Wednesday 4 July 2007

Saint Petersburg on my mind

I never really wanted to visit a place named Leningrad. The very name brought up images of the harsh-faced revolutionary with the goatee, of factories and grey drab concrete tenement houses, of Ladas and Moskvitches polluting the streets of a run down city. I had a vague idea of the Hermitage and its priceless collections, but otherwise Leningrad was a no-go to me.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city reverted to its former name Saint Petersburg. Slowly, a different picture would emerge with reports of the many palaces, the lost splendour of the Romanovs, the magnificent cathedrals and the charming canals. It was the tale of a treasure chest, which was in the process of being opened to the outside world.

Today Saint Petersburg is within financial reach of the average traveller. Still, you don�t just drop in on �Piter�, as the inhabitants affectionately call their city. It takes three weeks to obtain a visa, for which you need an invitation either by a Russian individual or a tour operator. However most applications are granted! That the city attracts tourists from all over the world is evident from the busloads besieging the main sights. Even the Far Eastern groups are there in big numbers, swarming from place to place like locusts. I was on a package tour myself, and like my Japanese counterparts I had to focus on the tour guide with the beckoning flag up front.

It�s not that tourists must be cow-towed to the innumerable sights of the city. It�s just that language problems reduce most of them to helpless or even illiterate creatures. Little English is spoken outside the tourist venues. Add to that the tease of the Cyrillic alphabet with its unfamiliar letters or even worse, the familiar Latin letters with different values in Russian! It�s fairly easy to decipher words like СУПЕРМАРКЕТ and ТУАЛЕТ (you will inevitably need the services of the latter!) The real fun begins with other useful words like ВХОД (entrance) and ВЫХОД (exit), just to give you an example!

Other issues are the many reports of petty crime and touts. Most foreign departments warn against it in their travel advice. Legion are also tales of Russian red tape, of bad service attitudes and even small-scale corruption. Whatever, there is no doubt that many things still bear the hallmark of the Soviet era. My Danish guide book says tongue-in-cheek, that �there is no need to worry about the infamous mafia unless you�re involved in the Russian oil- or plutonium business�! Even though Saint Petersburg is probably better than its reputation, caution is advisable and I do understand why first- time visitors prefer being chaperoned by a tour guide unless they are very seasoned travellers!

We were thoroughly briefed on the do�s and don�ts, and none of 46 members of the group I belonged to was pickpocketed or harassed in any way. Some of us even got familiar with the busy Metro/underground/subway with signposts in Cyrillic only. As for pickpockets, it is probably no worse than its Roman counterpart, however I decided not to navigate it on my own. It felt safer to travel in small groups, looking out for each other.

In the footsteps of Dagmar

My package-tour was not specifically orientated towards Empress Dagmar/Marie Fedorovna, though her name crept up on a regular basis. One of the first excursions went to the Peter and Paul Fortress on the Neva river, with the breathtakingly beautiful needle-spire baroque-church, where Empress Dagmar was buried next to her husband, tsar Alexander III in 2006. It was Dagmar who had triggered my interest in Saint Petersburg! I had seen her off from Roskilde Cathedral last September, and a pilgrimage to her new resting place was high on my priority list. Unfortunately the relatively small church was crowded to the point of bursting, and only a determined effort allowed for a short moment at her sarcophagus. Actually, the imperial coffins are in a vault below the floor, as an unfortunate Danish diplomat realised at the reburial! The pushing and shovelling was no different when I was there. There�s never a dull moment for Minny in the opening hours! She�d probably revel in the many visitors at her memorial! However even more crowded was the narrow doorway to the chapel where the remains of the last imperial family were laid to rest in 1998.

An adjoining corridor featured a portrait gallery of the descendants of the Romanovs surviving the revolution! I made a mental note of the fact that no members of the Kulikovsky-branch of the family were to be seen!

I would have liked to see more of the Peter and Paul fortress, the actual birth place of the city, but the huge number of tourists discouraged our guides. Outside the church there was another sort of bustle at the market stalls selling the ubiquitous Russian souvenirs of matrjosjka-dolls, icons, lacquer boxes and amber jewellery of dubious quality, Soviet army badges and Faberg�-egg shaped gadgets of all sorts.

The jaw-dropping Peterhof

Another crowded venue was Peterhof Palace 20 miles west of �Piter�, a �must-see� for all tourists during summer, when the famous fountains are operating. En route we passed the recently restored and very impressive Constantine Palace in Strelna, which is now the official regional residence of President Vladimir Putin, himself a Saint Petersburger.

Peterhof is the piece-de-resistance of Peter the Great, and the estate is enormous! The visitor will need a whole day to take it all in. We bypassed the grand palace, only stopping to enjoy the view of the cascades and the canal leading to the Finnish Gulf. The fountains are fantastic in their diversity, and the fun part is the trick fountains hidden at various points in the lower park. We managed to get a good soak from two of them! After a tour of the Catharine wing next to Mon Plaisir Palace, we made our way back to the entry area littered with souvenir and snack stalls. Once again I couldn�t help wondering where on earth all these matrjojska-dolls were coming from!

