Russia

European Safari Part 7

admin

We’re just pulling into Helsinki with only today here and tomorrow in Stockholm to go. Thursday we head to Stockholm airport and home. It’s been over 3 weeks now and after 3 solid days in Saint Petersburg and 3 solid weeks of enjoying ourselves we’re starting to feel a bit jaded like someone I’ve already mentioned a couple of times. I’m pretty sure I now know what a world tour with Guns N Roses feels like. No one’s thrown any underwear at me yet (thank heavens for small mercies). And apparently all of those marriage proposals in Russia were from hookers.
Day 3 in Saint Petersburg was more opulence and extravagance. Peter the Great’s summer palace (about as far out of town as Redcliffe is from Brisbane) is called Peterhof. It is famous for fountains – 180 of them of which 150 have been restored. Most of them comprise multiple jets (500 in one) and all run on gravity – there were no pumps in 1720 and restoration is to the original including gold leaf on virtually everything. And he had nothing on his daughter Elizabeth and niece in law (I think), Catherine the Great who both went berserk when it came to decorating, renovating and building and generally spending money. Why am I not surprised?
Like many places in this area, Peterhof saw two pitched battles in WWII – when the Germans arrived in 1941 and when they were driven out in 1944 so it was mined and bombed to within a facade of its life. But it’s back to what it was like and is a reminder of the disgusting waste of money that went on back then but attracts gaping mouthed tourists now.
We also went to St Isaac’s Cathedral which was used to store valuable stuff during the war on account of its 2m-5m thick granite and marble walls. Another church filled with gold, artistic masterpieces and icons. Ho hum.
Interesting parallel between Russia and Vietnam. The locals were the heroic defenders of all that is good and the Germans and Americans respectively were the worst kind of bastards. We heard snippets of the Red Army’s behaviour in Gdansk and Ronne so as they say, the winners get to write the history although I’m pretty sure the Yanks still think they won in Vietnam.
We had the obligatory all singing all dancing White Night on Sunday evening. The gay boys were in their absolute element putting to shame everyone including two professional dancers, on board to do their enthusiastic ballroom dancing routine – the bloke was throwing the girl around like a marching band leader’s baton when we saw them. Incidentally we saw them perform at an exclusive (half the boat was there) function for repeat cruisers who are in the cruise company’s club. We’ve done three so went along. They also give out awards to the top cruisers on the boat. A UK couple are up to 38. I doubt we’ll live long enough to do that or have the money.
We left Saint Petersburg at 7.00 pm last night so had plenty of daylight to check out the “newer” parts of the city. These included the massive port infrastructure that stretches for miles along the river and into the bay as you head out to sea. There were dozens and dozens, possibly hundreds of cranes at container terminals, a scrap iron wharf, wharves where there were acres and acres of what looked like cement bags, thousands of aluminium ingots and dry docks and floating dry docks galore plus a naval shipyard. Not one crane was operating, there were no people to be seen and there was no vehicle movement anywhere. It was positively eerie – almost as if the whole place shut down when the communists left. Big ports operate 24/7 all year round and especially when the temperature is 22 degrees in a port that ices up in winter.

I was reminded of the Peter Sellers movie, The Mouse That Roared where this tiny imaginary European country decides to invade America and lose so the Yanks will rebuild their country. They just happened to arrive in New York during a nuclear war exercise so everyone was in bomb shelters. They had to go home to report that unfortunately they had won. If the Germans took on Leningrad (the original sign at the port entrance is still there) again, disguised as tourists on cruise ships they’d win hands down. They would however have a fight on their hands with the Chinese who are everywhere and not just in Russia. They take photos of everything in minute detail so don’t be surprised if a few imitation Peterhofs or Hermitage palace museums spring up in Guangzhou.
Being in Finland I feel somewhat compelled to have a Pure Blonde beer but less compelled to have a pickled herring burger or reindeer hot dog. I’m sorry but the only reindeer I know all have names and are absolutely vital to the success of Christmas so eating them just wouldn’t feel right.

I’m reminded of the Finnish national anthem which goes something like this:
Finland, Finland, Finland,
The country where I just want to be,
Pony trekking or riding,
Or just watching TV.
It was written by either that famous Finnish composer Sibelius or by Monty Python. I can’t recall which.

Speaking of notable Finnish, Paavo Nurmi is a local hero who had many notable finishes at the 52 Olympics which were held here. He was a distance runner. There is a statue of him outside the Olympic stadium and he’s nude. I thought that was Ancient Greece not 20th century Europe.
But what a wonderful place (like most places we’ve been to this trip). The sun’s shining, there’s no wind, hardly a cloud in the sky and it’s 22 degrees. I could live here until +22 becomes -22 and the sea freezes. Then I’d shift to my summer palace in Redcliffe.

