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Saint Petersburg & Moscow, Russia Trip Report

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Tak3r United Kingdom749 Posts July 11 2017 07:07 GMT #1 Hey! I just put a little post about my trip to Russa in 2011, visiting both Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Hopefully it is interesting for some And has anyone been there since then? I consider coming back in 2018 and would love to check out some new places! Cheers, Chris Saint Petersburg & Moscow, Russia [12/09/2011] Welcome to the third and final part of my East Europe Roadtrip report! I wrote the first piece nearly two years ago and figured it would finally be time to finish off this series. Coming from Helsinki in Finland on an overnight train with a dicey passport control, I had finally made it to the world’s largest nation and visited Saint Petersburg & Moscow in Russia. Ninth Stop – Saint Petersburg, Russia The 5 hour train ride from Helsinki, Finland to Saint Petersburg, Russia was a really bizarre experience. I was required to obtain a Visa prior to my trip and knew that at some point they will check it on the train while we cross the border at night. We were sitting down on our seats with the ones opposite of us being free. Just about half an hour before the border, some really weird looking guy came over. We were not thinking of much and minded our own business and he would soon disappear again as well. Some more time passed and the immigration officer came into our compartment. He was tipsy at least from probably a little bit too much vodka and clearly had fun trying to scare us a little bit while his colleagues were searching everything for illegal substances such as alcohol, which regularly get smuggled in via the trains. Relieved that he had nothing to moan about our Visas and Passports, we could sit back and relax again, until the same guy from earlier appeared again. He took the same seat and started to look for something, eventually coming up with 2 big bottles of some kind of alcohol which he was clearly hiding from the police! Without even looking at us, he took them and disappeared again, probably leaving the train at the next station. Looking at each other in disbelief, we realized how lucky we had been that the police did not find the little secret stash as it would have put us in a really bad situation! We were off to a good start and arrived in the middle of the night at the dodgy looking train station of Saint Petersburg, waiting for our Couchsurfer to pick us up… Staying in our Couchsurfers place itself was a great experience. Never had I been in a more dirty, yet still comfortable place before. We had a great time going out and playing table football too as you can see in the pictures and our host told us some interesting stories, such as he lived in a pretty dangerous area and there was a chance to get robbed and you better get robbed by a robber and not by the corrupt police here! Another interesting aspect was that you actually had to time your evening visits to the other side of the river with the bridge crossings. They were opening up for boats at night and remained open all the way until the early morning; pretty easy to get stuck on the wrong side of the river here after a night out!! We actually had to run to just barely make it back to our side… There was a lot to check out in Saint Petersburg. This amazing city is not only host to nearly 5 million people, it also contains beautiful architecture and interesting sculptures. I especially liked the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, which is impressive both in- and outside, as well as the Winter Palace, hosting the Hermitage Museum nowadays. Kazan Cathedral reminded me of the Vatican in Rome and a huge sail boat with 3 masts was something I did not really expect in Russia! Even just taking the Metro will already make you take pictures! We decided to spend one day at Peterhof Palace, which is about 1 hour west of Saint Petersburg and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Peter the Great started to construct this site as his Summer Palace back in 1714 and visiting was absolutely worth all the time and effort spent. The lovely gardens made up for some nice walks and the impressive golden fountain statues in front of the palace are very picturesque – I could see why Peter liked to hang out here back in the days! Tenth Stop – Moscow, Russia Moscow is about 4 hours south of Saint Petersburg and the capital of Russia with over 13 million people. It comes without saying that it is also packed with great places to check out. However, coming from Saint Petersburg, I was actually a little bit disappointed with the sights in Moscow. Everything just seemed a bit smaller and less spectacular! The iconic St Basil Cathedral can’t compete with Saint Petersburg’ Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, especially when you compare the interior. St Basil just seemed a bit pale compared to its glorious competitor in Saint Petersburg! Walking along the red square itself was my personal highlight in Moscow. This huge open area between the red colored State History Museum and St Basil Cathedral offered plenty of photo opportunities and the fact that it used to be the very center of the Soviet Union gave it a very strong historic appeal. Spent a few hours here and you can observe all kinds of people, some of them dressed up as Stalin even which seemed pretty funny. I came back here a couple of times and my favorite was certainly during the golden hour just before sunset when the Cathedral was lit up in warm light. The world famous kremlin was also great to check out. You can find the typical white churches with golden roofs, a huge Tsar Cannon and an over 6m tall Tsar Bell in here. The rest of Moscow did not impress me too much. Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was a good spot on the way towards a gigantic and bizarre looking ship and I enjoyed the sunset near the State University. Other than that, not too much happened on the last stop of this big road trip through 9 countries and it was time to get back home for work 🙂

