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

The Bridge to Somewhere

We came to Malmo on the south west coast of Sweden partly because of a Nordic Noir TV programme we'd stumbled across called The Bridge. The Oresund bridge links Sweden and Denmark and in the first episode a body is found severed at the waist, half on the Danish side and half on the Swedish side. Gruesome, but we were hooked.

The Bridge is not just a bridge. It is a bridge running 8 kilometres from the Swedish coast to an artificial island in the middle of the Oresund Strait, then it becomes the 4km Drogden tunnel emerging in Denmark. This whole feat of engineering magnificence deserves that overused term awesome. Much more dramatic photos can be found here.

Our walk to view the structure takes us past the redundant ship building yards and warehouses that housed long defunct businesses. The buildings have either been transformed into IT or biotech centres and apartments, or demolished to make way for new build developments, open spaces, lovely parks, cycle and walkways, and providing water access.

Malmo has surprised us. It seems to merge old and new quite successfully.  We started the day with breakfast at the hotel, eating in what was a cellar built in 1307, nearly 500 years before James Cook came to New Zealand. The hotel has been here in some form since 1519.

Breakfast in a room over 700 years old.  That doesn't happen very often.

In contrast, the Turning Torso (2005) by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava is the second highest residential building in Europe. It defies belief, stretching 190 metres up and twisting 90 degrees from base to top. I have to include three photos so you can appreciate the different aspects it presents as you move around.

The Bridge opened in 2000 and changed the face, and future, of Malmo. It links the city to Europe's motor and rail network through Copenhagen.  Ten thousand Danes now live here (pop 300,000) and commute as taxes are lower in Denmark and rents are cheaper on Malmo.

Half the multiethnic population is under 35, which becomes evident when we go to dinner at the highly rated and evocatively named Bastard.

On midsummer eve it is pulsing and they're turning people away. Earlier in the day we wormed our way into the affections of the maitre d and he told us he'd find a table if we came about 8:30. He did. They serve tapas style sharing plates and we enjoy the best meal we've had all trip: anchovies on sourdough that's been toasted in the wood fired oven, cod roe with crisp radishes, salad greens, veal tongue (braised and made into a patty crumbed and deep fried) served with a salsa verde, and slow cooked rolled pork belly.

When we finally take the train to Copenhagen and cross The Bridge, it's an anticlimax. Much better seen from a distance or from the air.  

Fortunately there were no severed bodies.