One more wonderful place to visit – Stockholm. We know it’s wonderful because we’ve been there. Consequently tomorrow we are undertaking a more unusual tourist caper. It’s a rooftop walking tour which goes to some pretty scary places apparently. So this could be the last post.

European Safari Part 6

admin

We arrived in the land of the cabbage cocktail and had all day (first of three) in Saint Petersburg. What an incredible place. Concrete blocks of flats with crumbling facades interspersed with magnificent palaces (also some with crumbling facades with literally piles of shattered masonry on the footpath), incredible museums and gold onion topped cathedrals. Re the crumbling facades, this place was under siege by the Germans in WWII for over 2 years so there’s a massive amount of restoration work still being done and they’ve done a brilliant job so far. Also there’re more statues than you can poke a stick at. It’s a bit like Paris in a lot of respects with Russian service staff about as humourless as your average French waiter. Three days here so another dose of culture tomorrow (today) then again on Monday.

Had our first Russian meal at lunchtime which started with a tot of ice cold vodka (very civilised), a bit of salmon caviar (so it was imitation caviar in fact) and a glass of anti-freeze champagne. The floor show was quite something. The establishment was a theatre restaurant so we had two musicians, one playing a triangular 3 string guitar type thing and the other playing a piano accordion without the piano bit. It had buttons on both ends. The guitarist could have got a gig with any thrash metal outfit. His hand speed had to be seen to be believed. Slash reckons he can play fast (he said it in his autobiography). He’d be pushed to keep up with this bloke. I was seriously impressed.

As the Japanese eat sashimi, the Koreans eat kimchi and the Indians eat curry, so apparently the Russians eat beetroot soup or borsch as it’s called and we were duly served it. We then had beef stroganoff naturally (chicken stroganoff on day two). Apparently stroganoff was invented by Count Stroganoff’s chef on account of the boss running out of teeth and not being able to handle steak.
We visited two palaces on day one and also a fort in which there is a cathedral where all the Tzars are buried including what they could retrieve from various mine shafts of the last lot, the Romanovs (the computer just changed that to “aroma nobs” for some reason). Visited yet another palace on day two being the one where Rasputin was murdered plus a spectacular church (The Church on the Spilled Blood) built by Alexander II’s son on the exact spot where the old man was blown up by anarchists and bled to death. We also did a boat cruise which is always a good way to see somewhere especially somewhere with over 300km of waterways.
The opulence and frankly, sickening extravagance of the nobility in the 18th and 19th centuries (the child bride, she who will never go camping, thought it perfectly acceptable) gives you some idea why the peasantry eventually got the hump in 1917. Ultimately it was just one mob of nobility being replaced by another set of self proclaimed nobility, the difference being that the second lot didn’t have the fashion sense of the first although I understand Raisa Gorbachev made Mikhail’s Kremlin issue credit card smoke whenever they got anywhere where the shops stocked more than turnips.
We saw a statue of Voltaire in the Hermitage Museum – Catherine the Great’s winter palace in Saint Petersburg and now a museum that rivals the Louvre. Catherine bought all of Voltaire’s books, letters and other writings when he died. It’s kind of ironic that his complete works are here and he’s the bloke who said “I may not like what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it” (or something similar). Hardly the motto of the communists (or the erstwhile nobility) and not something Vlad subscribes to either I’ll wager. That reminds me of another Estonian Russian joke. Apparently speech was as free in the Soviet Union as it was in the USA. In the USA you could stand in front of the White House and shout “Down with Reagan”. Similarly you could stand in front of the Kremlin and shout “Down with Reagan” as well.

Speaking of Vlad, he figures prominently on souvenir shop t-shirts, in a very positive way as action-man in various poses. Maybe it’s the locals taking the piss but I don’t think so unless the country that gave us the gulag is more nuanced than we think. I’m only aware of one t-shirt “celebrating” an Aus PM. It says “F….k Tony Abbott” and was produced by a journalist for The Age newspaper in Melbourne. Incidentally, The Age is known locally as Pravda on the Yarra so it stands to reason doesn’t it.

We saw quite a few wedding parties on the first two days. There are so many great places for photos so the bridal parties were out in force. I have to say, as a confirmed male chauvinist pig (do femonazis still say that?), Russian girls are extremely attractive (think female Russian tennis players) whereas the blokes all seem to be pasty faced petrol pump attendants. Talk about punching above their weight. All of them.
Question – why do Americans abroad think we are even remotely interested in what they have to say? We are in the bar part of the restaurant at the back of the ship and are surrounded by shouting Yanks. STFU readily springs to mind. It is possible to converse and laugh without taking everyone in the post code into your confidence. The CB thinks I’m getting grumpy in my old age. I’m not. My tolerance for stupidity is just reducing. The people on the next table must be on party drugs.