I. Love. St. Peters.Burg.

The trip to St. Petersburg, or Leningrad as my host mom still calls it, was a great success.

The overnight sleeper train rolled in to Petersburg around 5:30 Friday morning. After sleeping maybe two hours out of the eight hour trip, I was a tad tired. We eventually found our way to our lovely hostel located in the center of the city and after a little negotiating we were allowed to crash in a room that was being renovated until we could check-in at 11:00.

The schedule for Petersburg was packed full of touristy/cultural excursions.
Friday, post morning nap, we met with our tour guide Olga, who has been working with Dickinson for years. We all jumped as energetically as possible into the minibus and went around Petersburg, stopping at certain places to take pictures or go inside cathedrals, museums, etc.
Fun stuff.


This cathedral is Храм Спаса на Крови, or Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It was built on the place where tsar Alexandr II was assassinated.



Saturday we ventured out of Petersburg to Pushkin, a little town where tsar Nicolas II built his summer palace. The palace was, well, amazing. The grounds were also beautiful, especially with all the fall leaves starting to change.
The school where Pushkin (the poet, remember?) studied is also next to the palace. After we toured Pushkin's school, our cute little Russian tour guide asked us if we knew any of Pushkin's poems. One of the students recited a poem we learned last year, and she looked like she wanted to cry because she was so happy we knew Pushkin.

On Sunday we went to the Эрмитаж, aka The State Hermitage Museum. It's HUGE. Olga gave us a tour of some of the most important/interesting things, and then we were free to wander around. ...I honestly don't remember everything I saw, but I know it was interesting. By this point in the trip I had gotten about 10 hours of sleep over three days, so everything started to blur together. In any case, it was all really cool and you should go if you get the chance. After the museum we went to a ballet at the Mariinski Theater. The Mariinski ballet company is considered [one of] the best in the world. It was really really really really really really really awesome. (Really.)

Sadly Monday was our last day, but we were able to do what we wanted. Five of us decided to walk down Nevsky Prospect. Suddenly we came upon the brilliant idea of taking a boat ride around Petersburg. Peter the Great was obsessed with water and built a series of canals through the city so that his citizens could travel around by boat rather than on roads. What better way to see Petersburg than how it was intended to be seen? We dashed down a side street along the Fontanka canal. Our first attempt to get on a boat failed, as the boat tour people said the water was too high for their boats to go under the bridges. Distraught, we continued walking along the canal until we spotted a lone man on a little boat, putting down the water. He pointed to us then pointed at the boat, and we nodded enthusiastically until he pulled over to a dock to give us our own little private boat tour of Petersburg. This was probably my favorite part of the trip: I got to sit down after days of what seemed like non-stop walking, I was on the water (I might be more obsessed with water than ol' Peter), and I got to see all the beautiful Petersburg buildings.
















So, differences between Moscow and Petersburg:
Petersburg is like a European city - pretty buildings with pretty architecture.
Moscow has some of the pretty buildings, but Stalin took a lot of them down and put up his own style of buildings. ("Ugly" has been used to describe this style. I may or may not agree.)
The people in Petersburg seemed more outwardly friendly, and the middle class was more evident. It had the feeling of a college town.
Moscow's elite are very visible, as well as the poorer classes.
The police in Petersburg also didn't scare me.
I felt like I didn't have to be on my guard as much in Petersburg. I feel safe enough in Moscow, but I felt safer in Petersburg.
Even with all the good vibes I got from Petersburg, I started to get the feeling that Petersburg was giving me a false sense of security; it felt like there was more there, hiding just beneath the surface.

Four days was just enough time to see the obvious: a beautiful facade.
Maybe someday I can return to find out if what's behind the facade is just as beautiful.