I love Russia (but shhhhh...don't tell America)!
I just got back from my Helsinki-St. Petersburg-Moscow Trip! So of course I would like to tell you all about it! It was a long trip though, so get ready for a long entry!
Pt. I: HelsinkiI went with a few friends from my Biochemistry course on this trip, but altogether there were 120 people from different Universities around Sweden, we were split on two busses so I only got to know people from my bus. We met in Stockholm and took a ferry to Turku, Finland. The boat is certainly not the most comfortable place to sleep (TINY rooms with 4 people), but whatever keeps the trip cheap, eh ;) We then went on a city tour around Helsinki.
I thought overall Helsinki was kind of a dull city. Maybe it was also the overcast/rainy weather. I'm sure its nice during the summer...but there was nothing that special to it (at least nothing that really caught my attention). But here were a few things that interested other people:
The first sight we saw was this church that was just made from a giant rock. They just drilled a giant hole in a giant rock and there ta daaa..church!
I unfortunately don't remember too much from the city tour because there is something about being on a bus and a tour guide talking that makes me ridiculously tired. But then went to see this strange piece of art. It was actually kind of cool.
It was made of pipes or..something. I haven't studied art enough to appreciate it as much as I know I should (sorry mels)
We went around and saw churches an and buildings. Nothing was really that elaborate or very old (sorry...I know I'm quite unenthusiastic about this city). Maddy and I (my little Aussie buddy) were kind of lethargic and down about the city. So we decided that it is only as good (or bad) as we make it. So we turned around our attitudes.
Here's Maddy excited about seeing a light pole.
Here's my favorite architectural piece in Helsinki:
now thats some solid construction.
My favorite part of Helsinki was this restaurant we went to called Zetor. The food was really good and you could eat around a tractor if you'd like.
I was a big fan of the tractor tables.
OKAY! So now on to everything bigger and better!
Pt. II: St. Petersburg The next morning we drove to St. Petersburg.
It took us quite awhile to drive all the way to St. Petersburg (especially on a big bus) and it was not too comfortable. The biggest hassle was crossing the Russian boarder (of course). It was kind of funny comparing crossing the Finnish boarder and the Russian. It took about ten times as long to cross the Russian boarder, going through many of the bags on the buses (there was 120 of us remember). But after a couple hours it was finished and we were able to drive into the city.
Maddy and I (happy since the bus ride had only begun)
I was surprised with how dirty the outskirts were. I suppose its like this in many American cities as well, but I guess I just didn't expect it (I really haven't run into any 'slums' in Sweden). The buildings were falling apart, there was trash all over the side of the roads and some of the houses looked like they were about to fall apart. But we were able to find a little bit of Sweden in Russia.
This made me much happier than it probably should have.
It's fun even just to see all the signs with Russian on them. You can't even try to pronounce what the word might be since you have no idea what the alphabet is (although I think it's easier than I anticipated...it's close to the greek alphabet in a lot of aspects and since I had to learn the greek alphabet for AXE, it helped me out a lot)
St. Petersburg on the other hand was really very nice. We got there just as all the touristy places were closing. So we just walked down the biggest street "Nevsky" with the biochem kids and some our new Italian friends (Antonio and Filipo). This was actually my favorite night in St. Petersburg. The other days I was a little stressed because there is just *so* much to see in St. Petersburg and I wanted to see it all, but didn't have the time. I really like the pictures from this night too. The sky was dark, but it was just so blue and with all the lights from the buildings...well you'll see.
Certainly would never see one of these in the great ol' USA
Sweden has IKEA, USA has McDonalds!
I just liked the lights and the sky and all :)
That church in the background actually ended up being my very favorite (of very many) churches that we went to. It's called the Church Of The Saviour On Spilled Blood, it was partly modeled off of St. Basils cathedral in Moscow, but I'll come back to it later.
Here's a picture of our group in front of Kazan Cathedral (commissioned by Tsar Paul shortly before he was murdered in a coup). I love this part of Nevsky, I think the Kazan Cathedral makes it a really interesting and fun street to walk down (it spans a whole block).
