Our last 2 days in St Petersburg involved a subway trip to the suburbs with some enjoyable sightseeing. We braved the line changes and visited the cemeteries where the Russians recognise and celebrate their well known individuals.
Thivkin Cemetery was a beautiful space for the artists, musicians and writers. Spacious and leafy it was a fitting reminder of how the Russians celebrate the arts and their artists. The monuments are now listed as a Sculpture Park and they were. Each was individual and the craftmanship was superb. As usual, we had to use different techniques to work out who was who, as all signage was in Russian. A bit of guesswork was involved and the occasional surreptitous hang around on the edge of the tour group. The latter wasn't all that successful given that the tours were in Russian and French.
Lazarus Cemetery was a different experience as the space was very crowded with tombstones (sculptures)and differently beautiful. We were fascinated by the reoccurring symbol of the skull and cross bones. Rather confronting for us on tombstones but obviously a common symbol for the 18th and 19th century Russians. Seeing the more recent minimalist Stalin monmuments also provided contrast. So defined in line and pragmatic- no fuss, they were a real contrast to the older more classical styles of stone carving. We were interested to see a worker scrubbing off the plates to keep the monuments clean.
It was nice to see the cats also, one looked just like Max and there were kittens as well. Someone was feeding them so they were really content and looked good.
We had coffee in a really trendy coffee bar inside a large shopping mall. The staff were great and we were fascinated by the ear piercing/stretching of the bar man. The coffee lounge had only just opened and I'm not sure the locals will find it quite their style. One middle age woman came in, took one look at the barman and hurriedly escaped.
Wierdness not to be beaten, our next stop was the Candy Pink church (Chesme) surrounded by Stalinist style apartments. It was difficult to find but we were determined. As always when you make the effort to get out of town you find all sorts of interesting things. Walking along the street we came across the gigantic monument to Soviet administration. it was built in this area because it was on the airport road and visitors to St Petersburg passed it before they arrived in Peter's classical centre.
The building and surrounding square with fountains was indeed impressive. Much of the Soviet architecture is impressive and it is great to think that these buildings will be historic icons in centuries to come. Fitting that the Soviet era will have it's place in Russian cities.
The Soviet housing idea was a good one with large blocks of apartments around a central square with garden and playgrounds. Of course, it is impossible to centrally maintain so much housing for so many people and it is no surprise that much of it is bleak and rundown. So many of these blocks are being renovated also. The urbanisation just mushroomed so quickly and life for the general population in communal flats was substandard and exteremly difficult.
Another impressive adaptation is provision of public squares and parklands. They are everywhere in different scales. People were in them too. Kids skating, couples walking, friends meeting and talking and sitting around. Very social spaces.
With the help of a lovely gentleman we finally found the sought after candy striped (Chesme) church. Wow. The sun came out especially for the photos. It was surrounded by apartments but they had planted accordingly to preserve the atmosphere. As we visited, the local people came in and out to worship in what I regarded as one of the prettiest churches I had been inside. it was beautifully uncluttered and pastel in colour scheme.
Out the back we were drawn to what we decided was a war cemetery. Lines and lines of exactly the same tombstones. Very different to our morning experience of totally individualised monuments. It is difficult to imagine how many Russians were lost in the 2nd world war. The losses were massive.
On our last day we opted for a very late sleep in and a very late start. We headed to Gostiny Dvor, the 1st indoor shopping plaza in the world. Being very Russian it's facade belied its interior. It was enormous with 2 floors and magnificent stairways of marble and brass. It is tricky to find the shopping centres in Russia. In Moscow they were often underground and in St Petersburg they were through arches or behind what appeared to be a normal type of building frontage.
We wandered and photographed the over the top dog clothing fashion boutique. They even had mink coats for the poor little animals. Unfortunately for Ferg they were one size,very small for the very popular Chihuaha??? Girls had these little dogs in their handbags on the metro. they took them shopping. The best example though was the dog I didn't see but heard in the bag about to travel on the plane. Totally illegal but I heard that pink bag barking in the last stage of the check in lounge.
We hadn't really ventured out to bars at night so decided to try the Soviet Retro Bar written up in one of our guides. As we couldn't find it in the afternoon we enlisted the help of our girl at the hotel. She is studying to be a vet and works a 48 hour shift over the weekend. She rang and got directions to find it. Again it was underneath the main street with an entrance via a couryard out the back.
Lucky it was still light cause the area was looking fairly seedy and as we entered into the red darkness we were wondering whether it was a wise move. They rarely saw tourists me thinks and certainly not people our age. After their initial shock as everyone kind of looked at us in amazement they told us we were in the right place and to find a seat ("sit down comrades"). We headed up to the bar, sat down and were immediately pounced on by the local drunken barflies. They were very affable and their english improved the drunker they got, so we had a good time.
The bar was full of old bits and pieces from the Soviet era, the music was good and we felt quite welcomed by the locals there, some who spoke reasonable english. Around 11.30 though we decided it may be wiser to head back to the more traditional tourist areas and moved to a different bar which advertised live music. Beers went up from 60 rubles to 110 but the music was fantastic. Russian Cuban salsa latin and you should have seen the beautiful women on the dance floor. Stunning. We got talking to a Russian girl and her Finnish friend who both spoke excellent english.
As the crowd cleared off to the clubs Ash and I headed off for dinner at 2am. It seems we were determined to make the most of our last night. The city was still jumping. In the street, buskers were still working. The tapdancer just kept on drawing the people in. The girls danced with him and a more enthusiastic fellow engaged in cartwheels while his friends cheered him on. From the outdoor restaurant we were amused by the pedestrian traffic toing and froing. The city just doesn't seem to sleep.
We were glad to get home around 3 after picking up takeaway coffee close by. The word for takeaway is "subway". I love it.
The taxi picked us up Sunday at 11.30 and we started out for San Francisco via Frankfurt. A long day of travel. I think there may have been some sort of security alert because they were a lot more thorough and we had many more checks than anywhere else in the past. They even made us remove shoes and have security between plane and transit lounge in Frankfurt.
Unfortunately, we didn't have window seats on the plane because the view over the Arctic area was spectacular. I thought we must have been flying at low altitude but the ability to see ridges and iceflows may well have only been the lack of cloud cover. I felt close enough to look for whales and polar bears. Pity I had to stand outside the toilet to see it, but then again on a 12 hour flight it is good to have an excuse to stand up!!!
Sign off Janet
