to St. Petersburg Friday night.
Instead, we did what we swore we would never do – we booked a domestic flight.
Russian airline Aeroflot has one of the worst safety records, if not the worst, of all time. If you are ever afraid of flying Southwest or American or United within the US ever again, just take a look at Aeroflot’s record and you’ll feel much better! Before the dissolution of the USSR, there were about three crashes a year. I truly felt like I was risking my life by flying within Russia during the winter. I’m sorry, but Russian aviation authorities just don’t have the same safety standards that I trust and love.
In the end, the flight was fine. I have to admit I was gripping the seat and praying pretty hard as we came down to land in the wind and rain in St. Petersburg. But I attribute that more to me no longer being a good lander than Aeroflot. (This past summer our small plane from Nice landed so hard that we bounced off the runway and had to take back off. Most terrifying flying experience of my life, and now I hate landings.)
Once we met up with David and checked into the W, we headed straight to bed to get as much sleep as possible before a long day of site-seeing Saturday.
The next morning, we met up with our outgoing guide, Sasha. She really took a liking to David and even got his email address at the end of the day to “discuss Marketing opportunities in London.” But we all joked that he’d found his Russian bride and she'd found her meal ticket into the EU!
We started the day off with a drive along the city’s main river, Neva, while Sasha explained that Peter the Great and his family loved Italy so much that they wanted their new city, St. Petersburg, to be the “Venice of the North.” Of course this was not going to happen because it’s Russia and it’s freezing so people are not going to be strolling the canals or taking boat rides, but it was a nice thought.
We first stopped outside a row of museums and old lighthouses. St. Petersburg’s first museum, the Kuntz-Kamera, was a collection of all the abnormal things that fascinated Peter the Great, like preserved giants and Siamese twins. I was kind of interested but the rest of the group did not want to see any pickled people. So David threatened to take me to the soil museum if I subjected him to Kuntz-Kamera, and we saw neither.
Next stop was the Peter and Paul fortress. It was deserted at that hour (10:30) so we had the whole place to ourselves. Before entering the island, visitors are supposed to toss a coin over the bridge and try to land it next to a little rabbit statue while making a wish. If your coin makes the landing, your wish will come true! Jenn and I both did great but the boys missed.
Once inside the fortress, there is a distorted statue of Peter the Great. Visitors are encouraged to sit on his lap and hold his hands for luck. So since David failed the coin toss, he hopped right on up to Peter’s lap and made a new wish!
We took a few minutes to view Peter’s boat inside the boathouse before heading into the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Cathedral was built in the early 1700s along with the rest of the fortress after the Russians finally took back the land from the Swedes.
All of the Russian czars following Peter are buried inside the Cathedral. The last Romanovs, Nicholas II and his family, were buried inside St. Catherine’s chapel, within the cathedral, in 1998, 80 years after they were assassinated. Two of his children are missing though, Alexei and Anastasia… which further fuels the “rumor in St. Petersburg.”
After listening to a short concert inside the cathedral, we walked past the mint and through the Neva Gate, which marks where prisoners from the fortress’s political prison were loaded onto boats to be executed elsewhere. One of the first prisoners was Peter the Great’s own son.
After the fortress we drove to St. Michael’s Castle, which was built as a highly fortified palace for Emperor Paul I. He was petrified that he would be assassinated so he had ditches built around the castle and a draw bridge. Ironically, he was murdered in his bedroom just 40 days after moving in.
We then saw the cruiser, Aurora, whose gunshot signaled the start of the attack on the Winter Palace during the October Revolution. If you can’t tell by now, the Russians have a long and bloody history and most of the stories we heard were “terrible, just terrible.” The czars were constantly battling and murdering their own family for power. Sasha told us during the second half of our tour that she would focus on more romantic, happy stories.
Next stop – the Winter Palace, now the world-famous Hermitage Museum.
I thought the Museum would have more objects inside, especially from its days as a palace. But during the revolution, the palace was raided so now it’s mainly a museum with paintings. Lots and lots of paintings. We saw works by Monet, Picasso, da Vinci, etc. etc. etc. The place is enormous, so we were glad we had a guide with us. We only saw a small section of the Hermitage, yet it still took about 3 hours to get through.
When we came back outside, magically it had cleared up and the sun was actually shining! Amazing! So we booked it over to St. Isaac’s Cathedral. This was the largest Cathedral in Russia after it was constructed and offers great views of the city from the gilded dome. After climbing up and down the stairs and viewing the inside of the church, we went back to the W.
