2 (not so) White Nights in St Petersburg

While in Russia for work for two weeks, Jenn and I spent a weekend in St Petersburg with my co-worker, Sarah, and her husband, David. They are both American, but are based in London for their jobs. Our plan was to take the high speed train from Moscow to St Petersburg, but because of several complications, we ended up taking a flight. I was adamant that there was no way I was going to fly domestic within Russia because of the loose safety regulations and the shockingly bad crash records, but when it came down to the fact that it was literally the only way we could get to St Petersburg, I had no choice. We flew Aeroflot and besides an extremely shaky landing, it was fine. Sarah, Jenn, and I all made it in one piece, which was obviously the most important thing.

St Petersburg has a completely different feel than Moscow. Where Moscow looks like, feels like, and is a big cosmopolitan city, St Pete looks and feels like many other familiar European cities. Amsterdam and Venice come to mind first because there are canals running throughout the city. Peter the Great was going for Venice when the city was built. It’s a pretty city and seemed like it would be very walkable if it wasn’t so cold. The temperature wasn’t too horrible (in the high 20’s), but the wind chill was a son of a bitch.

WIA: Besides a small lunch at the Hermitage, our first real meal was dinner at Gogol, named after the early 19th century Russian writer. We had a difficult time choosing a location for dinner because we knew we only had one night, so there was no opportunity to make up for a bad meal. The hotel concierge recommended a few different places, but I find it so hard to trust concierges because they always cater to the lowest common denominator and try to push people to “safe” restaurants that are designed to please everyone. Occasionally, a concierge hits a home run, like when the concierge at the Esplanade in Zagreb sent us to Trilogija. We had already asked the concierge to change our reservation from her first recommendation. It wasn't the only reason we switched places, but we were taken aback when our tour guide from the morning told David and me to avoid raping any Russian women at the Russian Vodka Room. I did some reading online and made an executive decision to instead go to Gogol. The layout was 3 or 4 separate rooms as it was designed to look like Gogol’s apartment. The menu was expansive. We had scallops, pasta, and beef stroganoff. I ate beef stroganoff several times on this trip and each time it was different. It’s kind of like goulash in Slovakia and Austria or gumbo in New Orleans in that everyone has their own take on it. The food was good enough and the environment and service were perfect for what we were looking for in a night out. We (besides Jenn) all tried some vodka, since it’s the thing to do in Russia. I had the Russian Standard Platinum and David talked me into the house made spicy horseradish vodka, which was disgusting. This is the second time I've been with David where he's convinced me to drink something I didn't want to drink. I think I've learned my lesson now.

Coincidentally, we ran into a group of Americans at the restaurant who were staying at the same hotel as us in Moscow. We tried to pretend we were cool for an evening and made our way after dinner to meet them at a bar. We got there, saw the line to get in, looked at our watches, and immediately turned around and headed back to the hotel. That was fun.

On Sunday, we had breakfast at Stolle, which specializes in Russian pies. They are kind of like knishes, in that they are small bread rolls filled with a variety of things. I had a meat pie and also a sweet one with apples. Both were tasty. 

We finished off the day with hot chocolate at Dom Knigi, the giant, famous book store.

WID: Sasha, our tour guide took us through the city by car for the first half of the day. It’s dark there until around 10:30, so it felt like a night tour. We started off by the Neva river where the gave us a brief history of the city. I'm glad we started off in the dark, because the view of the city along the river at that time was beautiful.

 

We got out and walked through Peter and Paul’s Fortress. It was freezing. That’s all I remember and all I could think about at the time. We got out and walked around at St Isaac’s Cathedral, St Michael's Castle, and the Church on Spilled Blood, but didn’t go inside. It was cold and rainy, so I was more than happy to stay in the car as much as possible during the tour. In the early afternoon, we spent a few hours being guided through the Hermitage, the absolutely enormous winter palace. It requires a guide to go through or at least a good amount of preliminary research. Otherwise, it is way too overwhelming. Everything about the Hermitage was impressive. You will read (or hear from your tour guide as we did) that it could take days to get through the Hermitage, but trust me, three hours is more than enough time to spend there. 

We walked through the inside St Isaac’s. The inside is enormous and elaborately decorated. I've seen a lot of cathedrals in my time, so it's difficult for me to get too excited about one, but this one was pretty good. We walked the steps up to the top before going back to the hotel for a few hours to relax. 

Sunday was relatively low key. We finally made it inside the Church on Spilled Blood, which was constructed on the site where Alexander II was assassinated (hence the name). Almost the whole inside is made from mosaics, which is incredible to see up close. 

We didn’t really get what was interesting or exciting about Nievsky Prospect, the large shopping street, or Dom Knigi, the big book store, but we checked them both out because it's what you're supposed to do.

WIS: The W St Petersburg is fairly new and more than fairly awesome. We were upgraded and our room was like a small apartment. We had a walk-in closet, two toilets, and three televisions. I was most excited that for toiletries, they gave us full size bottles of the Bliss products, which we of course stuck in our bag at the end of the stay and took with us. I could have stayed there for much longer than two nights. Besides being an extremely nice hotel, the location was also perfect in that it’s close to everything. The front desk staff needs a little bit of training. It took an hour for Sarah and David to check out because of various difficulties. Besides that, I highly recommend staying there if you’re in St Petersburg. I tried Baltika Beer at the bar one night and thought it was okay. I understand now though that they have several different types coming out of that brewery, but I didn’t think the #7 was anything special.

WAM: I drank a lot of vodka during my time in Russia and I didn’t really get the novelty. Everyone, who I spoke to, told me how the vodka is so much better in Russia and smoother so it can be drunk like water. To me, the vodka tasted like vodka. I guess it was a little smoother, but I certainly couldn't drink it like water. The Russians do seem to drink it like water, as they do almost all alcohol. I tried Russian Standard Original, the Standard Platinum, the aforementioned horseradish concoction, and Beluga.

WTF: At the end of walking through the church inside Peter and Paul’s Fortress, we were guided into a small room where every half an hour or so, these 5 men who are members of a choir sing a few Russian songs. It’s kind of a like at Chucky Cheese where they have Animatronics, but they are real people. I didn’t want to go in because I knew it was going to be creepy, but Sarah, David, and Jenn insisted. The singing was very nice, but all I could think about is what is life like for these 5 individuals? Is this their job? Do they sing to tourists every 30 minutes every single day? My guess is they all just love to sing and so, while it seems quite miserable to me (as I’m sure my job would seem to them), they are thrilled to do this. The exception would be the two younger members of the group on the bookends who both looked incredibly disinterested in what they were doing. One guy appeared to be yawning through all the songs, so apparently I wasn't the only one in the room that didn't want to be there.

For more pictures, click here.