Days 65/66 - Homeward bound

Hard to know exactly where Day 65 ended and Day 66 started (somewhere over the north-west Indian Ocean) so easiest to just do them together.


We had a relatively leisurely start to the day, packing, having breakfast, updating the blog, etc. We checked out of our hostel at 11:00am and bought a few things at the local minimarket on the way to the Metro. We only had to travel four stops, with one change, to get to the station for the Airport Express train, but all that went smoothly. We caught the 12:00pm train with about 10 minutes to spare, and the 45 minute trip turned out to be less than 40. However it did take 10-15 minutes to get through the security check before we could enter the airport. Again there was no queue so check-in was a breeze.

That left us with about two hours to kill at the airport before our 3:10pm flight. I was actually still not feeling 100% - began to feel a bit off colour late yesterday - but we managed to find a place to sit and eat the sandwiches we had bought for lunch. Then it was time to face the obligatory security check and immigration formalities. Fortunately they were not worried by the fact that we had not registered our visas. (Our first hostel in St Petersburg had told us it was not required for stays of less than seven working days, but our hostel in Moscow seemed not to have heard of this).

I think our plane must have been a bit late arriving from Abu Dhabi because we were a little late getting away. It was one of the smaller Airbus models (A320?) with a 3-3 seat configuration and if you ever fly on one try to avoid rows 8, 9 and 10. These rows have seats that do not recline because of their proximity to the emergency exit over the wing. We were actually in Row 8, which was the worst because although we could not recline, the row in front of us could - and did - which left you feeling a bit claustrophobic. Which wasn't helped by the fact that the seats were configured with even less leg room than usual in the first place. Fortunately it was only about a four hour flight from Moscow to Abu Dhabi and we actually arrived on time despite getting away a little late.

Which was just as well since we only had 90 minutes to complete our transfer and we had to go through three security checks. Why they think so many are required for transfer passengers I have no idea. They even confiscated our empty water bottles. All so we could enter a gate lounge that had no access to drinking water or toilets - without having to go back out through two check points. At least by the time we made it we only had about five minutes before our flight started to board, which we only knew because people near the front of the lounge started to line up and go through - we didn't hear any announcement and there was not indicator board we could see.

Our seats for the final leg were much better - two seats together between the window and the aisle with noticeably more leg room. Although we were all boarded on time by 10:00pm we were once again late departing due to traffic congestion. Sadly during this leg I began to feel progressively less well (after my second consecutive airline meal?) to the extent that I eventually did a commendable job of nearly filling a sick bag for the first time in about 35 years. Luckily I had taken the precaution an hour or two earlier of going to the cabin crew station to get some sick bags, because there weren't any in our seat pockets! At least afterwards I immediately started to feel much better and actually managed to get a fairly good amount of sleep thereafter. Which was good news for Laura because when they brought around the "best ice creams I've tasted in a long time" I was asleep so she was able to have both!

Again, despite getting away late our flight actually touched down a little early in Sydney, and with the fancy new Smart Gates for electronic passport holders we were waiting at our baggage carousel in record time. And waiting there quite a while too in the end. However our bags did appear eventually then there was only a short delay getting through customs and we were on our way. No queue for the taxi and we were home just before 8:00pm. The cats were waiting for us and later, after I had been to the shops for some supplies (damn - now I'm trying to change gears with the door handle in a right-hand drive!), they were treated to their first non-tinned cat food in a month.

It has been a fantastic trip but it was still good to be home after nine weeks away, four for Laura, and be able to curl up in a familiar bed for a change.

Day 64 - Meandering around Moscow

This was our last day of the trip so once again the theme was to take it easy and just go with the flow as much as possible. We didn’t sleep in quite as late but by the time we had consumed a hearty breakfast it was nearly 11:00am before we set off.

Space exploration monument

The plan was to walk to the Orange metro line and catch it out to the suburbs to see the All-Russia Exhibition Centre, known by its initials as the VDNKh, which stands for the “USSR Economic Achievements Exhibition”. Just outside the VDNKh there was a museum of Soviet Space Exploration, but since it was a given that there would be nothing in English in any of the displays, and also because it was obviously a favourite destination for school excursions, we decided not to go in. We did, however, check out the quite impressive (and big!) metal sculpture which sits above the museum – a massive stainless steel curve shooting into space with a rocket at the top.

