The Underground Palaces

July 3rd, 2016

For our last day in St. Petersburg we decided to begin the day with a visit to St. Isaac's Cathedral. It is huge and beautiful! Unfortunately we don't know too much more about it because we needed to break our money to rent an audioguide, but Anna got yelled at when she asked the gift shop after being told by the information desk to do so. Apparently the information desk and gift shop at St. Isaac's do not get along and we found out the hard way. Clearly we were not bitter about this at all.

We wandered around a bit and looked at the pictures of the cathedral over time. Then, we climbed the staircase to the dome and enjoyed the amazing views of the city from above.

We have heard that the subway stations here are gorgeous so we decided to spend some time hopping on and off them and checking out their unique decorations. When we entered the first station, the first thing we noticed was how clean they were! Then, we took the massive escalator down into the deepest station in St. Petersburg. The escalator ride down was so long and then was followed by a second, shorter escalator! Apparently the system is so deep because of both the geography of the area and the stations build during the Soviet times were meant to double as bomb shelters. We rode a few stops getting off at several to enjoy the murals, sculptures, and chandeliers in each. It was insane how much detail went into each and how elaborate they each were. One had columns with intricate glass designs, some had gorgeous chandeliers for lighting, and others showed the history of the Soviet Union.

After this we headed to a restaurant we had read great reviews of and were eager to try, the Right Place Bar. It was very cute and we were excited to learn that the menu changes every day. During our time there one of the workers kept going to the market and bringing in food that they would be using! We enjoyed a cheese plate, squid linguine, and a steak for Chuck of course. The food was so fresh and easily the best we have had so far here. The server was also incredibly kind, something we have not found too often here, and the chef was even wearing a Chicago hat! When we mentioned to the server we were from there she was shocked at how far we had come.

We walked over the the Summer Garden and by this point the temperature was reading just under 100 degrees. We took in as much as we could and enjoyed the statues, fountains, and gardens throughout. We tried to get ice cream two separate times within the park and both times were yelled at in Russian and from what we could tell were told it was "cleaning time" and we could come back later.

We crossed the street over to the Fontanka Canal where Chizhik-Pyzhik sits, a small bird statue that is only 11cm tall. It is apparently based on a song here that goes: "Chizhik-Pyzhik, where've you been?/Drank vodka on the Fonktanka/Took a shot, took another--got dizzy." It is good luck if you can toss a coin and it lands on the pedestal. We tried and failed several times, along with everyone around us. We aren't entirely sure why this is something famous here, but it was fun to try!

For dinner, we (Anna) finally tried some traditional Russian food. Anna had borscht and beef stroganoff, while Chuck went less traditional and had a caprese salad and rabbit. The borscht was surprisingly tasty and the rest of the food was fine. Overall, we liked our meal, but aren't really sure the next time we will be craving Russian food.

We enjoyed St. Petersburg more than we anticipated. Here are some final thoughts on our time here overall:
People here have no concept of personal space or standing in line. They will walk right up to a line and walk in front of you anyway they want and if there is an inch of space next to you, expect it to be taken. We were pushed and shoved through so many lines, exhibits and benches in museums.

There are so many palaces. An unnecessary amount of palaces. If you are looking at our pictures and wondering what a building in the background is, it is most likely a palace. Rome has a church on every corner, St. Petersburg has a palace on every one.

We are convinced Cyrillic is just a way to mess with us.

St. Petersburg is beautiful! The buildings, canals, and rivers made for a stunning landscape. It is kind of dirty and has a certain smell to it, but then again so do all the other big cities we have visited in Europe.

We are glad we went the Visa route and did this trip all on our own. While it would have been easier to join a tour group, we were glad to stay 5 days and really take in the whole city. We don't feel like we missed anything. Also, we cannot imagine being herded around with 100 other people all day on set tours! We had a great time and it was well worth the hassle of getting the visa.

We realized during our time here, that St. Petersburg is a city you grow to love. While it was swamped with giant tour busses and groups, due to the difficulty of getting a visa, and the people weren't always the friendliest, there was something about sitting in a beautiful garden or canal, looking towards a palace, and taking it all in that reminded us a bit of Paris and Amsterdam combined.

Onto Helsinki, Finland!