Travel Tales: Voyage to St. Petersburg

The Baltic Sea is quite different from the Pacific Ocean that surrounds our island home of Kaua‘i. For one, there are no tides. What’s most notable though is the color. Unlike any sea I’ve ever sailed, the Baltic lacks that brilliant blue. Seen in the distance, it has a blue cast, but looking down straight into the water, it is dark to sea green. Perhaps this is because the Baltic Sea is not very salty, filled with fresh water from the rivers flowing in from Scandinavia and northern Europe.

Ferrying our way

Instead of merely flying over the Baltic, my Swedish friend Ingrid booked us passage on one of the ferries that ply the sea between Stockholm and St. Petersburg, Russia. These ferries are huge, the size of cruise ships that come into Nawiliwili. The only difference between these ferries and our cruise ships is that the former have huge doors that open at the stern to allow cars and trucks to drive aboard. Above the vehicle deck though, the ferry is like any cruise ship complete with cabins, restaurants, shops and all the amenities one would expect while cruising.  

We left Stockholm in the evening and late the next morning arrived in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. We had an afternoon exploring this city, then that evening sailed onward to St. Petersburg, arriving early the next day.

Normally, to visit Russia you must send your passport in advance to the Russians for a visa, but the ferry company had an arrangement with the Russian government for a special three day visa that was granted upon arrival. This was certainly more convenient than mailing my passport to Moscow and hoping it got back to me in Hawai‘i before I left. The downside though was not being able to leave the ferry until 3 p.m. in the afternoon because our three days did not begin until exactly then. The Russians are very strict about this. Most of the other passengers were Russian and had long since left the ship. We were almost the only passengers remaining and had our lunch at a very empty restaurant on board as the only customers. When we cleared Russian customs, at least there was no line, just Ingrid and me.

St. Petersburg

Ingrid had arranged in advance a private guide and car to pick us up from the wharf. Maria, our guide, met us in the ferry terminal parking lot with our driver, Vladimir. Built on a marsh, St. Petersburg is crisscrossed by canals. It is sometimes called the Venice of the North. Maria escorted us all over the city for a late afternoon overview.  

My favorite stop was the Church of the Resurrection of Christ on Spilled Blood, a traditional style Orthodox Church topped with brightly colored onion domes. The spilled blood refers to Czar Alexander II who was assassinated on this site by a terrorist. Two years later the church was begun and completed in 24 years.

It was dedicated to the Czar, and within one can see the exact spot where he was murdered.  

After our introductory tour, Maria dropped us off at our hotel, the Sokos Vasilievky. With all the horror stories I’d heard about the poor service in Russian hotels during the communist era, I was a bit apprehensive over what I’d find at our lodgings. As it turned out, our hotel was very nice with helpful and friendly staff. Included with our room was breakfast, which I thought it would be continental style with perhaps pastries and fruit juice. The next morning when I entered the restaurant, I was pleasantly surprised to discover we were getting a full English breakfast with a sumptuous buffet including eggs, French toast, bacon, all sorts of fruits and so much more. Capitalism has certainly improved Russian hotels!  

The Hermitage and St. Isaac’s

After breakfast, Maria arrived to escort us to the Hermitage. It was close enough that we did not need Vladimir and the car. A half hour of walking up the Neva River, we arrived at the Hermitage.

Once the Winter Palace of the czars, now it is an art museum that rivals the Louvre in Paris in the number of treasures within. Our Maria remained with us until about 2 p.m., showing us some of the more famous works of art before leaving us to explore on our own. Later just outside the Hermitage, we boarded a boat for a trip along some of St. Petersburg’s canals. The commentary was in Russian of which neither Ingrid nor I understood a word, but we did enjoy the scenery and consulted maps to learn what we were seeing.  

Not far from the Hermitage is St. Isaac’s, its golden dome visible throughout St. Petersburg. We got in line to buy our entry permits to the church, but after patiently waiting with only one person left before us, suddenly the attendant made an announcement in Russian and all the folks waiting started to crowd toward the ticket window. We had to fight to maintain our place in line, but finally we had our tickets and proceeded inside. What the announcement was all about we never did figure out. Perhaps they’d sold their quota of tickets for the day.

The most interesting part of St. Isaac’s is the climb up into the golden dome. Here are excellent views of the city far below. The dome was painted green during World War II as camouflage, and afterwards the paint stripped off. There still are flakes of green visible upon the gold. The communists had removed the cross atop the dome during their rule, but now it has been restored, and worship again takes place within the church.   