The VDNKh park area is 2kms x 1km and the central boulevard is lined with pavilions that were originally intended to showcase the achievements of the Soviet economic system. Patriotic Soviet style statues also adorned many of the buildings and fountains. From what we could see a number of the pavilions now appear to be unused, and a fair ground has been added to the mix, though of course very little of that was in operation this late in the season. There was a big display of agricultural equipment at the start of the park and so varied was the range of machines on display that even I was not sure what some of them were for. The big plus though was finding that the park was now home to quite a large collection of market stalls. This kept us both entertained for quite some time, especially trying to work out what the large buckets of different food types were exactly. They were definitely popular, anyway, with ladles and scales working pretty well non-stop to serve customers.

Hammer & sickle bearers

On the way up to the VDNKh we had noticed that a monorail connected the Metro station there to a further Metro station on the Grey line, which runs through our “local” station. Since this was a rare opportunity to see a bit more of the Moscow suburbs we decided to try it out. First up we went one stop to the end of the line so we could get a better view of an enormous soviet style statue. Then in order to get a photo of it from the front I exited the station and walked to the other side of the park to take a few shots then come back in. Fortunately the monorail (as per the Metro) only costs about A$0.80 to ride as far as you like, so it was no big deal “wasting” a ticket.

The monorail ride was interesting, though not as smooth or as fast as some others I have been on. We did get a close-up view of some of the suburbs, namely block after block of mostly fairly run-down housing units. I noticed that it seems a lot of the multi-story apartment buildings are between 20 and 22 floors high – each one must house a lot of people.

After the monorail ride (which was packed by the way) we caught the Metro back to base, via a coffee shop for an afternoon tea in lieu of lunch. After a short rest we set off to walk back into the Red Square area to have our last dinner of the trip – ignoring the fact that one of the meals on our flight home will probably count as dinner in whatever time zone we are flying through at the time. We chose the Italian buffer where we had lunch a couple of days ago since it was quick, comparatively inexpensive and tasty.

St Basil's at night

I had brought my tripod with me on this excursion for the express purpose of getting some dusk photos in and around Red Square. Laura people-watched while I spent about 40 minutes taking a range of shots of the different features that were nicely lit up.

Metro ceiling mosaic

Photo project completed we did a bit of a Metro excursion on the way back to the hostel so we could see two of the stations renowned for their artwork. The first was a platform on the Red line which contains 76 bronze figures that celebrate the creation of the socialist world. We noticed that where a statue included the figure of a dog the dog’s nose was clean and shiny as a result of passing passengers rubbing it for luck, which many were doing at the time. The other station we saw was a series of beautiful arches. The ceiling was decorated with a couple of dozen mosaics of various Soviet themes, some of them quite colourful. Then it was back to our hostel, noting along the way the station where we will have to change trains tomorrow on our trip to the airport.

We have had an enjoyable time here in Moscow, although two things we will not miss is the constant exposure to cigarette smoke on the streets and the sight (and sound) of people spitting on the footpath.

Day 63 - Plans A, B and C

Having already covered most of the “big ticket” items we wanted to see in Moscow, we decided to take today at an easier pace – after all this is meant to be about having a holiday too, not just about travelling. Thus after a sleep in, a late breakfast, and chatting for a while to a couple who have been seven months on the road out of Australia it was about noon before we headed out.

After getting some stamps at the Post Office we walked to the Museum of the Revolution, hoping to add some more recent history to our constant exposure to the history of Imperial Russia. Unfortunately we found out that museum contained very little information in English and a guided tour in English cost A$60 for a maximum of four people. Even if there has been two other people there willing to split the cost it just seemed way to extortionate, so we scrapped that idea and set our sights on Plan B.

