One of our Best of St. Petersburg, Tallinn & Helsinki tours was in town, so we decided to join them for the day. With a wonderful local guide, we rode the bus 15 miles to the town of Pushkin and a cluster of over-the-top-opulent Romanov palaces called the Czar’s Village (Tsarskoye Selo). This gorgeous ensemble of residences, pavilions, and gardens was born shortly after St. Petersburg, when Peter the Great’s wife Catherine founded a church and began erecting palaces here. Photos by Trish Feaster, The Travelphile.com.
During the second half of the 18th century, Peter’s heirs built the most impressive building at Czar’s Village: the grand Catherine Palace. Recently restored, like so much of St. Petersburg, it absolutely sparkles. Unfortunately, this is one palace that seems efficient and workable only for groups or individuals with a local guide. They give the lowest ticket priority and the last entry times to individual tourists.I love to pop in on Rick Steves tour groups as I travel. I’ve probably crossed paths with a dozen in the last two months. I got to be an honorary member for a group shot on the grounds of Czarina Catherine’s palace. The group saved their best faces for my shot.At Europe Through the Back Door, we produce souvenir patches that many of our tour members enjoy collecting. With this particular tour group, the average number of Rick Steves tours people had taken was five to six. This woman, with “only” three of our patches, was a relative newbie. We’re so thankful for the passionate following we have among our tour members. And when I meet these loyal travelers, I’m reminded that they have high expectations for our tours. And I have high expectations for my staff to consistently exceed those high expectations…and they do.These days, when you tour a big, crowded palace or museum with a commotion of tour groups and guides all coming together, the “whisper system” is a very good investment. A guide can talk softly into the microphone and the entire group (including me on this day) can wander through the crowded halls, immersed in all the glittering art, and hear everything — without having to scramble to get close enough to the guide to catch what she’s saying. With my guidebook, camera, and “whisper system” earpiece, I am one well-equipped tourist.Just like everyone mobs the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, people come to the Catherine Palace mostly to see the Amber Room. In a sumptuous and sprawling palace, this room stands out as a riot of gilded panels, embedded with amber and slathered with mirrors. Like the rest of the palace, the Amber Room had to be restored after World War II. The restoration was made possible, in part, by funds donated by German taxpayers — whose grandfathers caused the damage.It was a hot, hot day, and on the way home from the Catherine Palace, our bus driver stopped at a big Soviet-era square where hundreds of kids were enjoying buckets of fun with the fountains.Watching the fun on this square, and dodging lots of water (as tourists were fair game for these rollicking kids), I was struck by how, throughout the world, the laughter of happy children sounds exactly the same.Back at our tour group’s hotel, I enjoyed shooting a group selfie. After spending a day with our tour, I was impressed by how well-organized it was, the quality of our local guide, and how much fun the tour members were having. St. Petersburg is a new destination for ETBD, and I’m proud that our tour program includes it.
Eating in St. Petersburg is easy when you stick with the cafeteria lines. The food is good, the price is right, and you order by pointing — so you’re more likely to get what you want. Photos by Trish Feaster, The Travelphile.com.
Tepemok is a top local chain. A kind of Russian fast-food joint, you can eat here very well for just a few dollars. This is where people of all walks of life stop for a quick lunch.Looking at this menu, you can get a sense for what’s cooking and the cost of eating out in Russia. Figure 33 rubles for a dollar or $3 for every hundred rubles. It’s fun to order adventurously from a menu like this.For me, the language barrier is huge because I don’t speak Russian, and many people you deal with (clerks, salespeople, waiters, and tellers) speak only Russian. And, in Russia, there’s a culture of lousy service with a sneer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a local or a tourist, service often stinks. So, eating in a self-service cafeteria-style place with menu items featured on easy-to-identify pictures can be the key to a more enjoyable lunch.
In this video from earlier in my visit, join me and my friend Steve Caron, who’s lived in St. Petersburg for 20 years, as we go out — not for Mexican or Chinese — but for Georgian!
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
Under communism, the state religion — atheism — tried to silence the faith professed by the majority of Russians. The Russian Orthodox Church survived, but many church buildings were seized by the government and repurposed (as ice-hockey rinks, swimming pools, and so on). Many more were destroyed. Soviet citizens who openly belonged to the church sacrificed any hope of advancement within the communist system. But since the fall of communism, Russians have flocked back to their church. (Even Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent and avowed atheist, revealed that he had secretly been an Orthodox Christian all along.) Today, three out of every four Russian citizens follows this faith — a high percentage for a country whose government was aggressively atheistic just a generation ago. Photos by Trish Feaster, The Travelphile.com.
While visiting each of St. Petersburg’s top churches, with the help of my fine local guides, I was able to beef up and improve the descriptions in our guidebook.The exuberantly decorative Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, with its gilded carrottop of onion domes, is built on the place where a suicide bomber assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881. Its designers created a building that was a romantic, fairy-tale image of their own national history and traditions — similar to Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria or the Matthias Church in Budapest. Psychologically, it seems fitting that as the Romanovs were finding themselves fighting a rising tide of people power and modernity, they would build something so classically Russian. Alexander II freed the serfs in 1861. But he gave them no land (no opportunity for building a new life), so they moved to the cities, where the seeds of proletarian discontent were planted (and would burst into revolution a half-century later). For a czar and for the times, Alexander II was a great reformer.The Kazan Cathedral reopened as a church after years as a “Museum of Atheism.” Inside, worshippers wait in a long line to kiss the church’s namesake: the icon of Our Lady of Kazan. Considered the single most important icon of the Russian Orthodox faith, the original icon was discovered in 1579 by a young girl (directed by a vision of the Virgin Mary) under the ruins of the destroyed city of Kazan on the Volga River. A monastery was erected on that site, and replicas of the icon were sent to other Russian cities — including St. Petersburg — to be venerated by the faithful.Russian Orthodoxy has revived since the end of communism as you’ll experience when you duck into any neighborhood church — full of incense, candles, and liturgical chants. It’s usually OK to visit discreetly during services, when the priest opens the doors of the iconostasis, faces the altar, and leads the standing congregation in prayerful chants. Dress conservatively (no shorts or bare shoulders). Women are encouraged, though not normally required, to cover their heads with scarves or bandannas, which are sometimes available at the entrance.
At romantic spots all over St. Petersburg you’ll see newlyweds with their photographers. After the wedding ceremony, newlyweds are practically obligated to drop by a dozen or so picturesque locations for wedding pictures. They’ll occasionally make a traditional toast with Champagne, then break their glasses to proclaim their love. Watch your step.
