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All posts for the month June, 2013

Along the beautiful canals of St. Petersburg

Along the beautiful canals of St. Petersburg

Palatial architecture along the canals

Palatial architecture along the canals

Wonderful ornamentation on the bridges

Wonderful ornamentation on the bridges

Helsinki's lively and beautiful harbor

Helsinki’s lively and beautiful harbor

Dramatic lighting at 11:30 pm in Helsinki

Dramatic lighting at 11:30 pm in Helsinki

Yesterday we said goodbye to Russia as we boarded a Finnish train in St. Petersburg, bound for Helsinki. This was a day of many contrasts.

First a word about St. Petersburg, a truly beautiful and unique city. I spent the summer studying Russian there in 1986 when it was Leningrad. All these years later, and after considerable political and economic upheaval, the city looks surprisingly the same. It is a city of stately pastel-colored buildings lining endless natural and man-made waterways. This is a city for walking, where every curve of a canal yields another gorgeous vista.

Fortunately, the Communists did pretty limited damage to the place. They mostly just let all those gorgeous old buildings slide into gradual decay. During my stay 27 years ago, the city’s magical allure was still there, lying just under a film of grayness and bureaucracy. Today much of the sparkle has returned through the buzz of economic activity, breath-taking renovations, and even just the fashions on parade.

There is one thing we certainly will not miss about Russia: its government’s grotesque displays of willful ignorance. During our visit, both chambers of the Russian parliament unanimously passed legislation to ban ‘gay propaganda.’ They also passed a law to ban adoption of Russian children by same-sex foreign couples. Much better to let those kids suffer in their orphanages than grow up in loving homes in the modern world.

It’s all such a bizarre contrast with the joyous news of progress from back home and so much of the rest of the world — including Helsinki where we happened upon a vibrant Gay Pride parade today. Yet it fits so comfortably into the broken record of Russian history. For centuries Russia has been conflicted about whether to be part of the modern world or to thumb its nose at the West and sulk in some state of willful backwardness. Today, one autocratic leaning figure is leading Russia again in the wrong direction. I didn’t want to get too ‘political’ while we were in his autocracy, but today I’ll say what I think: President Putin, you unequivocally suck.

As we boarded that train for Helsinki, the contrasts between wealthy, modern Scandinavia and its plodding Eastern neighbor became palpable fast. The sleek Finnish ‘Allegro’ train was so shiny and fast. As its speed hit 200 km/hour, we were whizzing through the countryside like never at any point in the 5,000-plus stretch across Russia.

The restaurant car was friendly, clean, and efficient. On the trains in Russia, they would have a huge menu with dozens of dishes listed under lots of categories. But since they never had most of those dishes we learned to ask, “which things do you have?” On this Finnish train the food was delicious (with steep Scandinavian prices to match), and they apparently don’t put things on the menu unless they intend to serve them. Interesting approach.

Here in Helsinki we are now practically in a state of “reverse culture shock,” marveling at how modern, efficient, and beautiful Scandinavia is.

And the food! Scandinavia has been at the forefront of the world’s food scene the past few years, and we were amazed by dinner last night. Once you get over the sticker shock — food is just insanely expensive here — it’s an incredible experience. This innovative cuisine focuses on super fresh produce, and they somehow do magical things with it. Every dish at dinner last night was stunning. Hope this holds up for a few days!

Gay Pride in front of the Helsinki Cathedral

Gay Pride in front of the Helsinki Cathedral

 

Why do we travel? There are some things that are difficult, the plans that don’t work, the arrangements that are more difficult than you’d expected, the hour-long wait to buy tickets to a museum you’re not sure you really want to go to, the stairs when you’re carrying your luggage, the screaming children, the adults yelling into their cell phones, the separation from family and friends. But there are moments that are more perfect than you could never plan or even anticipate, and certainly never replicate at home.

I’ve had more than my fair share of the latter here in St. Petersburg. I love this city!

Eventually, the sun sets

Eventually, the sun sets

Little can make me happier than reading in a park. Today I sat in two parks reading. The first was on an island in St. Petersburg that was once some super high security military enclave. For decades it’s been abandoned, but now they’re making it into a space for modern, public art. There’s nothing there yet that is so great except the idea – a Cold War relic that’s becoming public art. It was just too cool to believe. Across the canal from the island there were great old buildings just begging to be renovated. Give Bart, Mark, and me about a year and this would be my fantasy home.

Outside, the former military research island doesn't look very inviting

Outside, the former military research island doesn’t look very inviting

But inside, a grassy area for reading and sunning with some great renovation candidates as backdrop

But inside, a grassy area for reading and sunning with some great renovation candidates as backdrop

Then I went to the big park between our hotel and the Hermitage. The police are weird here. Sometimes there can be a hundred people sunning in the park. And sometimes they go through telling people they can’t stay there. As far as I can tell, totally random. One place I was in they appeared while I was reading and told me I couldn’t stay there. I went somewhere else near there and they seemed OK. Either way – grass, sun, and a book and I can be insanely happy. And I was.

