From Russia With Love

Wow. Bet no one ever used that one before when coming here... So, I've started a week holiday in Russia and thanks to the modern marvel of the crackberry, I can blog remotely. Sweet, huh? We're visiting St. Petersburg and Moscow.

I'm travelling with my friends Margot and Kim (from London, same gals I go everywhere with)and Molly, who flew from NYC to join us (so she'll be the most tired with an 8 hour jetlag).

We arrived Saturday to St. Petersburg (formally known as Petrograd and Leningrad for short periods of time), which was once the capital of Russia. We left London around 10:30am and arrived here at 7pm last evening. We checked into our hotel (in the city center), got settled, and then took a  long stroll around the city center on our way to dinner.

St. Petersburg is a nice city. Peter I, who founded the city (hence its name) had a real love for the great cities of Europe of the time and their architecture, so St. P's was designed very much with a European sensibility in mind and it shows. Wide boulevards lined with grand buildings in varied shades of pastels and grays are criss-crossed by a series of wide canals and rivers (65ish to be exact), also lined  with attractive architecture. The canals surprise me -- I wasn't expecting to see so many here. However, St. P's is made up of about 44 little islands, which explains all the waterways.

We walked past the amazing Church of the Saviour on Spilt Blood. Ok, gross name, but gorgeous place. I can't attach pictures from the crackberry, but look it up online...you've likely seen pictures, but if not, it's exactly what you'd expect a Russian cathedral to look like...several onion-shaped domes in different vibrant colours (all made by Faberge), covered in all sorts of elaborate mosaics and designs. The domes DO look like soft-serve icecream cones with sprinkles and they DO make me want dessert.

Dinner was...interesting. We asked the hotel people where to go for typical national cuisine. And of course, being the clueless tourists we clearly look like, they sent us to a fitting venue. The restaurant was called Demidoff. The interior was cozy and posh and the waitstaff very friendly. It was pricey, but everything had English translations. The food was tasty (although so far I've noticed everything's a bit salty here). Then the gipsy band started. Dancers, singers, musicians. Oh my God, they were loud. There was a tap dancer too who I would say was a cross between a Broadway musical and Riverdance. At one point, we were all shushed by the lead gipsy woman so she could sing a very romantic ballad of love to a man at the table next to us. There was also a lovely tall blonde girl whose job it was to dance with all the male patrons. She was very busy. Especially with the table of 8 crazy loud and drunk Italians sitting next to us. They were a group of 4 men and 4 women all in their 50s and maybe 60s. When the gipsy band finished their second set, one of the Italian men went to the piano and started playing. Then, he and another one of the women started singing together (they were not very good singers, although the man on the piano played well.) They were dancing, they were laughing, they were doing shots, toasting and coming around to our table and the other two tables in the room to toast us (although they did not share their vodka). Our initial instinct was to be highly annoyed by them, but it just wasn't possible to maintain. They were too funny...we were all snickering by the end of the night.

The rounded vaulted cielings in the room made for some crazy acoustics, as I spent most the dinner distracted because I could hear the couple sitting across the room from us as if there was a microphone at their table pumped directly into my ear. Even with the band of gipsies and drunk Italians I could hear them. The guy was English and the girl was Russian. And let's just say I think he may have come to Russia on a shopping trip for a bride and was conducting the interview (he seemed very boring though, I hope she decided no). But I learned today that the women in Russia outnumber men 3-1, so it's understandable why a girl may need some outside options here.

We sampled some yummy vodkas, my favorite being a honey pepper variety. I like the little crystal glasses they serve it in. I think most of us had fish to eat, along with some yummy blinis with smoked sturgeon and black caviar.

We knew no one would have the time or energy to figure anything out for ourselves for this trip before we left (and hello, it's Russia, not a stroll through Paris where we can at least recognise the alphabet), so we let a travel agent specialising in Russia book everything for us. And boy was THAT a good move. Our tour guide in St. P's is named Olga. She and the driver (Valerie, although he is a man and I'm sure I spelled his name wrong) are really sweet. We have our own van and the small private tour we are getting is really great. I used to like figuring everything out for myself and making it all very hard so I could say what a resourceful traveller I am. Forget that dude -- having someone drive you around and tell you what's good to see is totally the right way to go. (Hmmm, perhaps I'll start travelling with my Grams on her senior club coach tours...)

