St. Petersburg travelogue (December 1996)

Last weekend we went for the second time to St Petersburg (something like Cahkt Petepbyps in russian). The city actually has an interesting history in itself. It was build in the early seventeen hundreds by Peter the Great (where "great" either means that he was over two meters tall, could drink more vodka than anyone else in russia or for his leadership skills). St. Petersburg is actually build on swamp lands. Which means that it is humid and mosquito ridden in the summer and damp and cold in the winter. The only "raison d'etre" of the city is that it was the only possible outlet to the sea for Russia at that time. Of course building a city on a swamp can be a problem. In fact some say the city was rather build on bones and blood, since almost a million people died building it. Peter the Great is one of those characters which is both hated and revered in Russia. He pulled Russia up to the "level" of the other European countries but at the cost of many lives and beards (to combat the archaic attitudes in russian he levied a tax on beards). Other favourite pastimes of the tsar: engaging in debauchery, pulling out teeth (amateur dentist), collecting "human deformities" (more on that later) and personally assisting to tortures (including his son's).

Ok, how do you get to Russia? First you need a visa. This is only possible if you are "invited by someone in Russia". In practice this means that you have to book your hotel in advance. Helsinki has many such places. We choose a very cheap travel agent (about $120 for round trip plus 3 nights in the hotel). This means that you have to spend almost a day in a bus which departs at 7 am. To our surprise only 9 people showed up and our bus driver only spoke finnish (and russian) and had one wandering eye. The bus was actually an old postibussi whose vibrations were so strong that it made reading a book quasi-impossible. So we had to resort to starting discussions with the fellow passengers. Cheap rates attract both the budget traveller and the weird element... Anyway when we finally arrived in Pietari (finnish for St.P.) it was already dark (days last 6 hours at this time of the year). Usual chaos at the hotel lobby, to get our hotel keys I had to communicate in my broken finnish via the driver to the hotel staff. Makes for very confusing situations. Service in russian hotels is somewhat different from that in other countries. The lobby doesn't know whether their "restaurant" is open or not, wine is bought by the bottle, breakfast consists of cold coffee and greyish looking eggs, warm water and heating is somewhat of a luxury.

Architecturally, St. P. is a beautiful city with long avenues, monuments and many museums. Unfortunately most buildings are falling apart due to lack of funds to repair them and due to the impossible weather (damp, rainy, cold, floods, frost, etc.) Most people live in apartments which lack heating and or warm water. Many scientists there make only 200,000 roubles per month (about $50). This time we decided not to visit the Hermitage (the biggest art museum in the world) but rather decided to visit some more obscure museums. One of them is the museum of "hygiene". Essentially the museum is there to convince young russians not to pick up the good habits of smoking, drinking and engaging in too much sex. To convince them use scare tactics: alcoholic livers in formaldehyde-filled jars, deformed babies also preserved in such jars, photographs of the ravages of VD on our more private parts, preserved skin samples, etc. This delayed lunch by another three hours. The museum was of course filled with kids with a very strong body odour (that hygiene thing again). After this, we decided to go to the museum of Anthropology and Ethongraphy. Why? Well you see Peter the Great (again him) had this passion for collecting anything related to human deformities. The centre of the museum has his "KunstKamera" collection. Over many years he collected skeletons of siamese twins (there is one of a torso with two heads), deformed foetuses (again in formaldehyde filled jars) and when he was in Amsterdam (one of his favourite cities) he bought the entire collection of the dutch "artists" and "scientist" Ruysch. Ruysch's specialty was the deceased body, he developed many technique to preserve our remains in several sized jars. He decided to combine his "scientific" research with his incline for the arts by making sculptures made of bones and various body parts. Only the ones lucky to be preseved in jars are on displays in the museum. (btw. the exit of the museum dumps you in some construction site which took us 10 minutes to get out of...)

Anyway, we considered that we had seen enough "alternative museums" and decided for some more usual tourists sites. We went to the Russian Museum, which unlike the other museums is in good condition. It is filled with lesser known paintings by painters such as the russian realist Ilya Repin. Very impressive and well worth the $8 entry fee. (btw very often people prefer that you pay in american dollars, often one can find the prices in US dollars only...). This visit was followed by a random walking tour of the city. When darkness hits around 3.30 you have the very strange feeling of walking in a humungous ghost town (old delapidated buildings and most streets are barely lit).

Back in the hotel we decided for "italian food". There were only three places listed, one of them is the newly opened "Piuua Xat" (Pizza Hut) we decided for another place instead which would rank as a fast food joint anywhere west of the Neva (main river in StP). American companies such as Koka Kola and ||encu (Pepsi) have arrived "en masse" and sponsor everything from cheezy nightclubs to street signs. The only english newspaper in town "The St. Petersburg Times" listed one night club as having an artsy crowd and cheap drinks. So we went. We found the address allright but all we saw was an old decrepit building covered in graffitti. after some hesitation we decided to climb up the littered stairway. The grafitti which said "Nazis fuck off" and "speak english or die" encouraged us to go further. We finally came to an iron door with "Fish Fabrique" spray painted on it (the club's name listed in said newspaper). At the same time an older woman was letting her dog out from the next door apartment. The inside was actually fairly cool (squat style of place with loud industrial music). The drinks were indeed cheap ($1/beer and $0.80/vodka) but we couldn't understand what they meant by "artsy crowd". We did see two drunks downing a bottle of vodka in less than half an hour and passing out on the ground, which could qualify as "performance art". In North America one would have said "alternative dirt poor crowd, with the occasional Finn tourist nursing its eighth beer". Actually, most russians could not afford a beer. So we made some friends for only $20. Most russians there barely spoke english and know their english from "Pulp Fiction"... As a side effect they know everything about french fries and drug laws in Amsterdam. After leaving the club on our way back to the hotel we were cornered by the infamous "Militsia" (thats how they call the cops there). Hands against the wall, empty your pocket, "why in russia", "Kokaine?"... Muttering the words, "toorist", "nyet koka-een", calmed them down and they finally let us go... Always bring the photocopy of your passport with you. (Your original passport is for some reason locked up in the hotel).

The following night we decided to take it easy however by having a beer at the lobby of the hotel. Surprise, the place was filled mostly with Finns (we met everybody that was on the bus). Beers were at finnish prices, which explains why the only russians there were "mafiosi cocaine dealing looking" types, e.g., long greasy hair in a poneytail, jewellry and babe in a tight dress within reach.

Ok, I'll stop here for now, since I could ramble on for some more time about St.P. When returning to Finland the bus always stops in the "armpit of Russia" (some would say ass***...), i.e., Vyborg. This town (actually known as "Vipuri" in finnish) once belonged to Finland. Very depressing place, so why stop there ? Well they have this market square where you can buy everything for dirt cheap prices: bootleg CDs for $4, guns, old soviet military paraphenelia and of course cheap vodka ($2 a bottle). Many Finns actually go their for the day to stock up on basic necessities such as 10 (ten !) cases of beer: yes that is 240 beers. We are talking professionals here. The driver had the great idea of picking up some of them and driving them back to Finland. Lets just say that the level of belches, farts and beer cans dropping on the ground went up 200%. In no way is this really representative of the Finns, many of them in the bus were as disgusted as we were. Each country, unfortunately, has its share of WTs.

All in all a great trip, and we are looking forward to our next one.

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