Russian Revolution

Time to update again; this time from Russia, went with Carl, Yoko, Kellie and 23 other fellow member of our tour group. Our guide from St Petersburg to Vladimir and finally Moscow was Ang, a well travelled local girl. Initially the concerns was getting the visa, and then making sure our bags arrived via the new Heathrow Terminal 5, but in the end it all went without a hitch. Our first stop was in the outskirts of St Petersburg in some kind of business hotel which dispensed god-awful brown stinky hot water everyday that we were there. The first night was spent in the hotel where we started a competition of 500 and samples of Russian vodka and Baltika (numbered 1-9 all different local beers) which was to last the entire trip.

First day in St Petersburg was on a sort of hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city. On this day we managed to see the Smolny Cathedral, Sheremetetyev and Marble Palaces, among heaps of other beautiful buildings around the city. I think we decided that most of the buildings in St Petersburg were painted yellow with the rest other bright shades of lime, orange and blue. We also made a stop by the Church of the Spilt Blood which was a preview to the famous twin Cathedral of St Basil’s in Moscow. The afternoon was spent wondering around the halls of the Hermitage museum, an experience not dissimilar to visiting the Louve in Paris. The evening was spent on a canal cruise, which was unfortunately in Russian but at least we got to see the city from a different vantage point. The second day was spent visiting the St Isaac Cathedral inside Peter and Paul’s Fortress where a number of Tsars were laid to rest. After a lunch of beef stroganoff and more vodka, we headed out of the city to the Pavlovsk Palace which we toured, and the grounds of Catherine’s Palace, both of which were summer palaces of the Tsars. The evening show was provided by traditional Cossack dancers and singers followed by yet more vodka and caviar canapés.

The next day was a free day where we roamed the city fairly aimlessly but really getting the last view of St Petersburg before we bundled onto an overnight train to Vladimir, the ancient capital of Russia. The ride was pleasant except where we got caught by the train guard drinking spirits…vodka’s banned but beer isn’t, go figure. Anyway, some sweet talking from Kellie got us out of trouble, before our group got told to shut up and go to sleep by local teenagers at the other end of the carriage.

Arriving into Vladimir early the next morning, we spent no time dumping our gear in our little village “resort” before heading out to Suzdal for some sightseeing. On the trip we learnt that Suzdal was famous across Russia for two things…it’s a retirement town of 20,000 which boasts some 30 churches/cathedrals and the best cucumbers around. We even got tips of how to grow the best cucumbers, a secret that I’m not going to tell, you’re going to have to go there and find out yourself. At mid-day we all headed to a bunya, which is essentially a sauna…I’m sure everyone’s seen the image of these people running out into the snow and beating themselves with branches…yup this is pretty much what it was, less the snow. I pretty surprised just refreshing it was really, our thermometer read close to 120 deg Celsius of dry heat. That evening we remained in the “resort” entertaining each other with drinking games and probably getting funny looks from the wedding reception in the adjacent room.

Our trip into Moscow was a lot easier than we all thought, avoiding all traffic. Ang managed to organise a night tour of the city for us which was fantastic, getting our first glimpses of the Russian capital under lights. The next was a walking tour of the Red Square, where we once again saw the Kremlin and St Basil’s Cathedral. This was followed by a photo trip around the Moscow Metro circle line, where we jumped on and off at each stating marvelling at the marble statues, mosaics and frescos mostly depicting soviet themes. This first evening we ended up having dinner in a pub behind the former KGB HQ where there was a cool live band and spirited dance floor.

The second day was spent in the Kremlin, walking around inside the grounds. Luckily we managed to get into the Armoury where treasures such as Faberge eggs, State jewels, crowns and carriages were kept. It was amazing to see these items given that we had been getting an education about the Russian Tsars such as Alexander and Catherine the Great, Ivan the Terrible and many others. That night Carl had arranged for tickets for Swan Lake at the world famous Bolshoi Theatre. Thank goodness for the programme at the intermission because I was getting pretty lost in the plot. In our final couple of days in Moscow we spent some time in Gorky Park, shopping for souvenirs and a half day in the ridiculously lavish Soviet Exhibition Park, VDNKh.

In summary, my glimpse into Russia was awesome, expensive but I’d gladly do it all again and look forward to a return trip to see another part of the largest country in the world.