Tsarskoe Selo

Ten of us had booked a minibus with a guide to take us to Tsarskoe Selo, the tsar�s village 20 miles south of Saint Petersburg. We got a glimpse of the Russian countryside with its many wooden dachas in all shapes, colours and conditions.

Now, when you say �Tsarskoe Selo� to a Russian tour guide, the pavlovian reaction is �Catherine Palace�, the enormous porcelain-blue and carefully restored edifice from the times of Empress Elizabeth. Don�t go to Saint Petersburg without including a visit! In my opinion it surpasses the Winter Palace in splendour! The famous amber room, which was looted by the Germans during WW2 has been restored to its former glory, and the magnificence of the grand hall took my breath away. It can be hired for parties and receptions, making an extra income for the upkeep of the palace. Just in case you�re looking for an exceptional venue for your next party!

The Alexander Palace, the other imperial home at Tsarskoe and residence of the last imperial Family only gets a few words en route. I asked our guide if we could stop for a couple of photos, and she agreed reluctantly. The following day our chief Russian guide asked, why we had wanted to go there. �There�s nothing to see�, she claimed. It is as if the Russians want to airbrush the Alexander Palace out of their history, maybe for a reason.

The forlorn palace is a sorry sight! With a vivid imagination the visitor can form an idea of what this austere, neo-classical house and surrounding garden would have looked like in its heyday. The park is kept to a minimum, and the building is in desperate need of repairs, including the wing housing a small exhibition of the tsar Nicholas II family rooms (all replicas!). We were told that funds are being raised for a future restoration, however it appears that the Russians are in no hurry. There are two possible explanations: either they don�t want to create a holy shrine for the inept last incumbent or they have yet to come to terms with the events in Ekatarinburg. Apart from two other visitors, our little group had the place to ourselves during our fifteen minutes� stay. The tolling bell of a nearby church only added to the nostalgic, if not ghoulish atmosphere of this former haunt of the young Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna.

Water and vodka

The visit to the Hermitage with the Winter Palace was only a scratch in the surface! We got to see a suite of the imperial rooms and a fraction of the exhibitions of the Hermitage. The Leonardo da Vincis, the Rafaels and the Rembrandts are a must of course. There was little time for the French impressionists, which I for one would have liked to dwell on. Again: The Hermitage was crowded, despite our guide insisting, that it was a �relatively quiet day�!

Another must � and a pleasant escape from the crowds - is a boat trip on the canals and rivers of Saint Petersburg. You get to see the imperial city centre from a different angle, with the vast number of palaces, many restored, others still in need of a �loving hand�. We passed the Moika-palace of the Yussopovs, with the story of the Rasputin murder as an added bonus! There�s a fair chance that the tour company will ply you with Russian champagne and vodka. The former is reasonably innocent, the latter will make you feel sea-sick after a glass or two!

Back to Empress Dagmar. We saw the refurbished Anitschkov Palace from the outside. It now serves some official purpose and is normally off-limits to the tourist. However it was easy to see why she preferred this house over the vast Winter Palace as her Saint Petersburg residence!

Treasure chest � tourist traps

Saint Petersburg is a treasure chest, and the Russians know it! It is obvious that they have learned to milk the tourist-cow to their best advantage. Generally speaking, Saint Petersburg is no cheap destination. Foreigners are over-charged in many cases! Admission fees are higher for non-Russians, and much of the tourist-junk is over-priced. Unless you can pass for Russian, there is nothing to do about the admission fees. For souvenirs however, it pays to look for a bargain!

There are other tourist-traps however! Our tour- operator arranged tickets for a performance of the �Swan Lake�, the mother of all Russians ballets. The price of the ticket gave away that we were not heading for the Marinsky theatre and its famous Kirov company. However no one told us that it was a performance by a low rank company mainly catering for unsuspecting tourists. As a former ballettomaniac they couldn�t fool me. Beware!

We were told that the city of Saint Petersburg plan to double the number of tourists within the next five years. The present number pro annum is about 2.5 million, hotel capacity being the limiting factor. However I, for one am wondering about the capacity of everything else! I was there in June, in the beginning of the summer season, and in the beginning of the �White nights�, which attract many Russians as well. The tourist authorities may want to build more hotels for more tourists, but how the present infrastructure and the main tourist attractions will cope with an increased barrage of tourists is a riddle to me!

Saint Petersburg with its population of 4.6 million is also a city of contrasts. The anti-climax of the imperial city centre are the endless, drab and often ramshackle tenement houses in the suburbs, where you still find the old battered Ladas and Moskvitsches! It�s a place where you find the imperial double-headed eagle and reminiscences of Lenin almost side by side. Even the name Leningrad creeps up on the odd sign. It�s a place where the distinction between rich and poor is there for all to see. It�s a place that never sleeps, and yet there is something provincial about it.

Never the less: Saint Petersburg was an experience of a lifetime! It�s on my mind, it�s under my skin! I�d like to go there again, but in a less crowded season!

If you want to go, don�t put if off for too long!

- Viv Rosendahl