Around the corner from our hotel was the Astoria Hotel, where Hitler planned to celebrate his victory over the Soviets. He even had invitations printed with the name of the hotel and the time, only leaving off the date. It’s weird to think about how different the world would be if things had gone his way and he had been able to have his parties.
That night we ate nearby at a small restaurant called Gogol, named after the Russian writer. The restaurant looks like a small home and we were given a bell to ring for service. We were afraid to use it and have the wrath of the Russians descend upon us, but once the table next to us starting ringing for attention, we finally did too.
I had the boar pelmeni (dumplings) to start and then a mystery meat dish with gravy and potatoes as my main. The boar was too game-y for me but the mystery meat was good! David got to try the borscht and Joey, David, and I also had small glasses of vodka.
As I came out of the bathroom at Gogol, I happened to look around and noticed a group of familiar-looking Americans in the corner of the restaurant. See, when I travel internationally, I’ve noticed how Americans tend to notice other Americans. I don’t know if we just seek each other out like magnets, or if this is because we’re usually just louder than everyone else so it’s impossible not to notice. But back in Moscow, at the Hotel National, there was a group of auditors from Chicago in town for a month for an audit. So after coming back from the restroom, I told Joey and Jenn that I thought I'd just seen the auditors from Moscow in the corner. Jenn thought they looked familiar too so we convinced Joey to take a shot of the horseradish vodka (David claimed it was delicious) and go over to them. Joey complained the whole time he was drinking the nasty vodka, but once he had his liquid courage, he turned into Mr. Social. And it turned out it was the same group of auditors from Chicago!
What a coincidence that our American “friends” from Moscow just happened to be in St. Petersburg the same weekend as us (especially since they were in Russia for a month), eating at the same restaurant, on the same night, at the same time. What further blew my mind was that they were risk-takers like us and on the same Aeroflot flight the next day back to Moscow.
After dinner we all headed to the Hippo, a nightclub, but once we saw the red velvet rope and line to get in, we decided we didn’t want to wait and there was no way we were getting in dressed the way we were anyway. Russians are just too damn fashionable. I don’t know how those women walk around in the ice and snow with 3-inch stiletto heels without breaking their necks. Jenn and I were having none of it and wore our boots the entire time.
On Sunday, we woke up early to check out and then walked to Stolle, a pie restaurant near the Church on Spilled Blood. David and I split the Russian soup (beef, potatoes, cabbage, herbs and sour cream – yum!) and cabbage pie. Cabbage pie is my new favourite pie. I don’t even really like pie that much, because of the crust, but this was really good! For dessert, we had whortleberry pie. Then we walked to the church.
The Church on Spilled Blood was built on the site where (get ready!) Alexander II was assassinated (shocking, I know). Even though Sasha had told us the day before that the interior of the church was covered in mosaics, I didn’t anticipate how beautiful it would be. Literally every inch is covered in colourful mosaics. It looked like one massive painting, but as you got closer, you could see the teeny tiny tiles creating gigantic images. We were blown away. It was honestly one of the most stunning church interiors I’ve ever seen.
Across from the church is a row of souvenir stalls, so David and I picked up some Christmas ornaments and matryohska dolls. Then we needed to get warm so we headed to Nevsky Prospekt, the main shopping street in St. Petersburg. We had hot chocolate in the café of Dom Knigi, St. Petersburg’s largest book store. The hot chocolate in St. Petersburg was so thick it was like eating warm pudding. It was sooo good.
The book store café overlooks Kazan Cathedral, modelled after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. As you can see from the picture, the Kazan does not even compare to St. Peter’s. On our walk back down Nevsky Prospekt was saw the hotel where beef stroganoff was invented and stopped inside the smallest chocolate museum ever, and then it was time to head our separate ways.
David got on a flight back home to London while Joey, Jenn, and I (and our American auditor friends) took off for Moscow. The flight was really smooth, so I have a much higher opinion of Aeroflot now… or maybe it was the lucky rabbit!
Like I mentioned in the previous blog, usually I’m a good planner but this time around I didn’t do much. Luckily Jenn, Joey’s wife, was travelling with us. So she scheduled both our weekend in St. Petersburg as well as our following weekend in Moscow. One thing we did leave until the last minute, though, was train tickets from Moscow – St. Petersburg. We thought it would be better to get them all together through the concierge at the hotel but then it turned out there were no seats left on the high-speed train to St. Petersburg Friday night.
