Back in the USSR

Henrik Mørkved
Sep 26, 2015
3 min read

Well, "back" isn't really the truth as this was my first time, but the title works out.

After winning the betting-competition at work, I booked my trip with the transsiberian/mongolian railroad, and by chance I spoke with my friend from the Antarctica cruise before I booked my flight, and as he was to be in St.Petersburg the days before my trip started, it just felt like the perfect time to go to St.P. But when the day to leave was there, it turned out to be one of these days when things just doesn't work out.

I was woken at 4:15 by an unwanted alarm from google who apparenty has installed a program on my phone that reads my mails and knew I was about to leave for Russia and thus gave me a last warning

to reach public transport. In the middle of the night those services aren't always the best option, and knowing I should leave about an hour later to reach my train I got up anyway and had all too much time to get to the train. At the airport I was first told to go to gate 44, then 42, then 38 and then 46 before they just cancelled the whole flight. This meant an additional 3 hours at the airport, and arrival in St.Petersburg the same amount of hours later. I did arrive in St.P, but my baggage did not. This was stuck in Stockholm, but was to be delivered to my hotel the next day. Of course it wasn't, but at least I called them when we got back at about midnight, and I opted to take a taxi to the airport and back in the middle of the night just to make sure I got it before leaving for Moscow. Lost some sleep, but no doubt the right call as it meant I didn't have to spend my day in Moscow shopping. Well, back to the main story. Getting in to St.P was easily enough, but with limited skills in russian, both written and spoken it did turn out to be a small challenge just finding the hotel. There was a movie being shot more or less right outside, so they driver was unable to get very close, and with the name of the place barely shown anywhere, I somehow went into the backyard of where I thought it should be, and on a stuffed away door, written in kyrillic, I did find it. I'm still a bit amazed I did, but maybe my travelexperience has learnt me something over the years. My friends arrived later the same day, and I met them by the movieset so they didn't need to do the same search as I'd done. After a quick breakfast of some pancakes and yoghurt we headed into the wild with Church of the savior on spilled blood as our first goal. About 1-2km walk and we came to this beautiful church that was built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. We also went back at night to get some nightphotos of the church.

Another small walk of about 1-2km brought us to the main target of the day : The Hermitage. This museum is said to be among the best museums in the world, and after spending several hours there and probably could have spent several more day without getting through everything, I can fully understand why it holds this reputation. More then 3.000.000 invaluable pieces of art gathered in this great palace is truly something spectacular.

A stroll through parts of Nevsky Prospect (the main street and shopping street in St.P) where some of the local waterholes screamed out for us before we got home, and I got the formerly mentioned trip to the airport. Excellent meeting up with Michael from the Antarctica cruise last year, he and his friend Thomas really made the day and stay in St.Petersburg among the better days of 2015.

The next morning there weren't really that much to do, an hour or two walk around the neighbourhood and then off to the trainstation so I can head for Moscow where the main part of the journey starts.

My head wasn't fully there after spending most of the night going to the airport and back, but it still wasn't me (but a very stinky russian) who fell asleep on my shoulder while waiting on the train. When I left to go to my train, he more or less collapsed over both seats, laying in an angle that did not look very comfortable.

The trainstation was easy to find, the trains were easy to find. They were comfortable and the leg to Moscow was smooth.