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Month: September 2013

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St. Petersburg Metro — Take a People-Watching Ride on a Long Escalator

The striking thing about St. Petersburg’s amazing subway system (like Moscow’s) is that it is extremely deep. It was dug by nearly free peasant labor in the 1930s and — after a break for World War II — finished in the 1950s. While London’s impressive system feels rickety, St. Petersburg’s feels industrial-strength and bomb-hardened. Getting around by metro is second nature for locals. Today millions of citizens who use the system spend a good part of their lives — about an hour a week — riding escalators like this.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

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You Know You’ve Been in Russia Too Long When…

54-expats-on-boatSteve Caron opened the first youth hostel in Russia in the early 1990s. I visited him back then and it was fun to visit again. Today, St. Petersburg has countless informal hostels and little backpacker guesthouses. That, along with couch-surfing, has opened up the budget-accommodations scene in St. Petersburg. Steve recently shut down his venerable hostel and now runs a very popular online travel agency for Russian travelers (www.sindbad.ru). We enjoyed Steve’s generous hospitality for four nights. Thanks, Steve, for a great time in a wonderful city.

An entertaining thing about hanging out with people in Russia is that you pick up quirks about Russian society. For instance, Natasha is such a common name that some ex-pats throw a “Natasha party,” where each guy must bring a girl named Natasha. Girls generally figure it out. (But in earlier times they might not, as it was customary at a party in Russia not to introduce the women.)

Steve has lived as an ex-pat in Russia since the very difficult first years after the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s. To make light of all the hardships of living in St. Petersburg back then, he shared this entertaining list of indications that you’ve been in Russia too long. While most of the points no longer make sense today as Russia has become a much more comfortable, safer, and better-organized place to live, these still resonate for ex-pats in 2013:

You know you’ve been in Russia too long when…

  1. In winter, you choose your route first by determining which icicles are least likely to impale you on the head. (Many people still die each winter from falling icicles.)
  2. You win a shoving match with an old babushka for a place in line, and you are proud of it.
  3. You drink the brine from empty pickle jars.
  4. Your coffee cups routinely smell like vodka.
  5. You know more than 60 Olgas.
  6. You wear a wool hat in the sauna.
  7. You no longer see any significant difference between America’s Republican and Democratic parties.
  8. Babushkas turn to you on the street inquiring about former and current street names.
  9. Doors are not supposed to be pretty, they are supposed to be metal with triple bolts.
  10. You are envious that your ex-pat friend has smaller door keys than you.
  11. You don’t throw away any bags, jars, cans, wrapping paper, string, rubber bands, broken shoe laces, boxes — because you never know when you might use them.
  12. You’re excited when you accomplish 3 things out of a list of 10 to do that day, and consider it a very effective day!
  13. You think that rotten milk and sour cabbage are “nice” stairway smells.
  14. You see every vehicle as a potential taxi.
  15. You can successfully negotiate the metro at rush hour with no broken eggs.
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Snapshots from St. Petersburg

Trish and I went through the formalities on our ship so we could leave it in St. Petersburg, before the cruise ended in Copenhagen. We then caught a taxi at the terminal (fixed price, paid in advance at a booth in the terminal, at probably double the metered rate — but at $30 for a 30-minute ride, I was satisfied), and went to my friend’s apartment. Here are various images, experiences, and tips I’d like to share from our time in St. Petersburg.