Here are a couple pictures from outside of the Hermitage Museum as well (as told, "There are art galleries, there are museums, there are the great museums of the world and then there is the Hermitage"). It is ridiculously big and painful for those who aren't endlessly entertained by art (ME).
Group walking...my favorite activity actually. I'm not in this one, too busy snapping all the pictures (I absolutely love my camera, so get used to it)
We called it a night around midnight and went to bed. In the morning a group of us went about 45 minutes out of St. Petersburg to Catherines Palace (where the famous "8th wonder of the world"...they so claimed" was rebuilt). I actually wasn't the biggest fan of the palace. I was just so much Gold. Don't get me wrong, I love gold (Auuuuu) But, royalty just really over uses it. And we weren't allowed to take pictures of the Amber room, but I did buy my self an amber bracelet to commemorate it :)
Here are a couple pictures...sorry if you are blinded by all the gold.
mmmmkay good enough.
Once we got back to St. Petersburg we were a little stressed because we only had a couple hours to hit some sites. So we decided to go to the Hermitage. It's awesome that it's so famous and all, like I said. But gah! After just an hour I was exhausted and just...did not care about all this art. I was in Russia and wanted to learn about Russia. I know its ridiculous for me to complain about seeing artists like Rembrant and Picasso, but I just ... want to learn about Russia. It completely sucked all energy out of me. But we toughed it out for a whole 2.5 hours.
Maddy and Me trying to enjoy the Museum:
Then we only had time to go to St. Isaacs Cathedral. We wanted to go to the museum and up to the top (view of the city), but language barrier blah blah I don't know but they wouldn't sell us tickets for the museum. Which was actually probably good considering how tired we were of museums at that point.
St. Isaacs from Outside:
Stairs Up to the top (there were soooo many):
View from the top (I know...not that great, it was cloudy...and a lot of the buildings are ugly anyways).
We found this little cafe called "Zoom Cafe" that we just absolutely loved. They were super sweet and tried really hard to speak english with us. They had a fun menu (see picture) and SoooOoooOoo many food options. I, of course, had to get the borscht. Oh so typical Russian and when better to try for the first than in Russia?!?1 It was soooo good!
My favorite page in the back of the menu:
We all then met at the bus at 8pm (the Zoom group had to RUN to the bus from the metro...we were a bit late hah). We spent the night on the bus (with very little actual sleeping) and drove to Moscow over night.
Pt. III: MoscowDespite the lack of sleep, Moscow was soooo great. By far my favorite. We got into the city around 9am and did a guided tour around red square and around the rest of the town from our bus.
When we got out of the bus to explore red square I was immediately awed by St. Basils Cathedral. It is SO beautiful and even more amazing than the pictures. And since I have no knowledge on Russian history the stories behind the city fascinated me anymore. I learned that Isaac the Terrible ordered the construction of St. Basils church and after it's completion he had the architects eyes poked out so he could never design something so beautiful again (hence his name "the Terrible"). That is just gross and so inhumane. I really don't understand people who would be okay with that kind of stuff.
So here's my first picture of St. Basils (there are MANY):
The sky was so clear and it was actually warm! It was like...10 degrees C. Soooo nice! And no snow! I can't even remember what it's like to not have snow.
Can you see me???
Lenin's Tomb:
This was WAY cooler than I thought it would be. His body was embalmed when he died and so it's stayed preserved since 1924! It was totally creepy and gross and SO amazing. Unfortunately no pictures--you'll just have to go see for yourself. Many other leaders (including Stalin) are buried along the wall of Kremlin.
Also in red square is GUM, an elaborate 19th-century facade in Red Square. Moscow's giant shopping mall filled with many high end stores and elaborate decorations.
GUM pics:
Biochem girls :)
Also in Red Square is the russian history museum, which I regrettably did not have the time to go to :( But I absolutely loved the building itself.
Kremlin wall/towers/and first peak of the inside:
We did a guided tour through Kremlin as well. I absolutely love all the history behind Kremlin and learning about all of Russia's rulers, but I swear the Russian guides have a way of making it as painful as possible to listen to it all. We would just stand outside of a building for 10-15 minutes at a time while they explained every little detail of how it was build, the architecture, who built it, who ordered it to be built...etc. So it was actually really hard to listen. I found my mind wandering a lot and I actually did not get a lot of the history or stories behind it. Oh well, I can read up on it now!