The funny thing about my current book is that I’m reading on of Paul Theroux’s books on traveling. He’s writing about a train trip he took from Europe to Japan and back to Europe and I get so engrossed in it I forget I’m in Russia. I get up from the book, walk around for a couple minutes and have to remind myself I’m not in Vietnam or Japan or wherever he’s writing about in that chapter!

Two other things I love are good restaurants and good cocktail bars. Over the last couple days we’ve eaten in two eight-table restaurants; both perfect. Nothing particularly special, just that great sense that you’re some place where someone really cares to get things right.

Negroni-like drinks

Negroni-like drinks

And then we discovered this great bar just a few blocks from our hotel. A couple nights ago we were looking for a place to have dinner, we peeked in, and it looked great. They made world-class Manhattans, had great food, and were experimenting with all sorts of other stuff. It was remarkably New York-ish and when I asked how long they had been open, Igor, the bartender-in-training, told us “We’re not opened yet.” Turns out they’re still in rehearsal mode. That first night Mark & I were the only ones there but when we went back last night it was quite the scene – a Russian poet/musician and his pianist were there, with maybe 20 or 25 people there. Very theatrical, and very Russian; if you know our Boston office, think of Ali & Boris’s love child. Who knew Russian poetry, when you don’t understand a word of it, would be so much fun?

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And then, along with all of that, you’re in St. Petersburg, a city of canals, beautiful churches, great 19th century buildings, and long sunsets. These are just a few of my favorite shots.

St. Petersburg canal and architecture

St. Petersburg canal and architecture

Church of the Spilled Blood, built on the site of Alexander II's assassination

Church of the Spilled Blood, built on the site of Alexander II’s assassination

Traffic on a canal

Traffic on a canal

We know that, traveling like this in unusual places, things aren’t always going to work and I’m trying to achieve a little bit of a Zen approach when things don’t work the way we want them to.  I’m still intrigued with the guy on the mashrutka going up to Tomsk who woke up to find rain leaking on him and just closed his eyes to go back to sleep. I want more of that, to go along with all the great sites and great food and interesting people.

Part of what we love about traveling

Part of what we love about traveling

Moscow convent

Moscow convent

So what are some of the things that don’t or haven’t worked well lately? A constant irritant is the lack of laundry facilities across Russia.  Essentially there are no laundromats or laundry services. I’m not sure what all the Russians do – surely not everyone has their own washer and dryer? – but there just have not been anything for tourists. And hotel prices for laundry can be insane – $27 to wash a pair of pants at our last hotel in Moscow. Seriously. So Mark & I have become adept at washing clothes in the sink. And while that’s not as convenient as a washer and dryer, I remind myself that there are probably a billion women in the world who would find the notion of doing laundry with hot running water a real luxury.

And now, on our first full day in St. Petersburg, we discover that there are laundromats here. You have no idea how excited we are. Three-hundred-ten years and 29 days ago Peter the Great founded the city to try to orient Russia towards Europe; in this regard, at least, his city seems to have succeeded. Go Peter!

Then there was the whole issue of getting to St. Petersburg. There are a bunch of trains between Moscow & here, so we just didn’t think it would be an issue. Wrong. There are dozens of trains, but the fast trains – four or five hours – apparently get booked well in advance. So our choices were a nine hour train ride at really bad times or a 90-minute flight that was half the price. We wanted to do the entire trans-Russia trip overland, but we rolled with that punch and flew up here.

(We did take a train from the center of Moscow where we were staying to the airport. Oddly, after thousands of miles on the rails where trains were amazingly punctual, arriving and leaving on time, this was the one train that was very late. Left on time, but took 90 minutes for what was supposed to be a 50-minute trip. Trying to get to the airport to catch a flight, my Zen ambitions were notably failing as we just sat with no idea when the train would start again. As it turns out, we made the flight.)

Arriving in St. Petersburg, our hotel was the next obstacle. Prices are just unbelievable here at the peak White Nights period, but Mark found one reasonably affordable place; expensive, but we could manage. The checkin process was horrible, waiting in line for 20 minutes before one of just two staff people were available. We get up to the room and discover that the AC isn’t working. We call downstairs and they say “Yes, we’re aware. It’ll be fixed next week.” It’s at least 80 degrees in the room, probably warmer, and we’re paying a lot. So we go downstairs and wait another 30 minutes to talk with someone. Nothing they can do they say except refund our money. So we check out.

All’s well, it turns out. Mark finds this great little three-star hotel in a much better location that’s available for two nights. Very Old World Euro-feel to it and we love it. And then this morning he finds another hotel available for our last two nights at a great price. So what seemed like a disaster – we thought there was definitely a chance we’d just have to leave St. Petersburg early – has turned out pretty sweet for us.

On the boat with Mark's parents

On the boat with Mark’s parents

The exciting news about our stay here is that Mark’s parents got here yesterday as well, on a river boat from Moscow. So we had dinner with them last night on their boat and will find other times to get together over the next couple days. It seemed like that wasn’t going to work so well when we couldn’t find a hotel for tomorrow and the next day, but now all is well. So far, at least…