Russia

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We had a good time in Russia. We did not run into any issues crossing the border or while staying in St. Petersburg. According to our guide St. Petersburg only has 60 sunny days per year! We were fortunate enough to be there on two of those days! St. Petersburg is called the Venice of the North because it has 47 different islands that make up the city. Unlike Venice the city structure is in a block style setup making navigation much easier. They also have roads where as Venice has sidewalks. The only issue we had was the tap water. The water is not safe for drinking due to bacteria; it also comes out of the tap yellow. We did not use it for anything other than washing. We used bottled water for brushing our teeth and drinking.

The first night we were in St. Petersburg we went out for a traditional Russian dinner. The dinner was 6 courses with entertainment! We had a salad, two soups, a meat dish with potatoes, dessert and coffee. All of the food except the salad was good. They also had a group that sang some Russian songs and led us through some games. I was in one where two people dance standing over a 3 foot rope until the music stops. Once the music stops playing both people reach for the rope. The first person to grab the rope wins; I actually managed to win that one! Randall was in one where two people face each other and try to grab a chicken hat off the other person. He won in less than 30 seconds, which was the quickest anyone had done in our group! We did not take the camera that night and I have not gotten any pictures from some of the people I knew with us.

Throughout the rest of the trip we viewed a lot of really expensive buildings; many of them being palaces and cathedrals. The first Palace we visited was Catherine the Great’s Palace. All of the rooms in that palace had detailing with gold leaf or foil except for the amber room. We do not have any pictures of this room because they would not allow us to take any. It was not as spectacular as they made it sound so you will not be missing much by not seeing the pictures. The outside of the palace used to have gold accents but they were damaged and/or painted over with yellow over the years. They are in the process of replacing the yellow paint with gold, but they will not be finished for two years! So, imagine all of the yellow being gold and you will get an idea of how nice the palace was years ago and will be again.

Many of the cathedrals we saw also had a lot of gold foiling/leafing or gilding done inside and out. There was one cathedral that is still functioning as a church that was not made using gold on the outside; it was made of limestone instead. When it was made the limestone glistened in the sunshine making it one of the most unique cathedrals in St. Petersburg. Now it has lost its luster, but it is still unique.

We also had the opportunity to see a Russian ballet in one of their oldest theaters. The ballet was really good and impressive. We have not been to a ballet before and did not know what to expect. The theme of the ballet was Sleeping Beauty. I had to give Randall the summary of the movie before hand as he had never seen the Disney cartoon version or read the book. The ballet was very close to the Disney movie so I was able to follow along. The ending was different as they had several scenes from other Russian fairytales depicted. We do not have any pictures because we thought it would be forbidden to take your camera in.

One thing that stood out to us was the fact that they had all of the nice palaces and churches, then on the next block the houses would look like the ghetto at home. It was very obvious what they cared about and put money into. The street we stayed on was the main tourist street in St. Petersburg so most of the buildings were well cared for and maintained but most of the buildings on the outskirts of the city were very poorly maintained.

Another interesting thing we saw on our trip was on the way to Finnish Russian border. Due to the thorough border checks large trucks can be very delayed getting into Russia. We saw a line of trucks several miles long parked on the side of the road! Our guide said that the trucks can be backed up for two weeks at times! We did not see these on the way back so they must have gotten all of them through over the weekend.

Overall Russia was fun and we did not have any issues. We saw some very interesting sites and had a really good time.