Plan B was to go check out the Damslovsky Markets near Tverskoya station. It was a simple four stops on the metro from where we were, although the last stop seemed to be especially long even by Russian standards. We were distracted for a while checking out the big shopping centre when we got there before we went looking for the Markets. The sad news there was that despite looking all around the monastery that the markets were supposed to be behind we couldn’t find them anywhere. (Though we later found out that the monastery which we saw is actually the headquarters of the Orthodox Church in Russia). So roll on Plan C.

Melnikov's House

Plan C was to catch the Metro back to the centre and go for a stroll down the pedestrian street Arbat, which is supposed to be alive with buskers and artists – as well as lined with coffee shops and tacky souvenir stalls. By the time we made it there a lot of the stalls selling pictures were packing up but there were still plenty of people about. Along the way we saw the unusually shaped house of brick and plaster built by Konstantin Melnikov in the late 1920s. At the other end we had a look at one of the spired buildings referred to as Stalin’s Seven Sisters – this one housed the Foreign Ministry and reminded us of the building in the Ghost Busters movie. On our way back up Arbat we stopped to see a busker start his routine. We couldn’t understand his patter of course but he did things like walk and do push-ups on freshly smashed glass, stand on a bed of nails, and stick a six inch nail up his nose. For his finale he had a member of the audience lie on the ground with a banana tucked into the waist of his pants then swinging a samurai sword to cut the banana in half without touching the guy’s stomach.

The busker's finale

By now dusk was approaching so we walked up to Red Square to see what it looked like under lights. The GUM department store was light up a bit like a Christmas tree, but the St Basils certainly looked good. We also checked out a display of excellent National Geographic photos that were setup on display in the square outside the State Museum of History.

We opted to walk back to the hostel, stopping at the local super market to buy some sandwiches for dinner – somehow it felt like we hadn’t done enough walking around to warrant a big dinner.

Day 62 - Lenin and Kremlin

Today was our day to look at things in and around the Kremlin, so the fact that it was drizzling lightly most of the morning and part of the afternoon didn’t affect us nearly as much as it would have on a day such as yesterday.

To start the day we caught the Metro down to Red Square and joined the queue to see Lenin’s Mausoleum, which opened today from 1:00am to 1:00pm and which, unlike just about everything else in Moscow, is free. I guess the weather and the fact that it is non-peak tourist season helped ensure that the queue was not too long. We were allowed past the barrier in groups of 20 or so to walk up to the security checkpoint. Here all backpacks and cameras had to be deposited in a left luggage facility (requiring payment) before you passed through metal detectors. I had made the mistake of forgetting to include my phone with the left luggage but, because it has a camera in it, I had to go back and check that in too. Fortunately a group of Aussie blokes let me go back to the head of the security check line so I could catch up with Laura (waiting was not permitted). The protocol for visiting the Mausoleum is that after you have enter the downstairs room where Lenin’s body is on display, you have to keep moving as you walk around three sides of the glass case, you cannot stop and have a long look. From my viewing I would have to say that Lenin as displayed appears a damn sight healthier than he did in his final years of life. Some have said that he looks like a wax model, but although his skin didn’t look “normal” I couldn’t say that it looked waxy either. After passing through the Mausoleum you walk along the Kremlin wall where you can see the burial place of scores of other notables from the Soviet era – Premiers, Generals, etc, most of whom (apart from the obvious ones like Stalin) we couldn’t recognise from the Cyrillic script or the sculpture busts.

History Museum from St Basils

It was still only 10:50am and St Basils Cathedral, which we planned to see next, didn’t open until 11:00am. This left me plenty of time to go back and collect my pack and camera – especially since the manned barricades meant that this involved going right around the State History Museum to get back to the left luggage point. At least that meant that by the time we made it back to St Basils it was open and we were able to buy our tickets and go in for a look around. It is hard to say anything much about the insides that couldn’t be said about most of the Orthodox churches we have seen in the last couple of weeks. Very high walls with every inch covered in murals and/or mosaics. Parts of the insides are still being restored, but the parts that have been restored look very good. Also very good – amazing even – was the Orthodox “barber shop quartet” in the central chapel who periodically burst into song to render what I guess were Orthodox hymns or chants. The acoustics where beautiful and it was hard to believe that such rich sounds could be produced just by four unaccompanied voices. It was worth the entry just to hear them.