Instead, we did what we swore we would never do – we booked a domestic flight.
Russian airline Aeroflot has one of the worst safety records, if not the worst, of all time. If you are ever afraid of flying Southwest or American or United within the US ever again, just take a look at Aeroflot’s record and you’ll feel much better! Before the dissolution of the USSR, there were about three crashes a year. I truly felt like I was risking my life by flying within Russia during the winter. I’m sorry, but Russian aviation authorities just don’t have the same safety standards that I trust and love.
In the end, the flight was fine. I have to admit I was gripping the seat and praying pretty hard as we came down to land in the wind and rain in St. Petersburg. But I attribute that more to me no longer being a good lander than Aeroflot. (This past summer our small plane from Nice landed so hard that we bounced off the runway and had to take back off. Most terrifying flying experience of my life, and now I hate landings.)
Once we met up with David and checked into the W, we headed straight to bed to get as much sleep as possible before a long day of site-seeing Saturday.
The next morning, we met up with our outgoing guide, Sasha. She really took a liking to David and even got his email address at the end of the day to “discuss Marketing opportunities in London.” But we all joked that he’d found his Russian bride and she'd found her meal ticket into the EU!
We started the day off with a drive along the city’s main river, Neva, while Sasha explained that Peter the Great and his family loved Italy so much that they wanted their new city, St. Petersburg, to be the “Venice of the North.” Of course this was not going to happen because it’s Russia and it’s freezing so people are not going to be strolling the canals or taking boat rides, but it was a nice thought.
Peter and Paul Fortress
Hermitage/Winter Palace
Lighthouse
Next stop was the Peter and Paul fortress. It was deserted at that hour (10:30) so we had the whole place to ourselves. Before entering the island, visitors are supposed to toss a coin over the bridge and try to land it next to a little rabbit statue while making a wish. If your coin makes the landing, your wish will come true! Jenn and I both did great but the boys missed.
Once inside the fortress, there is a distorted statue of Peter the Great. Visitors are encouraged to sit on his lap and hold his hands for luck. So since David failed the coin toss, he hopped right on up to Peter’s lap and made a new wish!
We took a few minutes to view Peter’s boat inside the boathouse before heading into the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Cathedral was built in the early 1700s along with the rest of the fortress after the Russians finally took back the land from the Swedes.
The spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral
All of the Russian czars following Peter are buried inside the Cathedral. The last Romanovs, Nicholas II and his family, were buried inside St. Catherine’s chapel, within the cathedral, in 1998, 80 years after they were assassinated. Two of his children are missing though, Alexei and Anastasia… which further fuels the “rumor in St. Petersburg.”
Interior of the Cathedral
After listening to a short concert inside the cathedral, we walked past the mint and through the Neva Gate, which marks where prisoners from the fortress’s political prison were loaded onto boats to be executed elsewhere. One of the first prisoners was Peter the Great’s own son.
Neva river surrounding the fortress
After the fortress we drove to St. Michael’s Castle, which was built as a highly fortified palace for Emperor Paul I. He was petrified that he would be assassinated so he had ditches built around the castle and a draw bridge. Ironically, he was murdered in his bedroom just 40 days after moving in.
St. Michael's Castle
We then saw the cruiser, Aurora, whose gunshot signaled the start of the attack on the Winter Palace during the October Revolution. If you can’t tell by now, the Russians have a long and bloody history and most of the stories we heard were “terrible, just terrible.” The czars were constantly battling and murdering their own family for power. Sasha told us during the second half of our tour that she would focus on more romantic, happy stories.
Next stop – the Winter Palace, now the world-famous Hermitage Museum.
The palace square of the Hermitage with
St. Isaac's gold dome in the background
I thought the Museum would have more objects inside, especially from its days as a palace. But during the revolution, the palace was raided so now it’s mainly a museum with paintings. Lots and lots of paintings. We saw works by Monet, Picasso, da Vinci, etc. etc. etc. The place is enormous, so we were glad we had a guide with us. We only saw a small section of the Hermitage, yet it still took about 3 hours to get through.
