We said goodbye to Leonid and boarded the train in Moscow bound for St Petersburg. It was a fast train and we travelled at up to 220 km/h during the journey.
When we arrived in St Petersburg we were met at the station by our local guide, Natalia. She took us to our hotel, the Astoria, which is right in the heart of St Petersburg directly in front of the magnificent, gold-domed St Isaacs Cathedral, which is the main cathedral of the city. The Astoria itself is a hotel with an incredible history. It was built in 1912 and is the premier hotel in St Petersburg. Russians are continually having their photos taken in front of the hotel. It has an indoor garden called the Winter Garden, which is a marble room covered by an atrium. This room is famous and in 1941 when Hitler’s army surrounded St Petersburg, he sent out invitations for a victory celebration to be held in the Winter Garden. Turns out the siege lasted for 3 years and the Germans never took the city, so Hitler never had his party.
St Petersburg is an elegant city, with brightly coloured mansions and palaces lining the canals of the city, most built in the baroque style. It was built by a Tsar who wanted to change Russia from an Asian country to a European country and so much of the architecture is modelled after European cities and was designed by French or Italian architects.
On our first night Natalia took us to a restaurant named The Tsar for dinner. It was a fantastic meal, which we started with 5 shots of liqueur. One of them was horseradish liqueur which burnt the hell out of my nostrils. We ate stroganoff, potato salad and cabbage rolls, among other things. The toilet was very unusual and was set in an actual throne. So when you’re “sitting on the throne” there, you are actually sitting on the throne!
During our meal Natalia, who was about 35 years old started chatting to us about Russian politics. It was very interesting comparing her views with Leonid’s who was from Moscow. He says Putin is hated and only has 30% approval. She says Putin is loved by everyone. He says Putin is short and surrounds himself with shorter soldiers. She says he is not short and that he is average height. (We googled it, he’s short) She also told us that Gorbachev is hated because he was a weak leader. According to her, nobody wanted the Soviet Union to fall apart. I don’t know, but I’m tipping the Georgians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Belarusians may disagree since they all declared independence as soon as they could.
During our 4 day visit, we toured through three palaces built by the Tsars and Tsarinas of Russia. They were each magnificent, easily rivalling Versailles. Peterhof has 160 fountains in the extensive gardens and Katherine’s Palace a magnificent gold church and the most stunning rooms decorated in amber, marble or gold-leaf. In one of the palaces I was trying to take a brilliant portrait shot and I put my arm up and elbowed a lady in the face. It wasn’t really my fault because her face didn’t warn my elbow that it was sneaking around back there. Anyway, she was pretty good about it and fortunately my camera or elbow weren’t damaged at all, so I forgave her.
The only drawback at the palaces was the crowds. Two of them were so crowded that it was uncomfortable at times. There was almost an all-in brawl in the ladies toilets at Peterhof when a lady tried to push in front of Lidia and beat the queue and then after going about her business, tried to reserve a stall for her friend who was further back still. One of the ladies on our tour rolled up her sleeves and told her what-for so that Lidia could go to the loo.
Two of the palaces were also still under restoration in parts because during Hitler’s siege of the city the Germans occupied them and then laced them with explosives and destroyed them before they left. The Russians have been doing a marvellous job of restoring them and fortunately had the foresight to send most of the furnishings and decorations to Siberia before the Germans could loot them.
We also visited a mansion owned by a Russian oligarch that he has turned into a museum. The museum has some beautiful artworks and artefacts in it, all eclipsed by 9 of the famous Faberge eggs. Seven of them were actual eggs commissioned by Russian Tsars as Easter and birthday gifts to their families. Apparently there were 56 royal eggs made in total. 20 of them are in Moscow, 7 in St Petersburg at this museum and the rest all over the world. Unfortunately 7 of them have been lost. They are truly magnificent. Each one is made from coloured enamel with gemstones in them. Inside each one was a surprise, which was usually a jewelled trinket. The Coronation egg, for example contained a jewelled replica of the carriage that carried the Tsar’s wife to her coronation. They are said to be worth about 38 million dollars each.
On the final night of the tour we went out for the mandatory goodbye dinner with the group. The meal was in the Astoria and it was a lovely meal. It was also very interesting to talk to Natalia about life in Russia. She had some funny ideas that reminded me of Australia in the 1950’s, even though she was quite young. Russia is very patriarchal and Natalia believes it is the man’s job to work and the woman’s job to raise the children. Her views on gays and transgenders was also interesting. Apparently it is a common belief in Russia that they should be sent to a hospital for treatment. Very archaic.
We stayed one day longer than our tour and on our last night we booked a night at a palace to see a Russian Folk Show. The palace itself was beautiful and when we arrived they had a string quartet playing while they gave us free champagne and vodka (of course). The show itself was fantastic. They had incredible singers and the dancers were amazing, especially the Cossack dancers who were doing movers we wouldn’t have thought were possible. Towards the end of the first act I got dragged up on stage and had to do the usual puntzy moves so that the crowd could laugh at my expense. This seems to happen to me all the time. At one point my partner marched towards another dancer whose job it was to pretend to kiss me. I had no idea what they were doing and so I bowed to her as she was puckering up and almost headbutted her on the lips.