Ok, I'm getting way off track here (and my thumbs are beginning to hurt on this thing). SO, Olga picked us up at 9:30 and we drove out to Catherine's Summer Palace, about a 25 minute drive out of St. P's. This was the summer retreat for Catherine I, wife of Peter I. Her original palace was far more modest than what's there now. But then again, Catherine's beginnings were modest. She is known as “Cinderella” because she was the laundry person for one of Peter's friends. Peter fell in love with her and married her making her the Tsarina of Russia. Nice real-life fairy tale, huh?!

Catherine I's daughter, Elizabeth I was NOT modest though. When the palace became hers, she basically had it torn down and rebuilt to a magnitude of complete  lavishness. Think a slightly  smaller version of Versailles (Peter was pals with Louis XIV of France, so it all makes sense). The whole place is bright blue and inside has 9 solid rooms of gold leaf and mirrors (um, she was a little vain too). It's over the top, and frankly, I think the main hall is more impressive than the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

Another standout attraction is the Amber Room. This is a restored version of the original, a room completely covered in mosaics of pure amber, giving the room a rich  golden effect. The original amber panels were lost to the world though when the Nazis invaded Russia in WWII, took over the palace to house soldiers, tore down all the amber and shipped it all to Germany. It hasn't been seen since (although the Germans did help pay for the room's restoration much, much later).  After the war, the almost completely gutted and looted palace fell into ruin. You should see the pictures of it...an empty crumbling ruin with no roof and snow covering everything inside...almost no trace of the glorious place it once was. But thankfully, the Russian government restored the palace and reopened it 3 years ago as part of St. P's 300 year anniversary celebration. They did an excellent job, the place is magnificent.

After Elizabeth, Catherine II (Catherine the Great) lived in the palace (she ruled the country for 34 years). Her son Paul I had a short reign as Tsar after Catherine died...but he was stangled to death by his adversaries soon after so he didn't have a very long run. His son, Alexander, them became Tsar (he was very popular).

After Catherine's Palace, we had a nice lunch nearby, then went to the summer palace of Paul I (Catherine the Great's son) and his wife Maria (they were good friends of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette). Though not as grand as Catherine's place, this palace is much warmer and more lovely inside, and it's filled with Catherine I's impressive collection of antique sculptures from the 1st and 2nd centuries -- they are scattered throughout. The restored wooden inlaid floors inside this palace are stunning with amazing patterns and colours. Both palaces have them, and you have to put covers over your shoes when you enter so as not to damage them. I've never seen craftsmanship like that before.

In addition to the gorgeous inlaid floors, there is also a porcelain bathroom set that Maria and Paul received as a gift that is incredible. I also took to a beautiful silver vanity and chaise lounge in the bedroom. There are also some impressive paintings in the palaces, including a Reubens in the Paul I palace.

Both palaces are surrounded by lush, beautiful gardens which we spent some time strolling through. It was a gorgeous sunny day, so it was nice to be out in the fresh air among the flowers and ponds and birds.

After the palace tours, we drove back to the city, took a little rest in our rooms and then went out for a walk. We came across river boat tours, so we jumped on one that was an hour long. We cruised up the river and down a couple canals, but it was a bit unpleasant, as we were sitting right in front of the speakers from a which a very loud tour was narrated...completely in Russian. We were all pretty much deaf by the time we got off the boat. But the scenery was at least nice.

After the boat tour, we went to dinner at a Greek place near our hotel. After that, we went to the very posh and swank Astoria hotel for a couple courses of vodka. I started with a Russian Imperial Standard and then had a Russian Imperial Platinum. Delish.

We got back to our hotel about 12:30am. I am in bed now, quite tired from a full day.

I really like Russia so far. The place has a cool vibe and is really a different experience. So far, the people are warm and friendly and it's all going well. Which is good, given that last week, there was a mafia-related bombing at a Moscow market, a Russian airliner crashed, and the day before we arrived, the largest wooden-domed cathedral in the city burned down. (We saw it today, very sad. Most of the church is still there, the dome is just completely gone.). But they say bad things happen in threes, so we should be good now and finished with all the bad stuff. Fingers crossed.