Next on our To Do list was to visit the Kremlin itself. Since the public entry point is on the opposite side of the Kremlin to the side facing Red Square this meant a bit of a walk around the walls. For those who don’t already know, kremlin is the Russian word for fortress, so the Kremlin consists of its wall and guard towers and the numerous churches and other buildings it contains that are, or have been, palaces or the seat of government. On our way around we were distracted for a time in an Italian buffet restaurant where we had a very nice lunch.

When we reached the ticket office for the Kremlin we had some decisions to make. General entry to the Kremlin, which included the churches, cathedrals and grounds, was A$10.50; if we wanted to go up the Bell Tower as well it was an extra A$4.50; and the Armoury, which houses centuries worth of gold and silver treasures was separate again and cost A$21.00 each. The lady in the ticket office, who spoke pretty good English, was a bit concerned on our behalf that the Bell Tower might not be a good option on a day with low, thick cloud. We were concerned on our own behalf that A$21.00 was a lot to pay for the Armoury when we weren’t sure how interested we would be in ornate dinner plates and fancy horse regalia. In the end we decided to go the whole hog and, as it eventuated, it was a pretty good decision.

Old and new Moscow in the skyline

For starters the Bell Tower turned out to be not just a matter of climbing it for the view. It included an excellent audio visual presentation, in English, across three levels inside the bell tower before you reached the viewing platform. This presentation gave the history not only of the bell tower itself but of the whole Kremlin complex from its beginnings. Whilst we could not see a great distance from the top because of the mist we still had a very good view of the buildings within the Kremlin. In all the tour took about 55 minutes.

Our next stop was the Armoury. This included a free Audio Tour in English which takes an hour and takes you around the highlights. You can then spend longer looking at more things in detail if you so wish. I have to say that the highlights, at least those related to the gold and silver ware, are pretty spectacular. This is not only for the craftsmanship, but the sheer size and opulence of the pieces. We were less interested in the weaponry and the clothing sections, but that doesn’t distract from the overall amazing display of treasure on display. Even with all the amazing things we have seen in recent times, including at the Hermitage last Sunday, it was still well worth the entry fee.

The Tsar Bell

With the winter schedule now in effect we had only an hour left to have a quick look around the rest of the Kremlin. Well, that is, the parts of the Kremlin related to Imperial Russia; the parts related to the current and even Soviet government are still off limits. Thus we had a quick look through the Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals and the Church of the Disposition of the Robe. We also had time to check out the 202 tonne Tsar Bell, which had a big chunk fall off as it was just being finished in the foundry. The gardens were closed by the time we were going to walk through them, but we could still get a pretty good view of them so it was no big loss. As we left the Kremlin there was a big crowd of people coming the other way going to see something at the State Concert Hall built in Kruschev’s time – it’s an ugly box like building decorated with the hammer and sickle and Kremlin star, but pretty functional apparently.

We caught the metro back to the hostel, despite some more confusion about which platform we should be on. After a short rest we headed out again for dinner, ending up at a place along Petrovsky Boulevard.

Day 61 - Moscow on foot

Our day started a little earlier than usual, when our Russian railway breakfast was delivered at 6:30am. The porridge that was part of my breakfast was OK, but Laura wasn’t too keen on the “Shepherd’s Pies” that came with hers. Our train pulled in on time at 7:15am when we were still sorting out the directions for reaching our hostel, “Godzillas”. As a result we were the last ones to leave our carriage, and I think our “cabin steward” was getting a little impatient for us to be gone.

