Greetings, Comrades!


Christine in Palace Square, where the gypsies will "read your fortune and pick your pockets"


Joe looking hesitant as he dons a "saran wrap" style poncho to wander in the rainsoaked Peterhof Gardens

It’s been three days since we last updated the blog, and there is quite a lot to catch up on. First of all the bad news: I (Joe) caught a cold. That makes me two for two – I also caught a cold in Argentina last year. This virus first started out in the children of the ship and then it’s starting to make its way through the adult populace, and I am part of that populace. Thankfully with 10 hour nights of sleep and plenty of food to keep me recharged, I’m feeling relatively decent. Now Christine is paranoid that she is going to catch it as well. We shall see if her infection control measures prevent that from happening.

Well, three days, two cities, and a lifetime of experiences. First there were two glorious days in St. Petersburg, Russia (or was it Leningrad, or Petrograd, well whatever), which was the highlight stop of this cruise. St. Petersburg was everything that anyone ever said about it, for it is a beautiful city with a very rich history – city of the czars and czarinas, Rasputin, numerous palaces, Bloody Sunday, and the October Revolution. I could go on and on, but needless to say that both Christine and I had a marvelous time.

The strange thing about arriving in St. Petersburg is that the cruise terminal is in the old industrial port developed during the Soviet days, and indeed, it looks very dreary and very Soviet. In fact the sign on the way into the port still reads “Welcome to Leningrad”. The day of our arrival even had an eerier feeling, with a shroud of fog blanketing the port and several smaller boats with Cyrillic writing on their bows chugging around. For those of us who grew up in the “Red October” generation, fearing that the Communists would invade and we would all be speaking Russian, it was a very surreal moment.

I loved the old Imperial Palaces, and the Hermitage and Peterhof Palaces were truly amazing. What I enjoyed most, however, were the old Soviet propaganda and symbols that littered the landscape. You would see it in the Stalin and Kruschev era apartment buildings, the monuments to Kirov, the hammer and sickles decorating the buildings, and the Lenin murals. However, the piece-de-resistance was a gorgeous bas relief in the subway of Lenin pointing the way of the proletariats to the Communist paradise. Truly inspring, Comrade!

And the tour of St. Petersburg couldn’t be possible without our wonderfully quirky and entertaining tour guide, Anna. She was in her late 50s or early 60s, and could walk faster than I could (and those of you who know me, that’s pretty fast). It was refreshing to have Anna as a guide, because she remembers well the time before perestroika, unlike the other tour guides who looked to be in their 20s. That, and the woman had me in stitches the whole time, with clever comments like, “Welcome to Palace Square. Here you will find the many gypsies who will tell your fortune and pick your pocket.”

I’ll leave it at that for now. And for a small comment on Helsinki, Finland – I liked it. Very clean, very cool, and very Scandinavian. Think a smaller San Francisco, only much cleaner…

Comments

Tammy said…
Looks like sooooooooooo much fun!! I would love to go to St. Petersburg one day. And yes, i remember watching the movie Red Dawn and being petrified of the Russians invading by parachuting in. Ha ha!!! Hope you get over your cold soon and that Christine doesn't get it!!
August 19, 2008 at 10:56 AM
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