Day 9

Saint Petersburg’s good side?

OUTLINE

• Sightseeing starts late after a terrible breakfast at the hostel
• We walk to Moskava train station but my fever has broken my map reading skills and I get us lost. We see more of the dirty side of the city
• Book train tickets to Moscow via a non English speaking moody Russian woman who speaks English and takes commission
• We take the metro from the train station to Nevsky Prospect. 20 Rubles, about 50p – bargain. The tube is nuts, with no visible trains and loads of stirring communist imagery. Also each station is styled differently
• Sightseeing s cut short by a lack of sights and a cold biting wind
• Tea in a small backstreet cafe comes with a free drunk asking for vodka from the tourists. Eric was a pretty scary bloke – George Harrison DEAD.
• Jazz club expedition failed – too late. Quick drink at a mad bar a little closer to home instead
• Our decision to leave St. Petersburg early for Moscow is a good one. Everything here is against us; the weather, the people, the architecture, my health and my bank. Not a great intro to Russia

James downloads a virus. Internet Attack. Computer compromised.

The train station is a big pink blamonge but it has a great modernist departure hall.

Nationwide still giving me the swerve.

The tube is nicer than the streets with less people, better weather and lighting. The escalators to get to the stations are really steep too – also a good thing right?

The snow in St. Petersburg is horizontal and gets right into your face.

I load up on more Lemsip and pills. At this rate I’ll be doped up all through Russia.

The grand public spaces aren’t grand enough and are confused. The building are all painted rubbish gaudy colours, the recommended sights are dull and the only stunning thing about this city is the orange dusk light on the riverbank, oh and there are some pretty nice golden domes dotted around.

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Day 8

Sabrina where are you?

OUTLINE

• 8.30am arrive in Saint Petersburg. We leave our comfy sleeper for a noisy, cold, dirty, smokey city
• Discuss methods to reach our hostel – decide to march
• Arrive sweaty and tired at the small crumbling doorway entrance to hostel Sabrina
• Enjoy tea and jammy swiss roll while awaiting an English speaking taxi driver to take us to another Sabrina hostel. This one has a singing shower (?)
• 45 sleepy minutes later the crease faced, leather cap wearing crazy taxi driver shows up and we weave through busy traffic to our real hostel
• No visa registration, it’s a 10 day Russian holiday

• Explore the city to shake our dark first impressions of the district around the train station. We walk and walk but nothing really changes

Tonnes of Lemsip and a frantic march with a huge pack will do wonders for a cold.

Bums in train stations are the same the world over but in Russia the police are meaner.

Jay can’t map read.

Russian people are either stern and a bit rude or crazy and really nice but mos of the time they are all drunk.

St. Petersburg – Venice it ain’t.

Heating inside Russian homes is always on Max, this explains the huge stripey, puffing chimneys which dominate the skyline.

Sarah’s Russian is ace.

Russian tv looks 40 years old and is really over the top.

Driving is total madness and crossing the road is a leap of faith.

St. Petersburg is busy.

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Sleeper train

Vilnius to Saint Petersburg

The train stood a clear 9ft tall and a million miles long as we climbed from the subterranean locker room to the platform at Vilnius station. This was the train I had been waiting for. Well, I mean, we’d waited for plenty of trains up till now but for me this was the kind of train which would make this whole experience. Making a carriage your home for however long you have to is a real skill on the transiberian. This relatively short stint, approximately 14 hours, would decide if I could enjoy this kind of ordeal or if we would wilt under the pressure of close confinement.

The silver and red colours made the train look like a sleak 50’s American relic. The roof of all the cars, stretching far off into the Lithuanian night as far as the eye could see, were snow capped and the walls plastered thick with ice. Each wagons chimney belching thick black soot into the purple evening sky as the deep roar of the diesel engines echoed around the empty station.

Each carriage has it’s own attendant and ours was a large cosy looking woman. She beckoned us forward and asked each of us our nationality in turn. She quickly scanned the tickets and passports and showed us aboard. Our backpacks barely fitted through the tiny train corridors as we brushed past the business end of the coach and fairly ran towards the seats assigned us for the night. After some initial excited wrong turns we found our places were the very first births as we entered the train.

On the left a four birth open cabin shared space with a slim corridor and two extra bunks aligned with the small passage way. We were lying in the corridor beds.

All the blankets for the wagon (grey and red heavy wool items ideal for the subzero climate) were piled on my bed. The upper bunk of the two corridor births. We had to wait for the other travelers to collect them before we could fully move in. Me and James sat hunched beneath the expertly engineered platform of my bed and slowly acclimatised our selves with our much anticipated surroundings.

The four birth cabin opposite housed a Lithuanian couple with enough luggage to fill a shop, we concluded they were either emigrating or off on an extended holiday in Russia. The boarder guards would enjoy quizzing them. Also here was a middle aged woman who seemed intent on sleeping the entire journey. We moved all the blankets obstructing our bunks onto the upper bed on the sleepy woman’s side of the four birth, and made up our beds. Crisp linen folded carefully over firm but fair benches and the luxurious wool blankets made for a very inviting bed.

Behind us the wagons offices and toilet were expertly nestled in the smallest possible spaces, allowing only a small private sleeping cabin for the original attendant. She never seemed to use this room, instead preferring to march the length of the carriage serving tea and coffee. In there was also a younger Russian version who would tend to  these duties beyond the boarder. She would display a very different, very Russian style of service, all scorn and annoyance.

Me and James walked the train, as we tend to do now once we get settled. We marvelled at everything; the WC’s at either end of our wagon, the smoking areas beyond both and the open link way at the very ends of each coach, with their noise and growing frost and disturbing view down to the speeding rails below. Our journey took us from our 2nd class cabin through the seated class and into first. The carriage housing the restaurant was small and filled with tables and chairs all and conversation. The whole train was buzzing with communication between strangers and it felt warm and homely. First class was quiet and sterile and we attracted some strange looks on our way back to our beds.

I watched the very nice and kind woman in the next compartment answer her grand daughters questions about the foreigners sleeping in the beds next door and was rocked to sleep by the motion of the train.

A boarder patrol guard woke me with a grab of my leg and asked for my passport. I handed it over and fell back to sleep. I had sat through long boarder crossings before and knew there was nothing to be done but enjoy the time in my warm bunk. I was woke again to receive my documents back and then again inside Russia where a guard would search all the baggage storage bins for stowaways using an ancient military lamp as a guide. The crossing wasn’t half as distressing as we had read it could be.

I love this train, the warmth, the sense of belonging, the smells and the adventure, the water boiler and the attendants (even the moody ones hvae their good points). 2nd sleeper class is defiantly a first class way to travel.

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