So I think the idea of going into Kremlin is a lot more fun and mystical than it actually is. The architecture of the Catherdrals is really beautiful, but also all very similar to each other.
My first picture inside!
I love that they had in there the biggest canon in the world...that never shot a canon. Haha I also feel like this is something the US would try to do (I thought Russia and America were similar in a lot of aspects actually...it completely boggled my mind).
And they also tried the biggest bell in the world (at the time) which cracked and was never rung. hah.
St. Isaacs tower...no building was allowed to be taller than this (I don't know when this ended though).
One of many pretty cathedrals :D
Day Two in Moscow consisted of walking around with Maddy and my new friend Heather (also an Aussie). We hit up a couple more Cathedrals (SO MANY) and then just hung out at one of the popular shopping streets: Old Arbat street. It was actually really great. It was just a beautiful day with beautiful sites and no stress.
Another beautiful church (it's kind of pathetic I forgot the name of it...but I do remember it used to be a giant swimming pool and is made completely of white marble from Siberia).
We walked over that little bridge thing and saw some really beautiful views of the city.
Some shots from Old Arbat street:
Graffiti'd street:
Some of my favorite soviet art work :)
Maddy angry that we paid 130 rubles for a coffee and the fact that russians don't understand putting milk in coffee (whenever we'd ask for milk they'd steam it for us)
We also rode around on the metro (I absolutely love the Metro in Moscow and I really want one in SLO) to see all the pretty stations (never saw the one that was bombed though)
And then walked around aimlessly until we found this random bridges with tree-like sculptures made of locks. It was incredibly random and incredibly cool.
The three of us at dinner afterwards:
After our second day in Moscow we had another night bus ride back to St. Petersburg
Pt. IV: St. Petersburg...again. (I told you this was going to be long...)
The biochem girls and I went to see the Peter and Paul Fortress (oldest building in town, built in 1703, Its original purpose was to defend the land acquired from the Swedes (hehehe). But it was used mainly as a political prison and the first inmate was Peter's own son Alexey (Peter supervised his son's torture), who was followed by other notables such as Dostoevsky, Gorky, Trotsky and Lenin's older brother, Alexander...see? this is the history that I find so very interesting). We just walked around for the most part...they charged a ton for everything they possibly could.
Then we went to the Church Of The Saviour On Spilled Blood, which I was at the time unenthusiastic about, and it ended up being my favorite part of St. Petersburg. Here's a little history behind it that I found on the lonely planet website:
Built between 1883 and 1907 in memory of reformist Tsar Alexander II. On this spot in 1881, a terrorist group known as the People's Will attempted to assassinate the tsar by blowing up his carriage, which did eventually result in his death. Officially called the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, it was intended as a private place of mourning for the life of the tsar. It was the Bolsheviks who threw the ornate doors of this amazing candy-cake structure open to the people. Not built to withstand the wear and tear caused by thousands of visitors, its interior quickly began to suffer. Following the closure of churches by Stalin in the 1930s, the church was used to store various items from potatoes to theatre sets. Decades of abuse and neglect finally ended in the 1980s, which was surprising given a political climate that was still very cold to religion. It's now famed as the church that took 24 years to build and 27 to restore, for that's how long it took to refurbish the 7000 sq metres of mosaics that line the walls inside.
The walls were covered completely by mosaics--finally, differentiating it from every other church. I found it really amazing. I learned I absolutely love mosaics! I thought it was beautiful and it actually picked me up instead of exhausting me out.
To end our Russian experience, the group attended a Russian Folk Dance.
It was hilarious! It was so good. Half the dances were just about flirting and they really interacted with the audience. It was so great. And they just smiled and looked like they were having a great time--i love that stuff.
Afterwards some of us girls got ice cream and then hung out downtown some--it was really a great night. BAH I'm going to miss Russia so much! It was just so refreshing to be in this new environment. I actually thought the people (that could and were willing to speak english or interact with us) were SO nice and smiley and wonderful!
So those were the basics of my trip--I'm also going to include a little something something about my favorite moments and my thoughts about the culture and all that fun stuff.