Jenia6109 Russian Federation1613 Posts July 11 2017 12:55 GMT #2 Familiar pictures You are welcome!

Jealous 10377 Posts July 11 2017 13:49 GMT #3 Haven't been back to Russia in too long, thank you for the photos ): Makes me nostalgic. Peterhoff is a place I went with my grandmother a lot.

LegalLord United States13779 Posts July 15 2017 04:25 GMT #4 There was a really good bus tour in Leningrad that I enjoyed the last time I was there - that went around the city and showed a lot of its most interesting sights. In terms of specific sights, I would also recommend seeing the cruiser Aurora, a restoration of a ship important to Russian history. I myself am not too much of a fan of royal architecture, so much of the city is really not all that interesting to me. Cruises on the many rivers of the city are also quite fun, and there are some very good art museums around if you're into that (Hermitage comes to mind first and foremost). Moscow has a lot of interesting stuff worth seeing. If you want a more interesting church, look at the Church of Jesus Christ the Savior, which was in Soviet times replaced with a swimming pool and then rebuilt later on (I agree that the innards of St. Basil's are nothing special). I hope you got to see the subway station, which had some really nice artwork (my favorite was the "Revolution Square" station right by the Red Square). The circus is also really great, with much better construction than the traveling circuses in the US and often with some of those famous bears on unicycles that Russia is known for. Also worth seeing is the VDNKh (a cultural center of sorts, recently revamped from something of an amusement park into a more historical center as it was under Soviet times), and the Victory Park (easily the best WWII museum I have ever seen). If you want something truly unique, I would recommend a tour of "Stalin's bunker" - a Soviet era nuclear fallout bunker turned museum. Neither here nor there, but between the two cities, I would recommend seeing Novgorod, an important historical city for Russia. If you're driving, you'll go by a lot of forest land; a lot of people have summer homes ("dachas") in Russia. Try some of the pastries they sell there - they're delicious. Hope that gives you at least some idea of what else there is to see. There's a lot more but that should be enough to last you a second trip if you ever choose to go back. Russia has changed a lot in just a few years you might find that you are in a much different country if you go back now.

Tak3r United Kingdom749 Posts July 16 2017 02:22 GMT #5 Thanks for your iinput!!

sofitofi 1 Post April 23 2019 12:54 GMT #6 Thanks for such a great report! I've been to St. Petersburg recently and can confirm, it's a truly wonderful place. Anyone who's going there soon I'd recommend visiting Pavlovsk Palace, it's a bit far away from the city, but just a bit and it's still worth seeing. There's a huge park with a lake there and the atmosphere is very peaceful. I took this tour https://petersburg.expert/tour/pavlovsk-palace/ and in addtition to the most memorable promenade I got to know a lot of things out guide told us.

GeckoXp Germany2016 Posts April 23 2019 13:58 GMT #7 On July 16 2017 11:22 Tak3r wrote: Thanks for your iinput!! Assuming you speak German, I just drop this here: https://starcraft2.ingame.de/forum/threads/241430-Reiseberichte-Meet-Ups (summary of trips, futher down are part 2 to SPB and Moscow) Been in Moscow twice and SPB once, can only recommend both cities. From what I can tell at least Moscow changed "a lot" in terms of how several sites have been renewed during the world cup. WDNcH & Ostankino seemed nice to me, although I was mostly trying to not panic to my fear of heights on that tower. I can also underline a poster above telling about the WWII Museum in Park Pobedy, the show is brilliant and worth the entrance fee. You might want to contact one of those Russians from reps.ru, usually those guys are extremely hospitable if they know you. 5/7 would meet everyone there again and again.

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