26 May 2007:
Daytime:
The dawn and the day begin early. I have tours
in St. Petersburg all day today, then all evening tonight and all day tomorrow....it will be a long, hard slog and a man needs
plenty of rest to endure it. As I board the Russian tour bus I find the first seat open and take it....it will have a fine
view out the front window for sightseeing. Then our Russian tour guide, Svetlana, boards the bus. She is tall, slender, leggy,
and blonde with long, wavy locks, pouty red lips and deep blue eyes. She looks at me and smiles. She sits close beside me
on the front row and tells me in a quiet, low voice: “The first row is reserved for guides in Russia, but, for you,
I will make the exception”. It is clear that she has taken a liking to this tall. balding, American from Texas who has
intruded into her row. Looking at her smile and the way she fills out her tight leather pants and jacket, I can tell that
she is built for speed....and she wants to take me for a ride. We are squeezed together on the seat so close that we could
be dancing; I can feel her warm breath on my neck and smell the flowers and cinnamon of her perfume. In the back of my mind
I know its not real love; she would just use me as a ticket out of the Workers Paradise, but then I think that sometimes just
being used is enough. As the rest of the bus fills with tourists, she leans against me and placing her lips next to
my ear, she says: “WAKE UP, YOU JERK. IT’S TIME TO GET OUT OF BED!!” ......My alarm is
going off. The slinky, exotic Svetlana is not my tour guide; she is the dream I was having. It is 4:30am in St. Petersburg....but
feels like 2:30am because I’ve lost two hours in time zone changes in the last two days. I am not happy, but I get out
of bed. I have an early tour.
As it turns out my tour guide is Natasha, who is not tall, but is slender, leggy and blonde with short wavy locks
and a tight leather jacket. And the only interest that she shows in this tall balding, American from Texas is to collect his
tour ticket and say “Welcome to St. Petersburg”. I guess that Rick’s Russian Fantasy #1 is not going to
happen, so I might as well take a tour of the city while I’m here.
It turns out we are lucky and unlucky at the same time....we are in St. Petersburg on the
Saturday and Sunday that mark the 304th anniversary of the founding of the city. So many parades and pageants and
parties are planned....and many streets are closed and many, many people are in town for the event. The St. Petersburg port
is huge; filled with cruise liners, freighters, container ships and junk yards and decaying buildings. Immediately outside
the port are giant, crumbling apartment complexes that may have been the pride of Stalin, but now look in need of urban renewal.
The further we go from the port, the better the condition of the buildings. I am struck by the absolutely colossal size of
things. Apartment blocks and municipal buildings created in the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s are gigantic;
they are cities unto themselves. Even photos don’t communicate the size and the impressiveness of the constructions
because you don’t have a reference to judge the size by.
As we drive to our first stop, the palaces at Peterhof, I am struck by how normal and un-exotic
the land seems. Except for the Russian lettering on the signs, this could be Nebraska. But once you arrive in Peterhof, you
know you are in a different land. This place makes the Palace at Versailles look like the white-trash trailer park that I
grew up in. Golden statues, fountains, room after room of gold leaf, fine furnishings, art work and other treasures fill the
grounds and the palaces. I will post a few pictures if I can keep my internet connection, but I have too many photos to go
through right now and I won’t be able to pick through and edit the pictures and really show the Peterhof until I get
home and have some time on my hands. But, it is a pretty wonderful place.
We head back into the city to visit the Church of the Spilled Blood, which honors Tsar Alexader
II, and for lunch in the former palace of some minor aristocrat. We have vodka with our appetizer and champagne with the meal.
The vodka is fine...just the right way to relax in the middle of a long day. The Russians may have the right idea.
Note: you really see a number of amazing
things during your stay in St. Petersburg; I won’t try to describe the full tour. There are too many places and too
many things of interest for me to catalog while I’m traveling....and you’d find the descriptions boring....you
really have to be there. So, I’ll hit a few things in this narrative and post a few pictures and try to do a slide show
in a few weeks. But the main items of interest that I saw on the first day were: Peterhof, the Yusupov Palace and the Church
of the Spilled Blood.
