The Russians are coming; the Russians are coming!

still cruise blogging.... next up,
ST PETERSBURG

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

I'm just about convinced that cruising is the best way to see the Baltic/North Sea/ Scandinavia.  There are downsides, mainly that it's crowded. You can only cruise in Summer and that's when everyone else, crusiers or no, head north.  But the upsides are worth considering.

It's expensive, with a big 'ol "E", to travel in Northern Europe.  It's expensive to sleep and it's expensive to eat, let alone expensive to do things.  (Dinner for two, no wine, at a moderate eatery --easily 100 Euro).  Book the right cruise and cruising can be a good value as you eat and sleep on the boat.    Cruising is also the most hassle free way to see a little snippett of Russia.  Russia requires US citizens to obtain a visa,  an expensive and sometimes a lengthy process. I know people who have done it, but it does require planning and leg work.  If you travel last minute, like we so often do, both of those things can be difficult.  If you cruise into Russia, you do not need a Visa.  The only catch is you *must* disembark with an organized and prearranged excursion/tour. 

When we booked our St Petersburg excursions online, we simultaneously tried to book B into the Nursery, to no avail.  Our philosophy on Europe with little ones is this:  It's not that we don't  do things  b/c of the kiddos, but we almost always do things a little differently with the wee set than we would on our own. We don't plan more than one event each morning and one event each afternoon. We respect lunchtime, pack oodles of snacks, and make sure there is a stroller available come afternoon nap time.  So, that was the plan.  We scheduled museums in the AM (when B's at his best), walking tours in the afternoon when we hoped he'd crash in his stroller, and D quickly volunteered to stay on board with the boys while I went to the ballet.  But, a sprinkling of pixie dust later, turns out the nursery had space for him on our St Petersburg days after all. SCORE! (Though D still begged off the ballet, so the kids wouldn't be up past their bed times.  Took one for the team, he did.)

First up was an afternoon walking tour full of churches, palaces, Russian history, and BRIDES -- lots and lots of brides.  Because St. Petersburg is such a beautiful city, it's a popular destination wedding spot for Russian couples.  Marriage in Russia is still largely a state thing and sprinkled all over the city are wedding halls that seem to function kind of like wedding chapels in Vegas with ceremonies scheduled every 15 minutes in high season.  Apparently summer is high season.  During our three hour walking tour we saw 25 brides and grooms posing for pictures in local parks.  (One of the teenage girls on our tour was keeping track).

St Petersburg is a beautiful beautiful city, but other than an onion-domed church here and there and the magnificent Church of the Spilled Blood , it doesn't really look "Russian".  Peter the Great built St Petersburg, from scratch, out of the marshlands in the 1700s, so it's not a very old city.  Peter was a well-educated, well-traveled man, who loved Amsterdam. Lo and behold, St. Petersburg looks a lot like Amsterdam, more ornate, but with the same general character.

Winter Palace

Every excursion we went on  began with a guided bus ride narrating the sights we passed.  Curiously, not a single guide pointed out any  revolution/communist era sights. They gave us current information concerning demographics and daily life in St. Petersburg, but no 20th century history --at all.  We drove past Lenin's command post, churches used to store/hide huge repositories of art and other  valuables during WW2 when it was clear St. Petersburg would come under siege, and old KGB headquarters, yet the guides said nothing.  When asked directly about life in soviet-era Russia, the guides quickly brought discussion back around to Peter and Catherine's eighteenth  century heyday.  Disney offers lectures before each port of call, providing guests with historical overviews.  I didn't attend any of the lectures --too much other stuff to do. But, fortuitously, the guy who gave the lectures happened to be on our tour, and he filled us in as we drove past.  I'm sure many Russians simply don't know very much(having never been taught) about Russia's embattled past.  Really, what society --anywhere-- wants to highlight again and again the darkest days of their history.  It's not so much that the guides denied Russia's bleak years, they simply had no interest in discussing it.  I would leave it at that.......

Except.....

St Isaacs Cathedral

All of our guides spoke excellent English and all were university  educated.  Two of them were teachers who picked up tours in the busiest tourist   months for extra income.  All were significantly younger than D and I (10 years, give or take).

Hmmm??????

I was 10 when the Cold War started thawing.  I was 15 when the Soviet Union collapsed and  20 when the former Soviet republics  first competed under their own flags in the Olympic games.  That means our guides were babies, preschoolers and  tweens and have spent much of their lives in an, presumably, increasingly "free" Russia.  Consider too that one of the guides explained to us that just like America,  Russia is a large country divided into states because smaller states are easier to control.  Yep, control was her word.  Maybe she meant govern and the word choice got lost in translation? Maybe she's only had a brief primer on American government and  legitimately believes that improving administrative logistics is the main impetus behind statehood?  I realize it could take more than a single generation to undo years of  entrenched thought  and maybe today's Russian tweens (the ones who will be tour guides 15 years from now) have a markedly different perspective,  but I thought the statement telling nonetheless.

Back to touring....

Summer Palace

The next morning, we boarded buses and rode about an hour outside of St Petersburg to Catherine the Great's summer palace.  Palatial is indeed the right word.  Stunning.  We saw the outside of the Winter Palace during our walking tour but didn't go inside.  We chose to tour the inside of the summer palace because of the Amber Room-- an entire room with floor to ceiling Baltic Amber siding.  The current room has been recreated. During the war  the palace was occupied, bombed, and burnt and the siding was not removed for safekeeping.  Presumably there's some Nazi treasure chest somewhere stuffed to the brim with Catherine's amber.

Ballroom -- look at all the people!

As we drove to the outskirts of the city, we learned that 95% of St Petersburg's residents live in apartments and that real estate is expensive, Southern California kind of expensive.  What was not clear is whether there are any subsidized paths to home ownership or whether most Russians in the city rent because that's the affordable way to do it, which of course begs the question:  who exactly owns all the property--corporations, businesses, government or the Russian nouveau riche? 

It happened to be Naval  Day in St Petersburg the morning we went to the palace, so our bus ride back to the boat took close to three hours. We had to wait for parading sailors, cheering crowds, and booming canon as St Petersburg put her naval might on display.  As an outsider how do you see such a display and not call to mind news footage of May Day parades and  tanks rolling through Red Square?  Just another instance how St Petersburg, as an example of both historical and modern Russia, leaves me scratching my head.  I can't shake the feeling that it's a city stuck at a crossroads, a city that wants to be progressive but just isn't sure how. Other than our guides we didn't get to interact with any "real" Russians. We didn't get shoot vodka with a local or breathe any local air, so there's much I didn't get to experience.  Even the performance of Swan Lake  I attended  was scripted for cruise passengers.   Don't get me wrong, it was an AWESOME performance, by a respected Russian ballet company in the oldest theatre in town, but there wasn't a Russian in sight -- by necessary design, I imagine.  After all, what do so many tourists, me included, want to do in Russia? What do they view as the quintessential Russian experience, if not attending the ballet?   It makes sense, then, that the ballet company would simply contract with the cruise lines to fill the theatre with ballet-seeking  passengers. All in all, St Petersburg was my favorite port city of the cruise, so definitely go if life ever hands you the chance.