RTW Honeymoon #3: Echoes of the 900 day Seige – St. Petersburg, Russia

Echoes of the 900 day Seige

We decided to call it an early evening the night before last, when a faint banging noise began outside our window. The Russian flat we were staying in had a large iron door with a combination lock and Kim suggested someone might be trying to get inside (we had experienced trouble with the ancient lock ourselves). Sean stepped out to ask Alexi, our host, if someone had been locked out. Pointing down at the front door, Sean asked “What’s the banging?” Alexi, preparing his evening meal, hoisted a bowl of yogurt,
cucumbers and tomato, “Ah � this is salad.”

“No, no,” Sean gestured as if to pound the wall, “the banging outside � maybe the door?” He pointed again down toward the front door.

“Salad,” explained Alexi.

“Salad?” Sean gave what he hoped was a trans-lingual expression of confusion.

“Da,” said Alexi, “Salad for the victory parade,” he set down the bowl and mimed firing a gun.

“Oh!” Sean exclaimed, understanding suddenly dawning, “It’s a salute!”

“Ah � yes, this is sal-AHD for parade!”

Minutes later, we lay holding each other tightly, the building trembled as the salute grew in volume; cannonfire from boats on the river shaking the entire city. It was as if we had stepped into the past, re-living a few minutes of the terrible 900-day Nazi siege of St. Petersburg during which three quarters of this huge city’s population perished. The day was May 9^th, the commemoration of the end of the victory over Nazi Germany. It’s said everyone living in St. Petersburg today has at least one family member who died during the siege.

Kim trying to break the guard

Twelve hours earlier, Palace Square (which is about 10 football fields large, acting as the back patio for the Winter Palace, now the main building of the famous Hermitage museum) hosted the celebration’s beginning, a terrific display of marching bands and a military parade. Afterwards, several older men in humble clothing wearing faded medals wandered teary-eyed through the square as young girls ran up to them to give them flowers; these men would be the few living survivors of the great siege. It was very strange to witness the Soviet regalia displayed in honor of these old soldiers � the hammer and sickle used to be such a symbol of enmity during our childhood.

Talking about our two weeks here is a challenge – St. Petersburg has been a complete wonder for us. From struggling with the Russian language to being astonished by unexpected Russian hospitality to magical moments we could imagine happening nowhere else…where to begin? Well, before we arrived we knew zippity-doo-dah about this place. Here’s a few facts:

300 years ago the place was a swamp. Peter the Great strolled in on the heels of a victory over Sweden as one of the most wealthy and powerful men in the world. He hired the best architects, artists and engineers from around the globe to come work their magic on the boggy delta that would become his capital city.

Today the city has the grandeur and artistry of Europe, but on a larger scale � it’s laced with canals and bridges like Venice, buildings and statues like Rome, but everything is built on the scale of a place like Texas (inner city streets are 6-8 lanes wide). June heralds the arrival of the “white nights” when the sun doesn’t set for weeks. During our time here there were many glorious evenings we would stroll home at midnight to the light of the setting sun (which did very strange things to our sleeping schedule). The subway here is the deepest (and perhaps grandest) in the world, three minutes ride down an escalator delivers you to a museum-like marble and gold decorated metro system designed to double as a bomb shelter (3 to 5-foot-thick blast doors hide behind metal panels at the bottom of the escalator).

A simple meal costs about a dollar, a single MP3 disc of everything your favorite musical artist has ever recorded costs $2 (what copyright laws?), a beer is about fifty cents and a shot of vodka is just forty cents (gee, wonder why THAT’s so popular here…). The city is awake 24 hours with cafes, bars and many stores never closing. There are no open container laws � one of our first images of Russia was of a well-dressed woman strolling by with an open bottle of beer in hand (we thought, “Poor thing, she must be REALLY drunk to do that � hope she doesn’t get arrested!” …little did we know). One of the residents’ favorite things to do is to stand along the banks of the Nevsky river at 1 a.m. to watch the huge iron and stone bridges rise smoothly and silently to allow the waiting line of ships to pass through to the city center.

We wandered the vast Hermitage museum’s collections of priceless art, Kim found a Russian chocolate that has become her favorite chocolate in the world, and I went to a traditional Russian “banya” where large Russian men sit in a sauna and beat each other with tree branches between shots of vodka. Basically, we had the time of our lives! Kim commented at one point, “Here we are, penniless backpackers – but HERE we’re living like it’s a regular honeymoon!” It seemed like the entire city had been set up as a huge playground, just for us to enjoy.

The countryside was wonderful, filled with beautiful forests and historic sites – all open to the public (who, as we discovered, enjoy taking a very American-like weekend barbeque during spring). Muscled Romanesque statues support the columns of sprawling countryside palaces that stand at the center of mile-wide grounds filled with examples of fountains, buildings and statues from China, India and Europe.

Church of Spilled Blood

St. Petersburg itself gives off an air of being a run-down, slightly dirty city until you notice there isn’t hardly a scrap of litter on the streets and the sidewalks look recently swept. It takes a little bit of time of being in the city to realize that when the Soviets came to power, the upkeep of historical architecture and landmarks was nonexistent. Over the years beautiful churches were gutted and turned into warehouses, palaces became tenement housing (but what tenements!) and, ultimately, the city has yet to fully recover. It’s a beautiful place, everything was built to last and much of it is receiving a facelift, but there is an air of fatigue, sorrow and loneliness to this once great city. One need only stand before a decaying, dirt-shrouded statue in a forgotten carriage archway just out of the city center, reflecting that the Russian capital is now miles away in Moscow, to get in touch with the feeling that the glory of St. Petersburg is a thing all but forgotten.