I
am impressed by the Russian people. They seem to be emerging from their socialist period with energy and spirit. Our guide
tells us that the older people are having trouble adapting....they were promised security and cradle-to-grave care by earlier
regimes, and that promise has been broken. But the younger people see opportunity and the chance to go places and do things
that their parents could not dream of. So, while there is much decay and poverty, there is also much new, modern construction
and a lot of energy in the city. There was also much openness in speaking about the problems of the past under the Soviet
system. But, having said that, I should also point out that we were not allowed to just wander around the city on our own.
The tour was structured to see certain things and there was no deviation permitted. We always had a guide with us and there
was almost no opportunity to interact with the typical “Russian on the Street”. But the few times I strayed a
little far off my leash, I saw normal, happy energetic people for the most part. I did notice a lot of people having a beer
or two as they walked down the street on their way to work or the park or whatever their destination. I don’t know if
that is the typical Russian way to start the day or if it was because it was Saturday and because it was the 304th
Anniversary Festival.
Nighttime:
We finish our daytime tour
and return to the ship about 4:30pm. This would be a fine time to end a long and arduous days touring....but I am booked on
a night tour as well. So, after a quick shower and change of clothes...a bit more formal tonight....because we will be meeting
the Empress Catherine...or someone dressed like her tonight....and now I am once again on a tour bus now headed south, out
of the city under skies that are threatening rain toward the town of Pushkin and Catherine’s Palace.
The palace is beautiful, opulent and
massive beyond belief. We are greeted with ceremony. As we walk up the path toward the palace grounds a drum and fife corps
dressed in uniforms from the 1700’s meets us and leads the way into the palace. We are told that we are now guests of
the Empress Catherine the Great and that for this night we are Aristocracy. We will be honored and entertained and any wish
that we have will be taken care of....we are Royalty for the evening. We are given a tour of parts of the palace....complete
with entertainment in several of the rooms. As with Peterhof, this place is amazing. It really does defy description. But
it is huge and luxurious. We enter the grand ballroom, are served champagne and serenaded by a string quartet. At the appropriate
moment Catherine the Great and her consort appear to welcome us to the palace. Well, maybe it wasn’t Catherine herself,
since I guess she’d be several hundred years old, but it was someone with aristocratic bearing who was dressed for the
part. Once Catherine (she didn’t seem quite down-to-earth enough to call her Kate), had proposed a toast to the continued
good relations between our two countries....for tonight I am not just Aristocracy, but also a Diplomat....we are entertained
by dancing and more music....though the bass notes in the music are now being over powered by the even bass-er notes of thunder
coming from the driving rainstorm that is raging outside. This concerns me because unlike the jeans and golf shirt of this
morning’s excursion we are now dressed well, in a manner fitting the guests of the Empress and the dining area is across
a very large, open courtyard. But, as Catherine rises and invites us to join her for dinner, I am not worried, because I’m
sure the Empress....or even just someone dressed like her...won’t be walking out into a storm like the one now playing
itself out in the night sky. And I’m right. Catherine, still smiling regally and waving to us, remains on the grand
staircase as we are ushered out into the storm.
To their credit, the tour company does bring the buses around so we don’t have to walk across 150 yards
of muddy courtyard in the deluge, but just getting to the buses and off again manages to soak most people. As Natasha the
tour guide said “Oooh, I have never seen so much rain”. I agree with Natasha. And I’d really like to thank
the guy with the folding cane who jumped in front of me at the door of the bus and then refused to move inside the door until
he had properly folded and stored his cane in a manner that satisfied him....which accounted for about 2 quarts of the rain
water that was now dripping off my dinner jacket.
Dinner was a fine, if somewhat soggy affair. There was more vodka, more wine and various Russian
delicacies....still more entertainment, dancing and music.....but by this time the combination of the long hours and the vodka
and wine at every meal were making me long for my warm bed back on the ship.
Driving back toward the port as it neared midnight
the sky was still grey and there was a rosy glow in the west. We are at the beginning of the “White Nights” of
Russia when the sky never really goes dark.
