27 May, 2007:

Svetlana is smiling and promising me “Many Russian Delights during the White Nights” as she dances slowly, sensuously towards me. She is now dressed in a loose black mini-skirt and tight, white blouse with red epaulets on the shoulder; she is wearing a military style campaign hat. The overall look is one that makes me think of Betty Grable about to perform an R-rated USO show. As she gets closer she begins to unbutton the blouse exposing some bright, very un-Russian lingerie beneath it and some smooth, white, very-Russian skin as well. She is now just inches from me, still smelling of flowers and cinnamon; she whispers “Tonight you must make me a promise”. Her voice is like music.  I can’t speak, so I just nod my acceptance.  As she releases the last button and lets the blouse fall to the floor, she tells me: “You must STOP DREAMING YOU FOOL, OR YOU’LL MISS YOUR BUS!”   It’s the damned alarm again....and Svetlana isn’t real, but the second day of the tour in St. Petersburg is, so I get out of bed and greet the Russian dawn with a hangover. Well, it’s not really a hangover, I only had one small glass of vodka and one glass of wine at dinner last night....but it feels like a hangover...and not just your run of the mill hangover, this is a Peter the Great kind of hangover.

The festivities at our “Imperial Dinner” with Catherine the Great ran late into the Russian night. By the time we finished dinner, got back to the docks and negotiated our way through Russian immigration checks and the Star Princess security checks and made it back to the room it was 12:10am and the alarm went off at 4:30am again for today’s tour. So, I start the day with just over 3.5 hours of sleep.

I need coffee....or vodka....or both. And lots of it...but since it’s a tour day I opt for coffee.

The tour starts with a canal cruise through the “Venice of the North” as St Petersburg likes to be known. In truth, St Petersburg probably exceeds Venice for opulence and grand buildings, but it still lacks the charm, romance and ‘smallness’ that makes Venice what it is. As soon as the canal cruise begins, we are served champagne....which it turns out is just the right cure for a Peter the Great kind of hangover.

The day is spent in a whirl of fortresses, palaces, museums and churches. After viewing the Hermitage....the Tsar’s Winter Palace and the art works contained in it....I understand the reason that so much blood was shed during the Russian Revolution and the several decades that followed. The excesses of the Tsars had to be balanced by the excesses of the revolution and the purges that followed. The sins of the earlier rulers had to be washed away by the blood spilled by the later rulers. The Hermitage is immense, and the art works in it are beyond belief. That so much wealth was controlled by so few people is difficult to imagine in these times. I spoke with others who visited the site and found that they had the same reaction.....the vast wealth and mindless excesses of the Romanovs demanded the terrible, bloody times that followed them. I think that until this visit, I never understood how the Russian people had allowed themselves to fall under the yoke of Lenin and Stalin....now I wonder why it took them so long.

We continue to St Isaac’s Cathedral, the resting place of many Tsars, which is the fourth largest domed church in the world and is covered in 220 pounds of pure gold.  We complete the tour at the Peter and Paul Fortress which it seems is at the center of the city’s anniversary celebrations. It is packed with young, happy people who are enjoying the celebrations in their beautiful city. It seems that now is a good time to be young and energetic in St. Petersburg.

As we are on the bus returning to the ship my final views of St Petersburg are of an attractive, semi-nude young woman sunbathing by herself in the middle of a small park and of crumbling, dirty, Stalin-era apartments. It is a fitting final look at a city that is both beautiful and energetic....and decaying and ill-used.

....There is much, much more that I could say about St Petersburg, but between lack of sleep and being behind on my ports, I think I’ll end this now and see if I can get back in sync with ‘real time’ on the narratives.