Day 6: The time I fell in the Sea

Day 6: The time I fell in the Sea

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the one you've all been waiting for. I've been delaying writing about this to build up suspense, but now I think you're ready. Oh yes, it's Metro time!

Can't be forgetting breakfast though. Worst croissant ever

Before I'd even stepped on the Metro though St. Petersburg was a winner, due to the simplistic beauty of their metro map. Of course that may be because there's actually not a lot of stations or a few lines, but I prefer to take the belief that they did this on purpose to be better than Moscow. They even translate the stations!

They call it Metpo just to be different.

There's a weird quirk in St. Petersburg in which you give them 28 Roubles (60p) for a fare and they give you some novelty coin in return. Perhaps they have hundreds of spare monopoly boards lying around, I don't know. But it's pretty cute nonetheless.

Maybe they're trying to save paper?

No that genuinely is what you get to travel on the Metpo. I have absolutely no idea why they do this when literally everyone else in the world gives you a piece of paper but we'll allow St. Petersburg their special moment in the limelight. SPOILER: That's not the last time you'll see my hand in this blog. Lucky you!

Just as grand as before. And again: someone walks in front of the photo

However where the St. Petersburg Metpo really comes into it's own is in terms of fashion. It's fairly common knowledge that most Russians get dressed in the dark, but some of the things you see down here just take the biscuit:

Apple #represent

This girl literally sparkles as you walk past her.

No idea how Sveti managed to take this

Otherwise the Metpo is just like any other underground, yet people like this just make the day so much better. But you must be eagerly wondering, where did we go?! Answer: Petergof.

Hey look I'm such a tourist. Proof I went there and I'm not really still sat in Camden

I've noticed how St. petersburg likes to give constant reminders of where you are. They have statues of Peter everywhere, their prettiest park is Petergof, their football stadium is Petrovskiy... Most big things here have the name Peter in it. It's all a bit weird.

Yeah... This is a pretty nice place

Petergof is genuinely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to in my life. Granted, the weather was pretty outstanding for the day but I'm finding it hard to get the correct words to do it justice, so I'll just dump some photos for you to enjoy.

Negatives: Dirty Water. Pros: Everything else

They have some odd obsession with yellow buildings here too. People were actually queueing up to spend the day inside that building. When it was this sunny. WHY??!!?!?!

Pretty sweet back garden

Admittedly I did have to pay 250 Roubles (£5) to get access to the rest of the gardens at Petergof, including this fountain, but it's 100% worth it. Also for those unlucky enough to study here in Russia, one silver lining is you get free entry! Unfortunately you'll also get -30 conditions in winter.

Also wondered how they mow the slanted grass

By the way, if you suffer from Hay Fever you might want to bring anti-histamines. I only wish someone had told me that.

Quack quack. Apparently they don't say that here in Russia

This place is just full of lovely views and beautiful scenery. You can even buy some caviar for a mere 1,800 Roubles (£36). Or you can just do what I did and bring a cheese sandwich.

The bay of Finland. You can't see Finland though :(

You see that log there? I bet you're really tempted to jump into the water and try and climb on to it, yes? Well, I was anyway. Here's a short photo essay of what transpired:

... Almost there!

I'm just going to point out it is more slippy than it looks.

Yep. I fell over. 

I can imagine this is a similar scenario to what happened during the filming of this

We're basically twins

The worst was to follow though. I didn't have any plasters and the water was dirty. Fortunately Sveti had some and I wore this for the rest of the day

I tried to hide it in public

We eventually decided excursions into the Bay of Finland and Petrogof were over, but not until we stopped for a spot of dinner. Which was an experience in itself, as I had an "Irish" Magnum. You think it's just chocolate coating and vanilla? Yeah, me too. Turns out it has BAILEYS in. Like, the alcoholic stuff. This is probably the first case of anyone, ever, being spiked through an Ice Cream. It tasted disgusting too, next time I'm sticking to Lipton Iced Tea.

Sveti's Cornetto was probably Vodka flavoured

Petrogof was left and I made my way home, ready to relax and sleep. Until I realised the bridge opening, that I'd so been looking forward to was at 1.30 AM, not PM. For me, that's just a crazy thought. But for the ridiculous Russians it's a huge event regularly watched by hundreds. I don't want to insinuate the Russians are a bit mad, but at the end of the day (and it literally was) it's just a bridge opening. 

"Hey Dimitri! The bridge is open!"

As an aside, that sky is at 2AM. It literally doesn't very dark here at all. Which is annoying if you want to sleep but gives some breathtaking views if you happen to be wondering around at midnight.

Peter looking over his people (although town centre's the opposite way)

There's a surprisingly large amount of 14 year olds who walk around at midnight trying to launch those candle-balloon things. I'm not entirely sure why or what they are doing, but I suppose it passes the time before they can legally drink £4 Vodka.