With our experience of the St Petersburg Metro behind us we figured it would be a pretty simple matter getting to Godzillas, but we hadn’t reckoned on one significant difference – the Metro signs in Moscow do not repeat station names in Roman script as well as Cyrillic. This caused a bit of uncertainty as we had to look at signs long and carefully to work out which way we should be going. Still we managed to find our way without getting lost and at least this time the hostel hadn’t overbooked or lost our booking. We could check-in, but couldn’t move into our room until 2:00pm, so we deposited our luggage in storage and Laura made some plans for the day while I tried unsuccessfully to get my Notebook to work on the hostel’s WiFi network. After ten countries in two months this is only the third time I have encountered this problem, but at least the other two occasions were in places I was only staying for one night. It will be a real bumma if I can’t get some WiFi access somewhere for the remainder of the trip. One thing we would like to have checked online immediately was whether we needed to register our visas as part of our stay in Russia. We were told by hostel staff in St Petersburg that new regulations now applied, and as we were staying in Russia less than seven working days, visa registration wasn’t required. However, the receptionist here advised us it was still necessary for any stay longer than 24 hours. As it cost 600 roubles each and involved a lot of paperwork we didn’t want to go through the process unless it was definitely required.

St Basil's in Red Square

It was about a 20 minute walk to Red Square so we opted to walk there in the brisk morning air. Given the gazillion people who were travelling on the Metro this morning it seemed strangely underpopulated. I guess the early morning commuters were all ensconced in nice warm offices somewhere. The fact that St Basil’s Cathedral didn’t open until 11:00am and Lenin’s Mausoleum didn’t open at all today (as we realised a little later) meant that there probably wasn’t a lot of reason for the bus and half of tourists who were there to be about either.

We went in search of the Tourist Office that was listed as being nearby but could find no trace of it and so we adjourned to a coffee shop in the GUM shopping centre to read some of the guide notes and make plans for the day. Some of you may remember the image of GUM department stores (Gosudarstvenny Universalny Magazin = State Department Store) in Soviet times as being grim shops with not much on offer and long queues for anything that was. The GUM of today is like a bigger and more expensive version of Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building, with over 2,000 individual stores selling all kinds of high fashion and luxury goods.

Since the Lenin Mausoleum was shut today and it made logistical sense to tour the Kremlin the same day we saw the Mausoleum, we decided to skip the Kremlin area altogether for today. Instead we decided to do a self-guided 10km walking tour described in the Lonely Planet guide, because although it was a bit cool it was at least dry and the forecast for the next few days was less promising. The listed walk started from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which was only a kilometre or so away, and it didn’t take us all that long to get there along the river. We even started to see some little patches of blue sky along the way.

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

By the time we reached the cathedral with its five gold domes (of the Orthodox onion shaped variety) the building was bathed in sunlight and the weather was starting to look seriously better. Crossing the adjacent footbridge onto Bolotny Island in the middle of the Moscow River also provided a nice panorama of the Kremlin which was by now also light up by sunlight. On Bolotny Island we made our way to a little park which features a sculpture called “Children are Victims of Adult Vices”. This sculpture consists of 13 statues which depict the ways in which the actions of adults impact the safety and welfare of children around the world. I will list at the bottom of this blog entry the thirteen vices in case you want to see how many you can guess.

Peter the Great

Continuing along the river we arrived opposite the imposing but controversial sculpture of Peter the Great. At 94.5m high it is twice the size of the Statue of Liberty and has been dubbed “Peter the Ugly” by locals, who don’t know why they should be celebrating a Tsar who moved the Russian capital to St Petersburg.

We were now at the Art Muzeon Sculpture Park, and despite Laura’s suspicion that the “tourist entry fee” was about three times that for locals we decided to enter anyway in the hope that it would at least be better than the last open air sculpture park we saw (see Day 50). Well, we were not disappointed this time. As well as the promised selection of discarded Soviet era statues of Lenin and Stalin, and monuments to workers, etc, there was a very good selection of more contemporary items, which we quite liked. Moving on, a pedestrian underpass brought us to Gorky Park, famous (to us at least) for the William Hurt/Lee Marvin movie of the same name. Since it was now past the 30 September deadline that seems to be the cutover date for Summer to Winter schedules, the park was largely deserted despite that fact that it was by now a glorious sunny day. Almost all the food stalls were closed and the amusement park attractions all mothballed for the season. Even the still blooming flowers were being ripped out of the flower beds by the park’s gardeners. Nevertheless the park was quite pretty and we could see why it would be a big summer attraction.

