Given that we're already on day 5 of an 11 day trip to the Motherland I'm not sure how I can possibly catch up with a meaningful account of our journey but I suppose something is better than nothing so here goes something. I'll start at the beginning (after the earth cooling of course) and try to make sense of why I'm updating my thoroughly neglected blog on a Monday evening from a small flat in Leningrad with 7 mosquito bites and a warm bottle of Grolsch.
Many moons ago my Father and I discussed the possibility of going to Russia for a few days to take in the sights (me) and practice speaking Russian (him). What we didn't realise is that it would take over 10 years to realise what should be a relatively simple, if not expensive, task.
After several months of planning and as much up-front investment as possible we finally left Blighty on one of Stelios' less than private jets and undertook what is probably the smoothest crossing of the North Sea in living memory. Before we knew it we were being chauffered in a very nice Mercedes taxi down an empty 4 lane highway towards the quiet streets of Helsinki.
Yes I know that's not in Russia but that's all part of the grand plan, the plan being to 'do Russia' by train. Now you'd be quite right if you were to say that you can get to Russia without flying but there are two reasons why we've opted for flights either side, one is time and the other is Belarus!
Those of you who've read my humble journal will be well aware of my shortcomings in Belarus regarding the overstaying of my visa and although it may have been a trivial 3 hours they seem to me the kind of people to remember. Notwithstanding the beaurocracy there was also the cost and most importantly the time taken to traverse large swathes of europe in what would in fact be old ground for both of us. Thus the start point was to be Finland and the end point Latvia where we'd pick up our only other flight, this time compliments of Mr O'Leary.
So, apart from a quick day sightseeing in Nokialand we more or less headed straight for Eliel Saarinen's iconic station and straight aboard the 07:23 'Sebelius' express train to St. Petersburg. Once on board we discussed the budget nature of the trip, and the need to conserve funds as much as possible, over a champagne breakfast two carriages away from our first class compartment. Outside the train the spindly scandinavian trees waved us on towards our first glimpse of the Former Soviet Union in the shape of a run down but nonetheless active border control. As expected there were guns, dogs and of course big hats but no obvious animosity towards us whilst we were relieved of our passports, a fact I put down to Papa's grey hair :-)
The train shuffled on and gradually picked up speed and we began to see the signs of a sparse and almost forgotten part of what has to be said is an uttlerly enoromus country. Our passports were notable by their absence and it took around 30 minutes before a Finnish official returned them to us after reading our names out with such great difficulty and confusion I thought to myself "now you know what it's like for us to try to understand Finnish".
As the train headed further east we noticed an increasing number of grubby tankers linked together like burnt sausages waiting to be filled or emptied of their cargo of benzine. Thoughts of a catastrophic explosion passed through my mind but were quickly replaced by our new game; reading the Cyrillic on the passing stations. I probably managed one or two but I was no match for Warwickski and his uncanny ability to not be fooled by the 'false friends' C (pronuced Suh), B (pronounced Vuh), P (Pronounced Ruh), H (pronounced Nuh) and Y (ponounced ooh). There are of course all the other weird letters you've all seen (пьющий is obviously pronounced p'yoosh-sheeh) but they're actually not that hard once you know them. What is hard is to see the word PECTOPAH and to ponounce it properly as RESTORAN, something I need to get better at if I'm to read an original copy of crime & punishment any time soon.
After just enough time to both tire of the journey and start to anticipate our arrival in Russia's second city the suburbs began to envelop our train. Before long we could see swarms of peasants milling around street vendors under the backdrop of imposing yet crumbling soviet apartment blocks whilst trams and trolleybuses trundled down dusty streets before we finally pulled up to a waiting platform at Finladskia station.
Our cosy bubble of plenty was immediately replaced with a stark looking station and a drop of at least 10 degrees in temperature. The other thing missing it seemed was our pickup contact and we would shortly discover that he was never going to be found on account of not having been asked to come at all. Backtracking somewhat we then realised we had litle choice but to re-negotiate with the cab driver that moments earlier I had shooed away and we settled on a price roughly double what we should pay rather than the triple for which he originally asked. Welcome to St. Petersburg!
We set off in a fume ridden Lada where it occurred to me that as the pickup hadn't been arranged then access to the apartment may also be a problem so I phoned the emergency number from our booking sheet and spoke again with the muffled voice at the other end. She revealed that the cleaner should still be there and would let us in. This gave Dad his first chance to converse with a native Russian and the two of them chatted like old friends whilst the driver 'Nicholai' bounced over warped tram lines and undertook cars at what seemed the full limit of the cars capability. The conversation was fascinating and I did manage to understand the gist of it at first but the extend of Pop's Rooski was greater than I'd realised and soon I had no idea what they were talking about.
After not much more than 5 minutes we arrived at a very sorry looking entranceway to what was to be our home for the next few days. I called my covert contact to ask her to send the cleaner to let us in and Dad wandered into the courtyard with Nicholai whilst I guarded the bags. After a few minutes I could see a hardened Babooshka with her hands on her hips joining in with a 3-way conversation with which I was delighted not to be involved. At last there was clarity and we paid Nicholai almost what he'd originally asked for and got his number with a view to asking him to take us to Moscow station in a few days time.
And that's it, we had arrived, the only thing left to do now was to wander down the road and take a first look at the beautiful city and work out how the hell to see it all in a little over 2 days!
1 comment:
Fabulski!
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