Russia - I'll be back

I didn't really sum up my thoughts about our time in Russia but for what they are worth, here goes.

St Basil's Cathedral, now a museum, on the edge of Red Square
(which isn't red at all) 

Obtaining visas at first seemed an incredible obstacle, but that was a view formed by dealing with ill informed travel agents. Although it is an administrative pain in the neck, it is really quite straightforward to get a visa, just make sure you've got all your paperwork as stated on the Russian Embassy website.

We arrived with too many preconceptions: there'll be issues at immigration; we won't understand anything so we'll get ripped off; people will be suspicious; it will be difficult to get around; we'll be stopped and asked for our identification; it will be grubby and disorganised and nothing will run on time.

We breezed through immigration in record time. A short delay in arrivals while we waited for our pre-booked shuttle to arrive. Our driver looked exactly like an Eastern European gangster in a James Bond film. Far from being ripped off, when we arrived at the hotel we were informed they had changed shuttle providers and the cost was half what we'd been quoted.

We found Moscow and St Petersburg to be pristine, modern, vibrant cities and they are both easy to navigate.  As mentioned in a previous blog, knowing the Cyrillic alphabet before you go really does help. The trains are frequent, fast, and efficient - in Moscow there's a train every two minutes, and at the end of the platform a clock ticks down from 2 minutes so you know exactly how long before the next one.

There seems to be a deep concern for preserving heritage and history, both the good and the bad. The good is obvious. Beautiful palaces, museums, stunning churches, extensive gardens, galleries overflowing with centuries of international art. 

You see the double headed eagle, symbol of the Romanov dynasty on everything from bridges and monuments to porcelain and furniture. Though one of our guides tells us some refer to it as the Chernobyl Chicken! 

Chernobyl Chicken

On the canals in St Petersburg

The bad depends on your viewpoint. The Tsars lived off the backs of the people, but come the revolution, the Bolsheviks didn't destroy the palaces but rather re purposed them. For example, the Winter Palace became the Palace of the Arts.  The separation of Church and State meant the Churches didn't fare so well: some were destroyed, others, such as St Basil's in Moscow and the extremely beautiful St Isaac's in St Petersburg, were turned into museums.


At the Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg we found one of the prisons where the Cheka imprisoned anti Bolshevik activists. The information panels don't shy away from detailing the imprisoning without charges, executions without trial, mass executions and burials in the forests.

Guides are invaluable, particularly in St Petersburg where everything you want to visit is on the hit list of the literally thousands of people flooding off cruise ships every day. We used Moscow Private Tours and their offshoot St Pete Private Tours. In Moscow we organised a half day around the main sites to orient ourselves. 

In St Petersburg we organised a half day just at the Hermitage and then another day a trip out of town to Peterhof Summer Palace. This is a stunning palace, designed by an architect who never met a surface he didn't want to gild, with extensive gardens and lots of fountains, both elaborate and also a few trick fountains for the unwary - as if it wasn't a wet enough day! 

Inside Peterhof (oops - no photos!)

Some of the fountains at Peterhof Palace

Aside from their excellent English and wealth of knowledge about the subject matter, guides posses a priceless skill - queue jumping tour groups and very sharp elbows.  They also are a match for the Soviet era hatchet faced room guards who are constantly harassing you to keep moving! no photos! no touch!  And all three guides we employed had great personalities and a good sense of humour. 

The entrance foyer for the Winter Palace

Probably the most difficult thing to comes to grips with in Russia, especially for open and friendly Westerners, is the distance Russians naturally keep in interactions. This is quite difficult to explain, but I'll try. It is summed up in  the word фамилъярность which translates as familiarity, or acting as if you are better friends with someone than you really are. Now you may think my Russian has come on in leaps and bounds - no. I lucked onto a column written by a Moscow based translator and interpreter who explained that no matter how long your acquaintance, for example with a work colleague, you would never ask about their parter or spouse, or their state of health.  It seems to be about maintaining a distance, not letting people too close, and here's another of my amateur theories - I think it stems from the days when you lived a very private and circumspect life, didn't discuss your politics or beliefs, and didn't tell anyone anything. You never knew if it would lead to a late night knock at the door.  

While providing all amenities and perfect comfort and even our hotels were discreet. Easily missed, just a door like any other. 

Veliy Hotel, Moscow. Five minutes from the Kremlin

Casa Leto Hotel, St Petersburg

Final observation - all our guides and lots of the hotel staff were aged 25 or 26 - I think there was a lot of celebrating around 1990. Check your history for a clue.

White Nights - about 10pm in St Petersburg

Who knew eggs were so expensive?

St Petersburg survival kit: when you leave the house wear waterproof shoes, take an umbrella, raincoat and sunglasses.  Still waiting to use the sunglasses. This is a Russian summer.

Suitably dressed in rain attire we start the day with a walk up to visit the Fabergé museum located In the fabulous (they are ALL fabulous) Shuvalovsky Palace. It's difficult to imagine all these palaces were someone's home in the 1800s. They are immense, richly decorated (when restored) indulgences.  No wonder the peasants revolted! 

Anyway, the tsars. In 1885 Alexander III commissioned jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé to create an Easter gift for his wife.  In Russian Orthodox tradition Easter is like Christmas for Christians, and gifts are given.  From 1897 the new tsar (there were a lot of them!) Nicholas II asked Fabergé to continue making the eggs every Easter for his mother and his wife.

And the eggs are exquisite works of art and engineering. All have a 'surprise' inside - presumably Kinder stole the idea.  The carriage inside one of the eggs is an exact replica of the Coronation carriage. The wheels roll, the glass in the windows is bevelled, the steps fold down, and inside another surprise: a diamond suspended from the ceiling. It took 15 months of 16 hour days to make the carriage alone.

This is not a stage coach! It's an Imperial Coronation carriage in miniature

Of the 50 eggs made and delivered to the Imperial family between 1885 and 1916 (come the Revolution!) 43 have survived, many in private collections. Current valuations vary according to how complete the eggs are; many surprises are missing, eggs vary in workmanship, detail and amount of precious metal and stones, but millions would be a starting point. In 2014 one sold for 20 million pounds. And you thought free range eggs were expensive!

The palace also has a large collection of cloisonné work and Imperial factory porcelain. The sort of thing you could never imagine actually using. 

From here we went on to an impromptu lunch featuring eggs of a different kind.

If you are in St Petersburg (on a cold, drizzly Summer's day) why wouldn't you spend $150 a head on a caviar tasting at a fancy pants restaurant called Tsar? Ten grams each of Sevruga, Sturgeon and Beluga with an ice cold shot of vodka. My kind of lunch.

Three kind of caviar, the lightest blini in the world, and ice cold vodka.

And if I didn't know the restaurant wasn't average before going to the bathroom, I knew when I got there. You might want to check out the wallpaper - if you've got a strong constitution. 

This is the throne room

Here's more lovely eggs to take your mind off that.

Lilies of the Valley, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna favourite flower, the surprise is the portraits of the tsar Nicholas II and their daughters Tatiana and Olga

A jade bay tree. A hidden lever opens the top and a feathered so bird rises up, flaps its wins, turns its head - AND IT SINGS! Call Russia's got Talent.

With a pop up rooster and working clock