Fortunately at the other end of the park we found a Subway stall that was open, because it was by now well past lunch time and our tummies were letting us know it. We let a local family go ahead of us while we sorted out what we were going to have. We couldn’t understand why they then just stood around in the shade right next to the stall to eat instead of moving to sit on a bench in the sun next to the river as we did. Far more pleasant, on every level.

Feeding ducks in Neskuchny Sad

The next stage of the walk along the river took us into the Neskuchny Sad, which apparently translates as “Not so boring garden”. It was actually a very lovely wooded area, and certainly not so boring at one stage in particular. We came across an area amidst the trees where two marquees with wooden floors had been set up, one with a big pile of what looked like dirt in the middle, and with the area cordoned off by something like police tape. It was being “guarded” by at least half a dozen snappily dressed young men all wearing fawn trench coats, trilby hats and ear pieces. Two ping-pong tables stood within the cordoned off area and a couple of games were being played by guys dressed as labourers. We weren’t sure if we had stumbled across some film noir set or some nefarious Russian Mafia function, so curious as we were we opted not to linger to find out.

After the “not so boring garden” came a recently created ecological reserve, but as we were starting to feel a bit leg weary by now we opted to continue along the river front rather than detour up through the nature walks. We were hoping that when we reached the chair lift up to the panoramic views offered from Universitetskaya Place we would find that it bucked the trend of things which shutdown for the season on 30^th September. Alas it was not to be, and we had to get up to the lookout area the old fashioned way.

Panorama of Moscow

I would have to say that the hard slog was worth it though because the view was really good. For starters it was a perfectly cloudless day, the sun was getting low in the sky behind us, and many of the trees before us were clad in autumn colours. The main stadium from the 1980 Moscow Olympics was just across the river and we could see just how far we had walked from the Kremlin in the distance. No wonder we felt tired.

Once we had taken in the view we made our way back down the hill to the Metro station we had passed a little earlier and caught the train back to our hostel. Once again the absence of names in Roman script at the station where we had to change lines confused us for a little while but we sorted it out in the end. Too tired to go out again we bought some supplies from the little supermarket near the hostel and had a very nice chicken salad for dinner. Afterwards we had a long chat with a young Irish chap about non-rugby topics; mostly about his experience of having been in Moscow for a week, also struggling with the metro, but mostly looking at Orthodox Christian iconography as part of a post-graduate Arts scholarship.

The 13 Vices: Drug addiction, Prostitution, Theft, Alcoholism, Ignorance, Irresponsible science, Indifference, Propaganda of violence, Sadism, For those without memory, Child labour, Poverty, War.

Day 60 - Museums of St Petersburg

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After a nice breakfast at our third hostel in as many days we packed up and moved our gear to the left luggage facility at the railway station in readiness for tonight’s train trip to Moscow.

Church interior

To save our legs a little we caught the metro for the one stop from Mayakovkovskaya to Gostiny Dvor and walked from there to the Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood, since unlike last night it was now open for inspection. We splurged on an Audio Tour as well and Laura and I shared the earpieces as we went around the church. It was interesting to get more information about how the church was built and decorated, though we did start to glaze over at the detail about the Orthodox religious symbolism in some of the images. During the Soviet times the building was used mainly for storage, although it also became a morgue at various times. By the time it was decided (around 1970) to restore it to its former glory there was considerable damage to be repaired. In fact it took longer to restore than it took to build in the first place, 27 years as against 24. Mind you the intricate mosaic work that covers all the walls and ceiling is not something that you can exactly knock off in a weekend.

Little shack called The Winter Palace

Once we finished that we thought, since we were in the general vicinity and despite the fact that it was such a glorious sunny day outside, we might as well pop around and have a quick look at this other museum some of you may have heard of. It’s called The Hermitage and is housed in a modest little abode called The Winter Palace. There was a bit of a queue (naturally) and even one of the locals started to get a bit narky about how long it was taking for us to get in (I would love to have been able to understand the protracted argument he had with one of the security guards). However get in we eventually did and after the obligatory visit to check not only my backpack but both our coats as well, we were finally into the museum proper.