Sunset or Sunrise? More like Sun"I'm staying put"

So that brought an end to a lovely day of scenery and sun. Somehow I also managed to get a sunburn on my neck and fall into the Sea, so it'll go down as just one of those days I suppose.

TOMORROW: The Hermitage, a very Russian theme park and a Bear.

Songs I sung whilst being given the silent treatment count: 173

Day 5: Buildings upon buildings

Day 5: Buildings upon buildings

So, today started off similar to all my other days... a snoring man who I can't understand! I'm starting to wonder whether it's actually my own snoring that's doing it. However, St. Petersburg decided to mix this all up a bit by throwing in shedloads of mosquito bites into the mix. Like, those really annoying ones which just feel itchy all day, including one ON MY FACE. Nightmare. 

Practising my Russian poses

Though the lack of sleep wasn't due to that, oh no. There's a weird phenomena which apparently exists all over Northern Europe called "White night". Disappointingly this doesn't relate to random bouts of midnight snow, but the fact that the Sun doesn't like to set. 

This was genuinely taken at 11.30pm

Think of it as a poor man's Northern Lights. Still, I found it amazing! Even if it did leave me slightly dazed. What's next?! You're probably not wondering. Well it's breakfast, duh.

Milk update: still none. Cool glass though

Today was pretty much a tour of the big buildings of St. Petersburg, of which there are a lot. However, readers, I have a small admission to make to you. I didn't actually do all of these today, some of them are from yesterday. If you feel in anyway let down or angry about this, then I'm really sorry but you should probably get a life.

This looks remarkably familiar... Except it's better because it's not Moscow

There's not a lot that can be said about a Russian Orthodox church seeing as I'm not actually allowed inside, what with me wearing shorts and all that. Although the impending London-esque weather did make me wish I was religious and thus wore those weird long trouser-y things. 

A youth park. What you can't see is the corrugated iron surrounding it. Nice and cheerful!

This is actually pretty interesting: there's an area called New Holland on the edge of the city centre which has skateboard ramps, football pitches, a bar... and a book store. Which oddly was the busiest part. Although it was full of Hipsters so they don't really count as people. It's really important though to have an area for the students to hang out and relax, both for the police and for the youth. So well done St. Petersburg, even if it is really quite small.

That ball spins round! So exciting

Our day was, quite literally, overshadowed by the threat of rain. Russia seems to abide fairly religiously to the concept of "go hard or go home", so when it rains here it really does pour. So Sveti and I thought today would be the ideal time to check out St. Petersburg's second most famous export (after these guys), the Hermitage.

Classic Russia: Scaffolding. Not so classic Russia: horse and carriages.

Unfortunately Russia had better ideas, as world famous and magnificent art is apparently not available on Mondays. So instead we went to check out the Russian State Museum, which again people rave about as if they have any idea about these kind of things:

Hugo: "Oh darling, you just HAVE to check out the Russian State Museum, it's utterly divine"

Victoria: " Isn't it JUST loooovely! Oh I do enjoy a good Monet"

Hugo: "Tell me about it. You know, some people haven't EVEN been to Russia. Eurgh"

Victoria: "It's just so disgusting, how can they even look in the mirror. I wouldn't be able to"

Hugo: "That's because you're too beautiful. Hahahahahahahaha"

Victoria: "Ahahahahahahaha".

By the way that was an homage to Made in Chelsea. Apparently I missed the finale yesterday.

Yeah, it really does rain here quite heavily

So we headed off to the Museum which, I must say, is actually really quite good. It's lavish in all it's interior, as you would expect for the National Museum of Art, however the paintings there are pretty sensational. What's especially good is the transition the museum takes you, as if you're on some form of journey, from the beginning of the 14th century right up until modernism.

Duuudeee I am so stoned

Again, if you get the joke give yourself a hi-five.

My personal highlight was this piece by Kazmir Malevich, who's apparently quite famous for the Black Square. This one's the Red Square (how does he think of these names?!)

That is 100% not a square

To give the full name, it's: "Red Square (Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions)". Asides from making him sound like a pretentious arsehole, it still doesn't address the fact that it is not a Red Square. It's now second of my list of Russian Red Squares, out of two.
Yet I do think there's also a lot you can see in this painting, for some odd reason. Perhaps my brain was fried by hours spent in some Russian Museum, but I stared at this for a solid 10 minutes and contemplated life. 
Not sure that's a good thing though.

TOMORROW: The Metro, Petersland and bridges. How thrilling.

Itchy Mosquito Bite count: 9 

Day 4: A tale of two cities

Day 4: A tale of two cities

I've never actually read Dickens' novel but I'm going to fairly safely assume he wasn't talking about St. Petersburg and Moscow, so I'm not stepping on his hallowed ground and plagiarising his work.