Next to St. Isaac’s is the Astoria Hotel built over a hundred years ago before the Russian Revolution. Now back in full operation, this hotel is the most expensive in St. Petersburg.

Ingrid and I decided to try out its bar. Drinks came with a huge platter of pupus, which turned out to be a meal in itself. I noticed on the bar menu that they offered absinthe, and never having drank this liqueur decided to give it a try.

When I ordered it, the bartender herself came over and asked how I wanted it prepared. She gave me the option of “the Russian way” and so I thought since I’m in Russia, let’s have it that way. Apparently not many folks order absinthe, because the entire bar staff gathered round as she prepared my drink. Twice she lit it afire while twirling the goblet over another one filled with water, apparently to keep it from getting too hot during the flaming.

Then she poured the liqueur into another glass with a small amount of lemon juice. Though some of the alcohol had been consumed by the flame, the drink was still quite powerful. It took the long walk back to our hotel to completely clear my head.

Peterhof

The next morning Maria met us with Vladimir and the car, and we set off for Peterhof, the summer palace built by Peter the Great. It is located a long ways outside the city, and it took nearly an hour to get there.  

The Germans occupied Peterhof during the war and nearly completely destroyed it, but the Russians had removed the furnishings and upon the war’s end rebuilt the palace and brought what they’d hidden away back. Even more impressive than the palace though were the gardens with their impressive gold fountains.

Everyone who comes to Russia buys those matryoshka dolls (nesting dolls within a doll), and I bought a set at the Peterhof’s museum gift shop. When I got mine home to Kaua‘i I opened them up and pulled out six dolls in decreasing size, but after a few weeks I discovered three more within what I thought was already the tiniest.

We left Peterhof by boat rather than drive all the way back to St. Petersburg. With Maria now gone, we decided to do a bit of exploration on our own. We headed to the Fortress of Peter and Paul. Here was where political prisoners of the czar were held. The prison is now a museum, and outside the cells were signs letting visitors know the history of the various people imprisoned here. I found it hard to have too much sympathy for any of these folks as these were the people who ultimately overthrew the czar and ushered in one of the most brutal and sadistic regimes of the 20th century. In hindsight, the czarist government was too lenient on them.

The highlight of the fortress is the Cathedral of Peter and Paul. Here are buried nearly all of the czars from Peter the Great onward. Even the last czar, Nicholas II, has finally been entombed here. In the 1990s after the Soviet regime collapsed, a team of forensic experts used DNA testing to positively identify the remains of Czar Nicholas and his family from the mass grave in which the Bolsheviks had cast them after they had been cruelly murdered. These royal remains were then reburied with honors in a special room in the cathedral, and the Orthodox Church declared Nicholas a saint. Hmm. St. Nicholas? Doesn’t he deliver presents at Christmas?

St. Petersburg at night

We had tickets that evening to attend a folk concert, and to get there we decided to take the Metro from the nearest station at the Fortress of Peter and Paul. It was quite cheap, only about 41 rubles or not much more than a buck. Unfortunately all the signs are Cyrillic Russian lettering, which can be rather confusing. We ended up at the wrong stop, and when we emerged from the subway we were just outside St. Isaac’s church, a long ways from our concert. Rather than re-enter the Metro, we decided it was much easier to simply walk the rest of the way.   

After the concert with its traditional Russian dancing and singing, Ingrid returned to the hotel, but I wanted to see St. Petersburg during the night. As it never gets dark in the summer that far north (the famous Russian White Nights) I stayed up beyond midnight and watched them open the drawbridges. One has to be careful in St. Petersburg at night not to get trapped on the wrong side of the bridges as nighttime is when ship traffic moves on the rivers and canals. With the bridges open it can become impossible to return to your hotel.  

Summer Gardens

Our final day in St. Petersburg I walked down to the Summer Gardens where Peter the Great built a small house in which to live while the Hermitage palace was built. These gardens are similar to the ones at Peterhof only smaller but also with plenty of golden fountains. I got caught in a sudden summer storm and had to run all the way back to our hotel in the rain and abandon my original plan to walk back along some of the canals. It was all for the best though as that gave us plenty of time to get back out to the ferry landing and exit customs before 3 p.m. Failure to exit by then would have had dire consequences with a huge fine.  

Because of the limits on our visa, the ferry line allowed us to board first since we had to clear customs before 3 p.m. We were the very first aboard and again had the ferry to ourselves. It wasn’t long though before the rest of the other passengers began to board, and that evening we sailed onwards to Helsinki, our Russian adventure now at an end.