The first thing you see is the renowned Jordan Staircase, with its white marble, large windows, mirrors and gold painted fittings. It was certainly an impressive start to a tour of an impressive collection of paintings and objects d’art all of which are housed in a palace that is in its own right an artistic splendour. I could have taken a couple of hundred photos just of the palace interior, but it doesn’t take long to realise that you are just never going to be able to do it all justice anyway, so you might as well save the space on your memory card. Parts of the museum are just the preserved (or restored) rooms of the palace itself and some are home to the many works of art spanning the years from the 14^th century through to the 20^th. Obviously it would take way more than a day to see everything so we confined ourselves to the key things we were interested in plus some of the notable highlights of the collection. For us this meant the palace rooms, some works by Leonardo Da Vinci, Rubens and Raphael, and the 20^th century paintings. Of course with the palace being as large as it is it can be confusing navigating your way around, especially when you want to jump from one floor to the next and you have to find the one set of stairs you are allowed to use to do so. I know that we went through one room with its magnificent chandelier at least three times!

However all good things must come to an end and with at least one more museum beckoning today we finally left in search of the next item on our list. Feeling a bit peckish we indulged ourselves in an ice cream as we strolled along in the bright sunny weather – wondering how often people get to do this in St Petersburg in October!

We had no trouble finding the State Museum of the History of St Petersburg, with its detailed section on the 900 day siege during WWII - or “The Great Patriotic War” as WWII seems to be referred to as here. Of course all the displays were only in Russian, but at least for the siege there was an English guide book that described the events and what each of the 25 rooms was about. So although it was still interesting it would have been nice, for example, to read translations of the letters written by children during the siege. I am sure we were the only ones there until the very end when a group came in as we were leaving.

By now it was nearly 5:00pm and we figured it was high time we had some lunch, so we walked back to an eatery on the main street, Nevsky. We took our time over “main course” and “desert” so that I could use their free WiFi to upload a blog entry and Laura could read up on what was still available for use to do to fill in five or six hours until our 11:00pm train.

It was after 6:00pm when we set of to walk across to the other side of the river. We had seen and read a lot about Imperial Russia in our time here but almost nothing about the events pre-1917 which precipitated the October Revolution, an event which changed both Russia and the world. So once on the other side of the river we walked to the Museum of Political History that was housed in the first headquarters of the Bolsheviks. It was closed by now of course but at least we were able to see the balcony from which Lenin used to address the masses. Moving on we came to the Finland Railway Station (because that’s where trains to Finland leave from) because it was from the square in front of the station, now called Lenin Place, that Lenin climbed onto a truck and addressed a crowd when he returned from exile in 1917. There is a long fountain between the statue of Lenin and the train station and at 8:00pm we were surprised to see the start of a sound and light show that involved Russian singing and an animated fountain “dance”, on a smaller scale to the sort of thing you see at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas (if you’ve ever been there).

We’re not sure how long it went on for because after about 15 minutes we decided to head off to the next thing on our agenda, which was to see the Museum of Erotica. Not because it sounded particularly enticing from the guide book, but because it was supposed to be open until 10:00pm. We couldn’t find it anyway as it happened, but at least looking for it filled in some time. From there we decided to walk the one Metro stop back to the square in front of the train station and then find somewhere nearby to have a late dinner. Once we had done that it was just after 10:00pm so we walked back to the station and sorted out exactly where our train left from before collecting our gear from the Luggage Storage room.

Our train was already at the platform and we were safely aboard by 10:35pm and getting ready to have lights out as soon as possible after we were underway. No double bunk this time, just two singles separated by a little table; but no little washbasin nor a shower at the end of the carriage as there had been on the Prague to Krakow train. We were a bit worried by the suggestion that our chosen breakfast could be delivered as early as 5:45am though. The train pull out exactly on time and after our long day we had lights out very soon afterwards.