Me, David, Joey, and Jenn after our tour
When we came back outside, magically it had cleared up and the sun was actually shining! Amazing! So we booked it over to St. Isaac’s Cathedral. This was the largest Cathedral in Russia after it was constructed and offers great views of the city from the gilded dome. After climbing up and down the stairs and viewing the inside of the church, we went back to the W.
St. Isaac's
Around the corner from our hotel was the Astoria Hotel, where Hitler planned to celebrate his victory over the Soviets. He even had invitations printed with the name of the hotel and the time, only leaving off the date. It’s weird to think about how different the world would be if things had gone his way and he had been able to have his parties.
The Astoria
That night we ate nearby at a small restaurant called Gogol, named after the Russian writer. The restaurant looks like a small home and we were given a bell to ring for service. We were afraid to use it and have the wrath of the Russians descend upon us, but once the table next to us starting ringing for attention, we finally did too.
I had the boar pelmeni (dumplings) to start and then a mystery meat dish with gravy and potatoes as my main. The boar was too game-y for me but the mystery meat was good! David got to try the borscht and Joey, David, and I also had small glasses of vodka.
As I came out of the bathroom at Gogol, I happened to look around and noticed a group of familiar-looking Americans in the corner of the restaurant. See, when I travel internationally, I’ve noticed how Americans tend to notice other Americans. I don’t know if we just seek each other out like magnets, or if this is because we’re usually just louder than everyone else so it’s impossible not to notice. But back in Moscow, at the Hotel National, there was a group of auditors from Chicago in town for a month for an audit. So after coming back from the restroom, I told Joey and Jenn that I thought I'd just seen the auditors from Moscow in the corner. Jenn thought they looked familiar too so we convinced Joey to take a shot of the horseradish vodka (David claimed it was delicious) and go over to them. Joey complained the whole time he was drinking the nasty vodka, but once he had his liquid courage, he turned into Mr. Social. And it turned out it was the same group of auditors from Chicago!
What a coincidence that our American “friends” from Moscow just happened to be in St. Petersburg the same weekend as us (especially since they were in Russia for a month), eating at the same restaurant, on the same night, at the same time. What further blew my mind was that they were risk-takers like us and on the same Aeroflot flight the next day back to Moscow.
After dinner we all headed to the Hippo, a nightclub, but once we saw the red velvet rope and line to get in, we decided we didn’t want to wait and there was no way we were getting in dressed the way we were anyway. Russians are just too damn fashionable. I don’t know how those women walk around in the ice and snow with 3-inch stiletto heels without breaking their necks. Jenn and I were having none of it and wore our boots the entire time.
On Sunday, we woke up early to check out and then walked to Stolle, a pie restaurant near the Church on Spilled Blood. David and I split the Russian soup (beef, potatoes, cabbage, herbs and sour cream – yum!) and cabbage pie. Cabbage pie is my new favourite pie. I don’t even really like pie that much, because of the crust, but this was really good! For dessert, we had whortleberry pie. Then we walked to the church.
The Church on Spilled Blood was built on the site where (get ready!) Alexander II was assassinated (shocking, I know). Even though Sasha had told us the day before that the interior of the church was covered in mosaics, I didn’t anticipate how beautiful it would be. Literally every inch is covered in colourful mosaics. It looked like one massive painting, but as you got closer, you could see the teeny tiny tiles creating gigantic images. We were blown away. It was honestly one of the most stunning church interiors I’ve ever seen.
Colorful onion domes top the church
Across from the church is a row of souvenir stalls, so David and I picked up some Christmas ornaments and matryohska dolls. Then we needed to get warm so we headed to Nevsky Prospekt, the main shopping street in St. Petersburg. We had hot chocolate in the café of Dom Knigi, St. Petersburg’s largest book store. The hot chocolate in St. Petersburg was so thick it was like eating warm pudding. It was sooo good.
David enjoying his hot chocolate at the bookstore
in front of the Kazan Cathedral
The book store café overlooks Kazan Cathedral, modelled after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. As you can see from the picture, the Kazan does not even compare to St. Peter’s. On our walk back down Nevsky Prospekt was saw the hotel where beef stroganoff was invented and stopped inside the smallest chocolate museum ever, and then it was time to head our separate ways.
David got on a flight back home to London while Joey, Jenn, and I (and our American auditor friends) took off for Moscow. The flight was really smooth, so I have a much higher opinion of Aeroflot now… or maybe it was the lucky rabbit!
