bittersweet melancholies

while on the phone with peter a few nights ago, he asked about my russian pictures. so after much procrastination, here they are!

massive picture overload..

Russia, part 1: St. Petersburg.

Russia. there is something about this motherland that has made me want to visit it ever since i was a kid. could've been the cute Matryoshka dolls. perhaps the colourful domes of the Church of Spilled Blood and the St. Basil's. or the hairy Russian Orthodox Priests. maybe the literature that accompanies this country, weathered by cold, hardships, dictators which has thus produced a fiercely strong and rather resilient people.

coming to Russia from Finland was a big change. we had a 6h train ride, in the same carriage with a group of noisy taiwanese tourists. at Vainikkala, the Finnish border, i received my EU outgoing stamp and at the Russian border, Vyborg, our passports were collected and then returned after the officials were done stamping. a rather tense moment as all doors were shut (including the toilets!), officials at every entrace and we had to stay put in our seats.

it wasn't long till we were in St. Petersburg itself, figuring out the cyrillic, getting pushed around by locals and the smell of stale alcohol permeating in the air. we then searched for the metro station to get to our hostel. the escalator went on forever. people with vertigo - beware!

below, the soviet-built metro system is as beautiful as every guide book says. random statues, plaques, paintings all depicting the triumphant Bolsheviks of the October Revolution in 1917.

after a short journey, we arrived in the middle of Nevsky Prospekt. the famous artery of St. Petersburg. Thomas was thrilled to be "walking in the footsteps" of Raskulnikov (Crime and Punishment) and after a few tries, we reached our little hostel, situated in a rather quiet residential area.

the Nevsky Prospekt..

we headed out after abandoning our backpacks in our rather spacious but dull and drab room. first up: the Tikhvin cemetry to visit our dead buddies - Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Glinka, Glazonov and Dostoevsky. it was like a celebrity party without the red carpet.

meet Modest Mussorgsky..

me and Borodin!

and with the maestro, Tchaikovsky!

my living celebrity

we then wandered to another cemetry and a monastry. our tummies rumbled, so we had to seek some solace in familiarity - McDonalds! this is thomas's picture, by the way.

and the view from Macca's was rather impressive..can you see the Neva river?

we walked along it after our big mac meals and chanced upon locals livin' it up. kinda.

locals fishing.

some baking in the sun...near a pile of...construction material..

we encountered an abandoned neighbourhood which was probably of the Soviet era and has been left behind since the collapse in 91. buildings unfinished, trucks and lorries around, builing stones and sand left stagnant. it was very quiet and a pleasant experience in this LOUD and polluted city - a rather good way to start off, in my opinion. we also had blue skies.

abandoned factories were also common. these phallic beings sprouting up in pockets.

and finally, after 90mins of walking or so, we reached our first russian orthodox church of the day - Smolny Cathedral. beautiful, well restored/maintained and utterly gleaming in the sunset. yes. this was about 7pm i think. thanks to midsummers and white nights (where the sun still plays at night..kinda) we managed to see A FUCKING LOT.

the next day, we tried to take a regional train to Petershof, but alas, inability to speak Russian and the russians' inability to understand english just led to frustration. add to that, shitty train schedules where some trains start at 2pm or 4pm (in the case of Moscow) and touristic prices which rivalled the Eurolines, we gave up. we shall have to go back for it when it's more traveller-friendly, of course. a Kiwi who lived all over the world and spoke some Russian helped us get tickets to Moscow, scheduled 3 days later. phew.

so along the Nevsky Prospekt we trudged..

till we came to the Russian Museum

i saw the painting below when there was a Russian Museum exhibition in Perth's WA gallery and was rather enchanted by it. So i saw many familiar ones as well.

here's the original..

and my crappy viewpoint at St. Isaac's itself..

another one that caught my attention..depicting the Tsarist period, i think.

and my favourite part of the day came when we saw this:

i nearly fainted from happiness. i've been encarta-ing, wikipedia-ing, google-ing the Church of Spilled Blood since i was 10 (don't ask how i actually knew of it at age 10..) and have longed to see it since i was conscious of it. hence my delight and utter joy of being at the church itself.

inside

jesus and his homies

parting shot..

unfortunately, i cannot for the life of me, remember the name of this church. i do remember we went in the midst of some holy day for the Russian Orthodox and saw a long snaking queue to kiss a painting of mother mary. i bought a little pendant for myself as a remembrance. also helps that it was rather colourful and pretty too.

no visit to St. Petersburg would be complete without a visit to the Hermitage and Winter Palace. its sheer size is enough to overwhelm. many domestic tourists were there going trigger happy too. alas, it's not open on mondays..so we had to wait for another day to take a peak into its treasures.

we also managed to feel the wrath of russian weather on day 2. so this is were the depression and creativity come from..

after a walk through Admiralty park, we stumbled upon a newly wed couple. her gown was circa 80's but i had fun observing them anyway. taking pictures, running around on heels and what not. this is infront of the St. Isaac's.

looking up at St. Isaac's.

then it decided to rain. and by rain, i really mean pour. and it went on for hours. i shit you not.

after running, strolling, unintendingly jumping in puddles, we settled for MacDonald's yet again. i know, we're not very healthy travellers now aren't we? well, we're very budget ones..hahahaha
and the Russians love queueing. no one really seems too annoyed with queueing (marielle and us speculate the remnants of queueing for rations during the Soviet era), except us. i was very used to people hugging me from behind by the end of our russian exploration, and of course used to almost kissing people's heads in front of me.

queueing part 1.

queueing part 2: at the metro station.

we spent day 3 walking on the other islands across the Neva, visiting Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral (from the outside and it's not too..stunning).

view of the Hermitage from across the river.

queueing part 3: then we waited 2h in the bloody rain with an outside temperature of about 12-13 deg c. (we checked the weather forecast thereafter in the hostel). it was colourful umbrellas galore!

i had a nasty encounter with the cashier lady who refused to accept my student card for concession (it works fine elsewhere and gives me 75% off tourist price). long story, but i literally screamed at her.

inside the Hermitage proper.

at some corridor named after Raphael. yes, the Renaissance School-of-Athens dude.

me and a (methinks) etruscan vase.

we celebrated our last night in St. Petersburg drinking. check out my lady's drink. it's strawberry champers, but with a strong synthetic taste. and if you can't read the english bit, it says: "i am now the girlfriend of a sex god". ooer. funky champers i tell you.