Day 59 - Catherine's Palace

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I had given up hope of finding any way to watch the Rugby World Cup game between Australia and Russia live (even the Irish Pub I asked in said they don’t get that channel because Rugby is not that big here) as it seemed unlikely that any sports bar would be open at 6:30 in the morning regardless. Nor had I been able to find a web site with a free stream of the match, and I doubted that my Netbook would cope with it on a WiFi connection anyway. Therefore I didn’t worry about getting up early to follow the progress of the match and contented myself with reading all about it after the event. At least I didn’t end up downing shots of vodka while watching it with a bar full of locals!

The result was that we got away to a rather slow start this morning, and without our hostel offering a breakfast we did so pretty much on an empty stomach. Finding our third hostel in as many nights was a bit of an ordeal with our initial excursion on the Metro heading in the wrong direction (only for one stop) and then the approximate location of our hostel as indicated on a map by the Tourist Centre person being the wrong side of Vosstaniya Square. So by the time we had found it, hauled our gear up four flights of stairs and checked in it was nearly midday. We had decided to take the trip a little out of town today to see Catherine’s Palace, so we opted to walk back to Nevskiy Metro station so we could find a suitable place for brunch/lunch on the way.

Suitably fortified we caught the blue line Metro from Nevskiy to Moscovskaya and transferred to a #187 bus to take us the 30 minutes to Pushkin where Catherine’s Palace is located. We were off to a false start on the bus when we unwittingly caught a #187 going in the wrong direction but the helpful conductor lady managed to get the message across OK despite not knowing a word of English. It certainly was a fairly long trip and a Russian couple who were headed there too made sure we hopped off at the right place. It was still a fair hike from the bus stop though.

State Room in Catherine's Palace

Even once we reached the palace it wasn’t immediately obvious how we were supposed to get in for a tour thereof. Eventually we worked out we had to buy a ticket to get us into the palace grounds and then go into the palace itself and buy another ticket for a tour of that. Once we had done that we found that we couldn’t actually enter until we had left my backpack and our coats at the cloak room (the backpack I can understand, but where they really that worried we’d get too hot walking around in our coats?). We had to don disposable covers for our shoes but there were no guided tours in English so we just started browsing through at our own pace. The ornate gilding and mirrors in the ballroom and various state rooms were extraordinary, all the more so considering that they pretty much had to be rebuilt from scratch after the extensive damage sustained during WWII. We did catch up with a group that had an English speaking guide at one stage, but after a couple of rooms she asked if those who were not part of the private tour could please move on ahead or wait behind as the rooms were small. We think she meant us! At least we learnt some interesting things in the brief time we were with the tour.

View of Palace grounds

We completed the tour at our own pace, including a look at the photos of how the Palace looked immediately after the war, then adjourned outside to explore the extensive palace grounds. We wandered far and wide for about an hour, taking in the various views. Even though it was a rather grey and overcast day the autumn colours in the leaves were just beautiful, which set off the various scenes nicely. Once we had completed our circuit it was approaching 5:00pm, and also approaching time we had a little more to eat, so we made our way back to the exit and bought some snacks from a street vendor. Then it was just a hike back to the bus stop and a #187 bus back to the Metro station.

Memorial centrepiece

Before hopping on the Metro we backtracked a few hundred metres to have a look at the Memorial to the victims of the 900 day blockade of St Petersburg during WWII. Over 1,000,000 Russians died during the blockade. Just to put that in perspective, the entire Allied casualties during WWII were only 750,000. St Petersburg didn’t reach its pre-war population again until the early 1960s. Of course the display hall itself was closed by now but the monument itself – built in true Soviet proportions – was none the less impressive.

On our walk back to the Metro I noticed a large supermarket so we popped inside for some supplies. As it happened they had a nice deli section so we ended up getting some supplies for a “home cooked” dinner we could have at the hostel, as well as some things for breakfast. Bonus! Since our “home” metro station happened to be right next to the train station from where we have to catch our sleeper to Moscow tomorrow night, we also called in to check out the left luggage facilities and cost.

Once back at out hostel it was quite nice to have a meal “in” for a change, and all the little local delicacies we had picked out from the deli turned out to be delicious.