 |
| MOSCOWSKY STATION |
The person who came to receive us at the train station at St. Petersburg was our cab driver who was English speaking. He was a very friendly person and quite happy to describe the areas that we were passing through. Our hotel was reached quite quickly and to our surprise we found that the hotel had just a door on the street. When we entered it we found that it was a boutique hotel. The place was cute, small and friendly. Our rooms were cozy, clean and comfortable.We had to wait for some time to gain entry to our rooms as we had arrived quite early in the morning, so we waited in the lounge which had a lovely little book shelf.
 |
| KRISTOFF |
It rained the whole morning and we had no option but to rest in our rooms. After some rest, we bravely ventured out to explore our neighbourhood and were pleasantly surprised to find a street at the back of our hotel brimming with different restaurants offering a variety of cuisine. We walked up and down the street and settled for a bright looking welcoming restaurant which served Italian cuisine.
 |
| ITALIAN PLACE |
It served us the most delicious food and the water that they served us was absolutely delightful. As the water was being prepared in front of us, I was quite fascinated by the work involved in its preparation. First water was poured into a jug, slices of lemon and lime were both put in the jug and crushed, with a strong wooden spatula, sprigs of mint were added, a dash of Sprite was added, some crushed ice was added and lo and behold the water that was served to us was absolutely divine. It was much better than any mocktail that I had on a number of occasions. No one had recommended the restaurant to us and we had actually stumbled upon an excellent place. After lunch we again decided to walk in the rain with our umbrellas. Walking in the rain with an umbrella is a delightful experience and when there is no water logging, and no dirty water splashing, the walk is even better.
 |
| NEVA RIVER |
The rain stopped soon and instead of a walk in the rain, we now set out to explore the city. St. Petersburg is situated on the banks of the river Neva at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. It is the most westernised city of Russia and is also its cultural capital. Because of it being at 59 degrees latitude it is considered as one of the northern most cities in the world. Even the sun I think doesn't like to set over here, it shines brightly till 11pm and then is quickly back on the scene around 3.30 in the night.
 |
| THE GENERAL STAFF BUILDING |
This city was established by Peter the Great in 1703, and was made the capital of the country which until then had been at Moscow. In 1918, Moscow was again made the Capital with the end of the Romanov rule and the advent of the Soviet Union. This new city was named St. Petersburg in 1703, which was changed to Petrograd in 1914, so that any affiliation with the German word, "burg" could be avoided. The name was changed to Leningrad in 1924, and in 1991 it went back to square one and the city was renamed St. Petersburg. Interesting to see how men in power kept changing the name back and forth!
A number of cruises originating on the Baltic Sea at Scandinavia come up to St. Petersburg, therefore to cater to the tourists there were many sign boards in English and more people know and speak English here.
St. Petersburg is a beautiful city with aristocratic buildings all in a row. It had been proclaimed long ago that no building could be taller than the Winter Palace and all the houses were to be built in a row with no space in between them.
The houses were of aristocrats and so were palatial, large and beautiful. When the Bolsheviks came to power they allotted equal space to every individual and all these houses were filled with the proletariat who came to claim their share.
 |
| WATCHING DR. ZHIVAGO. |
One needs to revisit Dr. Zhivago the movie, to see what exactly happened during the Russian revolution. I did exactly that, on my flight back from Russia, I watched Dr. Zhivago, and could visualise the scenes vis a vis the majestic houses.
On our second day at St. Petersburg we took the inevitable
"Hop on Hop off" bus which took us around the city. It is a smaller city than Moscow but is more beautiful. The river Neva is never far off, and like Venice one sees water almost everywhere, only one does not need gondolas to travel, as the roads are very well connected.
 |
| WATER, WATER & CANALS |
Peter the Great had designed the city on the pattern of Venice or Amsterdam with canals instead of streets. It will amaze you to know that there are 342 bridges of different sizes over canals and the river within the city. Peter wanted the people to move in boats during summer and when the river froze in winter to move in sledges. Bridges started getting built after Peter's death.
The city oozes an amazing display of character. I had been told that this is the most beautiful city of Europe, and I quite tend to agree with this statement.
No story is complete without a bit of suspense, and no journey is complete without an adventure. We therefore had a bit of suspense as well as adventure on this journey. When we got off at the St. Isaac's Cathedral, one of us who was not too well decided to stay on the bus, while seven of us disembarked.
As the stop was for fifteen minutes we tried to come back in time, but miscalculated the time by a minute. Two of us reached the bus as it was moving out of its bay, and asked the driver to wait as the others were on their way, but the Driver refused to stop and continued on his way as he was maintaining his punctuality. Our friend who was on the bus moved on and seven of us were left wondering about what was the next step to take and how were we to re unite. The instructions about what to do in such an eventuality had been given, but I guess none of us really remembered it. Nevertheless, we boarded the next bus and kept a look out for our friend, who we thought would have either gone on or got off at the next stop. The next stop was at a big crossing and the place was thronging with a lot of tourists, but the watchful eye of our group leader caught the missing friend, he ran down the steps and brought him back to the group. All's well that ends well, and in any case such adventures only help us to make our fun trip story better.
 |
| CATHEDRAL OF SAVIOUR ON BLOOD |
There is another multi coloured Church with onion shaped domes near the St. Isaac's Cathedral. This is called Cathedral of the Saviour on Blood. This church was built at the spot where Tsar Alexander II was killed by an anarchist. The Church was built by Tsar Alexander III and was funded by the Imperial family.The Church was designed on the patterns of the St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. Both these Cathedrals to me appear like the Turkish Dervish, with bulbous domes which have brilliant colourful stripes like candy sticks. They make me feel as if Aladdin will suddenly make his magical appearance from the sky in his flying carpet. Why on earth did religion have to come in? It could all just have remained like a beautiful dream come true with white stallions, flying dervish, billowing pyjamas, all converging on these multi coloured domes.
The Tsar or Czar was the ruler of the biggest in size country and today all that I found was a Restaurant named Tsar with the photograph of the last ruler of this land who was brutally assassinated by the revolutionaries in 1917 at Ekaterinburg.If you did wonder what Tsar meant, well it is derived from the Latin title for the Roman emperors "Caesar". This term was also used in Bulgaria and Serbia.
We had so far not eaten at any Indian restaurant in Russia, so when we saw Tandoor on the sea front near the St. Issac's Cathedral, we decided to walk in. The owner is from Delhi and the employees were from Bihar. All the men of our group were closely associated with Bihar having studied at Birla Institute of Technology which was then in Bihar. I too have close association with Hazaribagh, Mount Carmel School and Ranchi Women's College, so we felt very much at home and settled down to have a great evening. The food was very good and the ambience was excellent too.
I need to take a break now and will return soon with the final episode about ballet and Peterhof.
To be continued....
3 comments:
Wow!!! What an exotic place and what a detailed description. Loved reading it..felt as if I was also a part of the group. Thanks Varsha for sharing.
Sudeshna Chakraborti said,"Great stuff especially the reunion with Bihar!"
What an enjoyable read! And how well you invoke the sense of the places you were at. Splendid. Can't wait to read the final chapter of this story
Post a Comment