That description says "Brad Pitt" somewhere. Welcome to Cyrillic

Readers, I'm afraid I have to start this entry with some terrible news. The cotton pandemic has now spread to St. Petersburg. I can only assume this is why Putin has fled to London in the last few days, and I now fear for my life every day. Please send supplies (preferably Iced Tea?)

#prayforrussia

However, I will NOT let this stop me. The day had otherwise begun as most my other days had: woken up by some snoring Serbian in my hostel. This time I had the last laugh though; I turned on the lights as I LEFT the room. Take that, Serbia! The train to St. Petersburg itself was a nightmare to try and find. It's left from Moscow OKT, which stands for Moscow Oktiabrskaia. Which refers to... Moscow Leningradskiy of course! It doesn't matter anyway because the metro station for it (Komsomolskaya. duh.) doesn't translate its signs. So I thought it would be a good idea to follow the little train picture. It was only when I got to the station did I discover there's actually 3 train stations there (why didn't they sign to the other two?!) and I was in the wrong place. Frantic hand signals with the police and 20 minutes later, I found myself on this:

You get free magazines and the TV shows Jungle Book! (On repeat)

Pretty nifty train. What impressed me most was that each seat came with a neat little cushion designed for a comfortable sleep during the 4 hour long 6am train. Unfortunately I was too mesmerized by Russian Jungle Book to even contemplate sleeping. 

I'm that little door in the middle. Notice how this one actually has a lock.

Walking out of the station the other side was a COMPLETELY different story. It was a straight line, sunny and all the street signs were translated! Also first impressions of the hostel weren't too bad, this could be a great place!

Or maybe not. I'm on the 3rd floor of this...

Despite conflicting appearances the hostel itself is lovely, except they don't take card so I still haven't actually paid for my stay. Normally I wouldn't mind too much, except they took my passport as a deposit and I definitely need that for the random police spot checks. Which are "legal".

I'll just park(es) myself here

If you get the joke give yourself a brownie point.

Moving on, I had a city to visit! But first, and foremost, comes food. 

I <3 Protein. The "dumpling" turned out to be fish.

St. Petersburg, it must be said, is an incredibly lovely city. What struck me first is how much different (besides the cotton infestation) it feels. Whereas Moscow is a huge sprawling mass with buildings piled on top of eachother, St. Petersburg is far more open with a compact city centre in which it only takes a few hours to see the main sights. 

To show how compact it is they decided to build a mini version. Yeah, bit weird.

However before I go into greater detail, allow me to introduce my resident tour guide/friend, Svetlana. "Friends" is a pretty tricky concept for someone Russian like Svetlana as it necessitates being nice to people, and you can actually see the strain on her face from trying to do so, so I'm even more grateful for her help.

Hey, Dimitri! Come here and pose for a picture with me!

One of the places we saw on our stroll (read: 10 hour walk) was the gorgeous Summer Garden. Despite Sveti's best attempts to warn me it used to be much better before the government closed it for 15 years' renovation, it was lush to wander around some well-maintained greenery only 10 minutes from the city centre

Although they're generally beautiful, do fountains actually serve a purpose?

Annoyingly there's like no trees on the left which sorta ruins the symmetry

Next to the park, what do we have? More open space! This is the wonderfully simplistic memorial to World War Two. The eternal flame is quite an impressive sight too

There is actually some brickwork in St. Petersburg, I promise.

As you can probably tell from my gushing, I really do enjoy St. Petersburg. Perhaps it's because it's more like London, or because I wasn't alone. Either way, there's something remarkably relaxing about the place they call the Blue City.

This is apparently tea. I have no idea and it costs 120 roubles (£2.40)

I don't even know where to begin with that. All I wanted was a cup of bloody tea. This is the kind of stuff that could really ruin St. Petersburg for me, that's your last warning. Right, I'm off for a sit down to calm myself.

Ahhh... that's better

Another thing I realised, this place has really nice harbours and places to sit down to read a book or whatever. Or buy some overpriced merchandise from some street seller who ALWAYS thinks I'm Italian. I might even talk to him next time to set the record straight.

"I don't want a toy statue. I just want some bread"

There's no real direction to take in this place, everything's so central which is really useful for aimless walking around. You have the famous buildings and museums, of which there's an abundance, that I will cover tomorrow but the mantra was to relax and get a feeling for the city. I immediately felt comfortable - there's such a different atmosphere here than they have in Moscow!

Except weddings are still in fashion. That statue's of a guy called Peter

Should probably admit it took me waaay too long to make the link between the various statues of some guy called Peter and the name "St. Petersburg".

