Monday 13th January 2020 We had an early start for our train journey to Tallinn. As you walk down the platform, the provodnitsa [or provodnik for male] carriage attendants] stand smartly by the entrance to the carriage under their care. Ours was a formidable looking woman who proved, unsurprisingly, to be kind and helpful. Although we were boarding the train at 06:25 it was the sleeper train from Moscow and we found we had a room with two berths, rather than seats. As we had woken early, we did find we were sleepy enough to take a power nap but were woken by our provodnitsa in time for breakfast. There is an hour’s time difference between the two countries so although theoretically we were gaining an hour in our day, the combined border controls and customs checks on each side of the border took around two hours. First, Russian passport control took our passports away then a selection of Russian Customs and Excise staff visited the compartment. One asked us to open our ruck sacks and gave these a cursory glance. Another appeared with a sniffer dog who ignored Matilda’s supply of St Petersburg and Earl Grey tea [you are […]
Russia
Sunday 12th January 2020 The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is predominantly an art gallery and includes the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Hermitage itself and the Hermitage Theatre, as well as the General Staff Wing. Something less like a small, remote dwelling for someone living in religious solitude is hard to imagine. Regular readers will know that our guide had advised us to buy tickets for the Hermitage complex from the General Staff Wing to allow us to jump the queue. However, when we tried to do this, we were told that you could not buy tickets for the whole complex from the General Staff Wing at this time of year. We are sure this would be worth it in the busy summer months however. Fortunately there were only a couple of people in front of us in the queue and we were able to go straight in, once we had deposited our coats in the cloakroom. The entrance is magnificent and sets the tone for what follows. The first exhibition rooms we entered contained a temporary display about Prince Grigory Potemkin. There are paintings, books and documents from Potemkin’s collection, but the most […]
Saturday 11th January 2020 9- St Petersburg was founded on 27 May 1703 by Tsar Peter the Great who had a vision, following visits to the Netherlands and Great Britain, of building Russia’s first European city. It is certainly conceived on a grand scale with wide boulevards, extravagant palaces and vast ceremonial squares. Lying on the River Neva delta, St Petersburg includes over 300 km of rivers, tributaries and canals: Peter apparently originally planned to use boats for transport in the summer months. In winter people would be able to cross the frozen river on foot or by horse and carriage. A temporary bridge would be built each summer. St Petersburg was the capital of the Russian Empire between 1712–1728 and again between 1732–1918: in total around 200 years. Peter II, was crowned at the age of 11, and those acting as regents for the young monarch transferred the capital from St Petersburg or Moscow from 1728 to 1732. Peter II tragically died of small pox on the day planned for his wedding and St Petersburg was subsequently reinstated as the capital of Imperial Russia. It ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Having had our training from Marina […]
Friday 10th January 2020 Before we left the UK we had pre-booked a local guide for four hours for our first morning in St Petersburg to show us round the city – again through London-based Russian travel specialists RealRussia. This is a tactic that we like to use in countries where the languages and scripts are almost totally unfamiliar for us: walking, talking and using public transport but not entering sites helps us to get a feel for a new location. We can then decide the buildings and cultural sites that we want to visit in our own time at our own pace. In his Tour Manager role, Robert has visited many great locations but dislikes being shuffled through at the pace of the guide and prefers to be able to set his own agenda and timeframe. We met Marina in reception and explained the sort of tour we wanted. Marina was both very knowledgeable and happy to accommodate our requests and it was a pleasure to spend the morning with her walking around the sights and learning more about this fantastic city. First we asked for a lesson in using the Metro and Marina took us to buy tokens […]
Thursday 9 January 2020 We left Helsinki on the 10:00 Allegro service to St Petersburg in bright sunshine. This would have been a much better day to visit the Suomenlinna Fortress: what a difference the weather can make. Shortly after departure we were offered a choice of fish, meat or vegetarian meal, with fruit juice and either a brownie or a yoghurt [see Dish of the day]. Many people, including Robert, chose to eat this immediately but it seemed more like lunch than breakfast so Matilda saved hers for later and thought of the myriad school children on a trip who eat their packed lunch almost before the coach has passed out of the school gate. We were in first class and so could help ourselves to unlimited water, tea or coffee from a refreshment station in the middle of the carriage. The Allegro train is a purpose-built, high speed Alstrom Pendolino [tilting] train: top speed 140mph. These trains are purpose-built because they need to cope with two different voltages on the Finnish and Russian train systems, as well as the two different gauges of railway track. The journey takes 3 hours and 27 minutes and both customs checks and […]