Tag Archives: russia

I just went to the weirdest museum today. It is called the Kunstkamera (in German, it means, the Art Chamber). I went specifically for one thing – they have on display, a collection of anatomical “monsters” that Peter the Great bought from the Netherlands in the early 1700s. Among the treasures were – fetuses of Siamese twins, cyclops (both human and pig), double headed creatures, arms & legs of children – all preserved in alcohol. From the early 1700s. The Kunstkamera was the first museum in Russia. The Russians back in Peter’s time were very superstitious and he wanted to show what could happen if you did not live a good life. In order to get the poor people to come to the museum, he gave away free vodka. And if you were unlucky enough to give birth to a deformed child, he would pay you a hefty sum so that it could be preserved and added to the collection.

I wish I could have taken pictures in there but you are not allowed. I will remember some of those things for some time to come though – and I will admit, I didn’t eat before I went in there and I got a little queasy!

Very weird.

Here I am, on my last day in St Petersburg. I have to admit, it will be a very loooooooong time before I get on a train again! The ride between Moscow and St P was short – 1020pm Wed to 640am Thurs, so as soon as you go to sleep, you are up again. It was actually the nicest train we had been on (they just kept getting better) so at least that made it bearable. It was a rough morning on Thurs though; we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and then went out for breakfast and killed time until 10am – which is when we started a 4 hour walking tour of the city with our guide Nick. St Petersburg is a very spread out city, seems like walking is the choice method of transport around here – as the transport system does not seem widely used (just doesn’t really go anywhere). There is a metro – that is good about connecting suburbs with the center – it one of the deepest in the world – while you ride the escalator down, you have enough time to have a cup of tea! I can only imagine what it must be like to have to walk everywhere in the middle of winter when it is -20 degrees celcius… Nick walked us through all the back streets and showed us the “real” St P – the meat & veg market, the courtyards (complete with Viva La Cuba graffiti), and through the parks. We also ate at this great little cafe called Stolle, that makes all these sweet & savoury pies, and I must admit – I have been back there everyday since (and will probably head over there in a few minutes!)!!

Friday’s highlight was definitely The Hermitage. We all set off on our own to explore – not only was it amazing to see so many pieces of fine art, but it was also great to admire the opulent furnishings of the Winter Palace itself. Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Greek, Roman & Egyptian antiquities, Mongolian and East Asian art, Venetian art…it went on and on. The most interesting to me was a room named something like “French paintings” but what it really is is art that was pillaged by the Red Army when they went into Germany in WWII.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the city, cruising the souvenir market where we managed to make a deal with this old Soviet hippie photographer (amazing how much the prices drop when they think you are going to walk away with nothing). That night, we had our final group dinner at this great Ukranian place, complete with singers. On a side note, I have to say, that I don’t think I have had a bad meal in Russia or Mongolia. We shared vodka, kvas, mors, beer, wine, Russian champagne… a couple of us even made it over to the Irish pub for a cider (first one in 3+ weeks!).

Yesterday- Saturday- we all went our separate ways. The NZers were off on a train to Helsinki, Sarah went back to London (after a 6 month RTW trip), and the rest of us went our separate ways to our new accomodations. I spent the day wandering about the city – going to the top of St Isaac’s cathedral to see the view of the city; over to the Church on Spilled Blood to check out the mosaics (both inside and outside) – it really rivals St Mark’s in Venice when it comes to mosaics.

Last night I met up with Carol for a canal boat trip – that started 20 minutes past midnight. It’s White Nights here in St P, and that means that the sun never really goes down. There are just a couple hours of twilight before the sun is up again. The boat took us out onto the Neva River, right in front of the Hermitage and the Peter and Paul Fortress – where we got to watch a great fireworks and laser show, complete with music. Some “lighthouses” or “light columns” were also lit, with fire, and that was amazing to see too. White Nights is a big deal here – Friday night there was actually a free concert on the square in front of the Hermitage – of Roger Waters formerly of Pink Floyd – he supposedly did “Dark Side of the Moon”. We didn’t make it there in time and honestly I could care less but I guess it would have been cool.

As for today – I’m just going to tool around a little, maybe buy a couple last minute souvenirs. I haven’t really bought much (couldn’t be bothered to carry much more than what I brought with me for three weeks). I wanted to go to the Peterhof Palace (of fountains) – but I found out too late that it is closed today. Actually, there is this huge economic forum going on here for three days in St P and that has caused a huge logistical headache – the Medvedev and Putin are here, along with 10 other European leaders – I have actually seen more black cars with blacked out windows and police escorts than when we were in Moscow! I read somewhere that there are 13,000 extra troops in the city (and you can certainly tell).

That reminds me – as Westerners you always here these stories about corrupt Russian police officers demanding your papers on the street, looking for bribes. I have not had a single problem – but I think it is due to a couple of things 1) avoid walking near police officers, 2) keep your head down, 3) keep your camera out of sight, 4) whatever you do, don’t smile, 5) don’t jaywalk. It also helps to be a white female. If you don’t walk near them and if you don’t look at them, chances are they won’t bother you because even if they were yelling at you, you can’t understand Russian anyway.