By now I was battling some insatiable desire to try and eat something Russian with someone Russian just to pretend to myself that I was Russian:

I taught Sveti the word "quaint" here

... So we went to a Patisserie. However I did manage to grab myself some Borscht, which is apparently traditionally Russian in the fact that it's Ukrainian. Looks REALLY appetising too

It was actually delicious. Don't judge a book by its cover

So that's a brief overview of the openness and coolness of St. Petersburg. I really enjoy the general ambiance of the city, even if they do struggle with how to make tea. I guess nowhere's perfect though.

TOMORROW: A closed Hermitage, rain and a very different Red Square.

Times I ordered a cup of tea and wasn't offered milk count: 5

Day 3: I don't know what else I expected

Day 3: I don't know what else I expected

So, on to day three. To be honest I did not have a lot planned for today, what with Moscow being fairly difficult to manage on your own when you don't speak the language, so I took the tourist's way out and decided to check out Red Square. But before that, look who I found! Karl Marx!

Never before has a man influenced so many yet changed so little

Deep. I would love to be complimentary towards Karl Marx but to be honest this statue is pretty pathetic. Like especially when you consider Moscow specialises in massive structures. Ah well, it's probably more interesting to check out what ma main man Karl is looking at. It's a big building! What a surprise.

The skateboarders in the foreground really add to the artistic mystique.

Apparently this is called  the "Bolshoi Theatre", which translate as the Big Theatre. Nothing gets past these Russians. I would love to go into greater detail about the artwork and the gorgeous interior but, to be perfectly honest, I was enjoying the Sun and a lovely Lipton Iced Tea (surely they've gotta start paying me for all this product placement?). And by the Sun I mean the big thing in the sky (people in Scotland might want to Google it), not the expensive toilet paper sold in Newsagents.

Breakfast was nice, although took an age to get

Beside this lovely, big and weirdly yellow building lies one of Moscow's famous shopping malls: Tsum. You know a place is classy when they have a Maserati for sale in the front window, although you'd have to be pretty stupid to buy it seeing as driving indoors is illegal.

When will people learn that pink polos NEVER looked good on anyone?

Fortunately Tsum is not all luxurious, over-priced glamour as they also cater for those on a shoe-string budget. For example the above Polo will only set you back a mere 8,600 Roubles (£175), leaving enough change for several hundred bottles of Vodka. 

If I could understand Russian I would have stayed longer. I don't.

Or, if you're feeling really adventurous, you could schnaffle some bargains from the local food festival. I think it was Italian and French food on offer, but to be honest it all looked the same. Overpriced, not enough ketchup and definitely not prepared live. 

This couldn't even save a bloody kitten from a tree

Moving on, I decided to check out Red Square. Yet on my walk over I found a happy couple! Woo! Congratulations! I bet they feel really happy to be the only couple getting married in central Moscow...

3 vodkas for the happy couple!

Oh wait...

Kinda stole the thunder from the other guys

Well I suppose 2's not bad, right? 

There's 2 more here. Feeling pretty left out guys. Anyone wanna get married?

Yeah so it turns out everyone gets married on a Saturday and walks around central Moscow. I think this may be a combination of the fact that government officials are allowed to get married by the Kremlin and Putin's weakness of giving a job to anyone who smiles at him. 

Quite why anyone would want to get married by the Red Square is beyond me. I refuse to write anything positive about what is essentially a big square. Which is red. To be honest I don't know what else I expected. Although my disdain is more due to the fact that whoever built the square thought it would be funny to put EVERY building off centre. Stupid twat.

Looks like some lame lapland attempt at a castle.

Then, you turn and see this ridiculous structure:

Big Ben is better

And I don't even know where to begin with this monstrosity:

Minarets are so 19th Century.

Having successfully insulted all of Red Square's, and consequently Moscow's, most important and famous buildings I thought it would be a good idea to quietly walk off in the opposite direction. Upon where I saw the OTHER outrageously overpriced and quite frankly average shopping mall, Gum:

Admittedly, this was bloody impressive.

I'm not going to lie, I was fairly taken away by Gum's awe. Although I wouldn't be able to afford any of the items in here (most of the were girls items/pink polos anyway), I definitely would take another walk through here if I find myself in Moscow. Which, considering what I've written in this post, will probably not be permitted by the Russian bureaucracy again. 

Had dinner. Today was a good day.

Which brought to an end my trip of Moscow, which I'm still in two minds over. Whilst Moscow is a city of undoubted, and potentially sometimes unparalleled, beauty it's also a city that stinks of corruption, difficulties and suffers from some weird cotton infestation. In a city which is noted for it's noise, it's definitely money that shouts loudest.

TOMORROW: St. Petersburg, 10 hour walks and London weather

End of Day 3. Bride Count: 9