Enjoying four different private guides in four days, I experienced St. Petersburg as a city filled with discovery and meaning. With our first guide we walked…everywhere. St. Petersburg is exhausting on foot. This guide, Natalya, made sightseeing easy and instructive with a car and an iPad.
Enjoying four different private guides in four days, I experienced St. Petersburg as a city filled with discovery and meaning. With our first guide we walked…everywhere. St. Petersburg is exhausting on foot. This guide, Natalya, made sightseeing easy and instructive with a car and an iPad.
While distances can be great in St. Petersburg, I refashioned our guidebook chapter to feature sights based on subway stops. The subway in this city is a sight in itself. It is cheap, easy, and a fire hose of a people-mover.
While distances can be great in St. Petersburg, I refashioned our guidebook chapter to feature sights based on subway stops. The subway in this city is a sight in itself. It is cheap, easy, and a fire hose of a people-mover.
St. Petersburg’s subway system, like Moscow’s, is vast and treats commuters like VIPs with grand and stylish-in-Soviet-times halls like this. The system gives St. Petersburg a magnificent infrastructure that will move its workforce until the end of time.
St. Petersburg’s subway system, like Moscow’s, is vast and treats commuters like VIPs with grand and stylish-in-Soviet-times halls like this. The system gives St. Petersburg a magnificent infrastructure that will move its workforce until the end of time.
As the subway system was a triumph of the former Soviet Union, halls are decorated with Socialist Realism art like this bronze relief. Today, while the hammer and sickle are out of style, these souvenirs of the USSR era are kept as part of the culture’s heritage. This particular scene shows Lenin stirring up his masses with his right-hand (hench)man, Joseph Stalin, standing dutifully behind him. After Stalin died in 1953, he was purged from Soviet society, so this is a rare image of him that you can still see in public today.
As the subway system was a triumph of the former Soviet Union, halls are decorated with Socialist Realism art like this bronze relief. Today, while the hammer and sickle are out of style, these souvenirs of the USSR era are kept as part of the culture’s heritage. This particular scene shows Lenin stirring up his masses with his right-hand (hench)man, Joseph Stalin, standing dutifully behind him. After Stalin died in 1953, he was purged from Soviet society, so this is a rare image of him that you can still see in public today.
Russia is a dangerous place for your valuables. Throughout Europe, fast-fingered thieves can nip your valuables without you even knowing it. In Russia, the thieves are not so subtle — when they hit, you’ll know it. Being ripped-off here is somewhere between a pickpocketing and a mugging. Tourists can be targeted. While I don’t always wear my money belt these days (shhh, that’s a secret), I wore it in Russia.
Russia is a dangerous place for your valuables. Throughout Europe, fast-fingered thieves can nip your valuables without you even knowing it. In Russia, the thieves are not so subtle — when they hit, you’ll know it. Being ripped-off here is somewhere between a pickpocketing and a mugging. Tourists can be targeted. While I don’t always wear my money belt these days (shhh, that’s a secret), I wore it in Russia.
While probably not advisable for most travelers, locals take full advantage of St. Petersburg’s “unofficial” taxi system. Getting a ride is like fishing. You look for an old beater car (usually a Soviet-era Lada) driven by a man (usually a Central Asian), and hold out your hand. He’ll stop and you negotiate a price. Locals will pay 100 rubles ($3.50) and tourists will be lucky to get a ride for 200 rubles ($7). Hop in and pray you get to the place you agreed to be taken. We did this routinely with our local guides and I got pretty good at spotting beat-up Ladas driven by Uzbeks, saving us piles of walking. While hopping into a Lada on one occasion, I told my guide, “This is a good system.” He corrected me, saying, “No, this is a good lack of a system.”
While probably not advisable for most travelers, locals take full advantage of St. Petersburg’s “unofficial” taxi system. Getting a ride is like fishing. You look for an old beater car (usually a Soviet-era Lada) driven by a man (usually a Central Asian), and hold out your hand. He’ll stop and you negotiate a price. Locals will pay 100 rubles ($3.50) and tourists will be lucky to get a ride for 200 rubles ($7). Hop in and pray you get to the place you agreed to be taken. We did this routinely with our local guides and I got pretty good at spotting beat-up Ladas driven by Uzbeks, saving us piles of walking. While hopping into a Lada on one occasion, I told my guide, “This is a good system.” He corrected me, saying, “No, this is a good lack of a system.”
As my host was an ex-pat, we hung out with his circle of friends — a fascinating, hard-core ex-pat group — most of whom had been in St. Petersburg for 15 to 20 years and had seen lots of changes. It was fascinating to learn from them why they chose to live here, how things had changed, and how to work the system like locals. One ex-pat ran the Irish bar in town and owned a boat, which provided perhaps the group’s favorite diversion. To just motor around the Neva River and enjoy the city’s low and horizontal, Neoclassical skyline was a delight.
As my host was an ex-pat, we hung out with his circle of friends — a fascinating, hard-core ex-pat group — most of whom had been in St. Petersburg for 15 to 20 years and had seen lots of changes. It was fascinating to learn from them why they chose to live here, how things had changed, and how to work the system like locals. One ex-pat ran the Irish bar in town and owned a boat, which provided perhaps the group’s favorite diversion. To just motor around the Neva River and enjoy the city’s low and horizontal, Neoclassical skyline was a delight.
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Crashing with a Friend in Russia

Staying with a friend, you experience the real St. Petersburg — and for many, that means vast apartment buildings with dreary public spaces, elevators that are both scary and skinny, and personal spaces that are quite comfortable. Join me on this unforgettable Russian elevator ride as we meet our friend Steve on the top floor of his building. (Please feel free to share any scary elevator-style memories you may have from crashing with friends in foreign countries.)

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

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The Expensive Reality of Russia’s Tourist Visas

Unfortunately, Russia still requires a visa for tourists. It’s expensive ($250), you have to answer a slew of probing questions, and you’re essentially required to use a pricey visa service. Cruise ship passengers are welcome to tour the city without a visa, but only on a guided shore excursion from the ship. Also, some local guides are licensed to take cruisers who don’t have visas on day trips from the boat. (While this can be expensive and is rarely done, it’s a workable option — and I found several good guides to recommend for this service.) Only a few passengers actually go through the hoops to get a tourist visa (as we did), which allows them to come and go freely using the boat as a hotel.

The only port in Northern Europe where cruise ships routinely spend two (or sometimes three) nights is St. Petersburg. That’s because there’s so much to see and (I figure, cynically) there’s so much money to be made off the fact that in order to go ashore, thousands of passengers buy excursions. I understand that one big company has a lock on the cruise business in St. Petersburg, and the cruise lines make more money at this stop by far than at any other. That’s why the big players have no problem with Russia’s ornery visa requirements, and most local insiders anticipate no change in the near future.

It’s loosening up for some nationalities (for example, most Latin Americans don’t need a visa for Russia). But the world of visas is one of reciprocity, and until the US allows Russians in without visas, Russia will keep the same requirement of American travelers. It’s only logical in the sandbox of international relations.