Off to have some pie!!!
-leigh

I’m on my last few hours here in Moscow and I’ve finally got some time to do some updating. It’s been a while!!! Last time I wrote, I was in Siberia. Here’s what I’ve done since:

1. Lake Baikal / Listvyanka – Nicolai’s “Bed & Banya“. Lake Baikal is the largest lake in the world by water volume. If the world had to live off the lake water only – it would last 40 years. The lake was HUGE and the water was cold!! I dipped my hands in – which adds a year to your life – good thing, because I probably lost a few years by breathing the shitty air in Beijing. The house we stayed at was awesome – even better because we had the most animated host!! He didn’t speak much english but he was very good at charades (I was able to figure out things like “glass bottomed boat”). There is a chair lift but it was too windy the day we were out there – there were huge white caps on the lake. The highlight – getting beat to death in a hot sauna by birch-branch wielding Nicolai (in a speedo) – and then jumping into a very cold swimming pool outside. It was so hot in the sauna that you couldn’t breathe through your nose without covering it with your hands. Stupid me left my earrings in and by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late!!!

2. Trans-Siberian – Boarded the train at 4:15 on Thursday, got off in Vladimir at 1:03pm on Sunday. Three nights is a lot on a train. Our train was one of the firmenny trains (No. 9 – Baikal) – and our carriage was brand-spankin-new. It smelled like a new car!! It definitely made things more bearable. The only bad part was, we couldn’t put the windows down properly to take pictures – but the scenery was more of the same – lots of birch trees. And apparently they have controlled brushfires to burn off the undergrowth so as to avoid widespread fires. This went on for miles and miles. There was a decent dining car, but it was pretty expensive for what it was. The best part about the journey – when you stop at stations along the way (every 4 or 5 hours or so) – there are babushkas selling dumplings, hot-pocket type things, beer, etc. There was even one late-night stop where some guy was selling smoked fish on a string next to the platform (I didn’t partake of course). We had some Russians in our carriage of course – a few families, and it was so much fun to play with the kids. We had this beautiful little 5 year old girl named Danya that liked to hang out with us – and I guess her older sister taught her to say “Good Morning” and “Hello” and “Good Afternoon”. We gave all the kids presents at the end (I gave them $1 American bills that I had) – and everyone got off the train to say bye to us and wish us well. I even met another American on the train – Max – From Atlanta! So we bonded on the Southern thing. The best part of the trip was the dining car – and interacting with locals – that phrasebook someone gave me for Christmas really got used. More stories on that later.

3. Suzdal – the town “with loads of churches”. Beautiful little place. Lots of them were abandoned and it was neat to sneak a peak into their windows. We got off the Trans-Sib in Vladimir and took a crazy cab ride (ok, even I have ridden on the NASCAR track at home and I swear these cabbies were driving faster) to get to Suzdal.

4. To get to Moscow, we had to cab it back to Vladimir (another death defying ride – more later) – where we got a 4 hour bus ride to Moscow. The bus was nice enough – double decker – but it was hotter than hell and there was no circulation. Traffic was ok – and by the time we got into Moscow, I was kind of surprised we were there – I thought we would have gone through more suburb – urban places but it didn’t feel like much.

5. Monday night after our arrival, Carol and I hit Red Square for some awesome twilight picture-taking. It was beautiful. St Basil’s Cathedral is awesome. Next day, we got up and went to Lenin’s tomb to see “the man” in his waxy glory. That was an experience. Kind of gross to think that the guy has been dead for 70 years and is still on display. It was very dark and eerie in there and there are tons of military police keeping order – no talking, hands alongside your body….no smiling!!! Then we hit the Kremlin for the walking tour – and perhaps the highlight of our time in Russia – while we were waiting to cross the street (after visiting some churches inside the Kremlin where Ivan the Terrible is buried, etc) – the crossing guard held us back – then a limosine and some black SUVs came blowing by – it was the new President, Medvedev, I suppose on his way out to lunch in Moscow! Pretty cool. Oh – and by the way – the most odd thing – a lot of the cars inside the Kremlin are black Fords. WEIRD.

6. Today I got up and went off on my own to check out the KGB building and generally wander around on the metro. I can tell you – that I never got lost once, in spite of everything being in Cyrillic!!! Feels good to say that. Then we had to carry our stuff over to the train station to put in storage – where we have the afternoon off to wander around. Some of us went out to the market and I got some fun souvenirs. That brings me here – back to the train station and the internet cafe.

Time to end this – before I accidentally switch the keyboard to Cyrillic again, which is VERY annoying, especially since I don’t know how to put it back into English again without closing the browser. Off to St P at 10:20pm for a 6am arrival and a nice day in the city.

-leigh