We’re almost six weeks in! I can’t believe I’ve been living
here for almost six weeks already. We’ve all settled back into Russian life so
quickly that it really feels like we never left. Petersburg is one of the most
incredible cities I’ve been to and it’s completely exceeded my expectations!
There are so many things to appreciate here. That being said, this is
Russia. Last week, I was appreciating
some of the impressive architecture on Nevsky Prospekt and then a man walked
past me, walking a cat... on a lead... and the cat was wearing a tracksuit. Everything
about that was just wrong.
Here’s a brief summary of my six weeks living in Saint Petersburg. It is with great pleasure that I present to you; The Good, The Bad and The Downright
Strange.
The Good
- THE FOOD. I am having a complete love affair with the food
here. There are hundreds of Stalovayas (canteen style dining halls) all over
the place, but shamefully I’m yet to nip into one. There are just so many other
places to go. Nevsky Prospekt is especially good, it's full of Turkish, Georgian, Italian,
Japanese (etc) restaurants and little cafes, filled to bursting with freshly
prepared pastries and cakes. And the bonus is that THE MAJORITY ARE ALL
TWENTY-FOUR HOUR! Last week at 4am, I was sat in an incredible little Italian
called Marchellis, where I had the best carbonara of my life. There are also
pizzerias everywhere. I haven’t eaten this many pizzas in a long time. Yeah, just
so much food. Heaven.
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| Cafe Singer |
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I should say, these were taken after a night out at about 5 or 6 in the
morning which is why we look a little worse for wear. But still, PIZZA! |
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There is also a McDonald's down the road which has a 24 hour 'walk-through'!
Much better than the one in Tver that was a 45 minute walk away. |
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| My breakfast! |
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| Olivia's breakfast pancakes |
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| Opera Cake |
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| We went to a restaurant called, 'Soup Vino' for Alice's birthday. The soup was incredible! |
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| The vino wasn't bad either! |
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| I will definitely be leaving Petersburg the size of a house. |
- The things
to see and do! I don’t think I will ever be bored here. There are so many
museums and monuments to see! There’s ballet and opera! Cinema, bowling and
massive shopping centres. I know these might not be that exciting to some, but
we were so starved of these things in Tver, that it is such a novelty having
them here! There are obviously a lot more things that I haven’t listed, but
I’ll just write about them as and when I see them.
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| Watching an opera at The Mariinsky Theatre |
- The exchange rate - As you are probably aware, the value of
the rouble has hit record lows. This means that now we’re getting so much more
for our money. We’re used to 1000 roubles being about £20 and now it’s only
about £16. Also, this means that this month’s rent worked out as only £263
instead of £310. Bonus!
- The weather
– Saint Petersburg has been uncharacteristically warm recently! Usually, February
and March are still extremely cold and snowy in Petersburg, but this week we’ve
had temperatures as high as 6°C. I’m not going to be
fooled though. A few weeks ago we were lulled into a false sense of security when the weather reached temperatures around 8°C, but then suddenly things changed. We got home from at night out at 5am - no snow, not too cold, then
went to sleep, woke up at 11am and BAM... SNOW!
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| The view from my window. There was at least 4 inches of snowfall, but I don't think this picture quite captured it |
Have I
mentioned that Saint Petersburg is beautiful? Because it really is. I sat on a
bench yesterday, overlooking a frozen lake, surrounded by beautiful buildings. I
can imagine that this will only get better as the weather gets warmer and then
we can really appreciate places like The Summer Gardens.
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Disclaimer: That is not me sitting on the bench. I was sat on a bench behind. (This picture was taken about
a week after the one above, so you can see how it's getting warmer!) |
- There’s a
lot choice of venue for nights out! In Tver, we had four places available to
us; Club Cultura (never went), Zebra (wish I never went), Zerkalo (also, wish I
never went) and Horoshii Povod (good, but started getting violent towards the
end). In Petersburg, there are just too many to list. I’ve only been to
three clubs/bars so far; Circus, Radio Baby and Cuba Libre. They’ve all been
good so far though! –No complaints!
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| Our first night out in Circus! Drinks were about £6 for a single though, so not great. Still lots of fun! |
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| Before Radio Baby - Preparing for our lie in the next morning! |
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| First night in Radio Baby - Champagne bought for us by Hannah's parents (Thank you Sheryl and Mark!) |
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| Our second time in Radio Baby, the following week |
(Sorry, I uploaded it straight to blogger for a change, instead of youtube and the quality isn't amazing!)
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| We've also managed to find one or two cocktails... |
The Bad
- Holy shit, this is a dirty city. Saint Petersburg is the
third most polluted city in Russia and sadly, it does show. 1) When walking down the street, buses drive past and carry with them a sheet of
dust which just covers you. If you’re unprepared (like me) then it’ll go
straight into your eyes and you’ll have to hobble around for a while until your
sight comes back. 2) It is more than acceptable to spit in the street. This is
definitely a cultural difference, because no one here bats an eyelid, we all think it's completely and utterly disgusting. Without exaggeration, since arriving here, I
haven’t been able to walk down one road without having to be really careful
about where I step. 3) I was in a bar a few weeks ago and they had unisex toilets.
The obvious pee-on-the-seats/floor/everywhere was expected, but coming out of
my cubicle to see a man blowing his nose into his hands and then washing his
hands in the sink... not what I was expecting. It almost put me off my Raspberry
Mojito. Almost.
- Most people here can speak English. This is especially
noticeable in shops and restaurants. Today, I didn't hear what a waitress was saying to me, so I asked her to please
repeat herself, but instead she just said it in English. Helpful, but not from
a language learning point of view. Tver was definitely better in this respect,
because it forced us to speak Russian everywhere.
- I’ve not been able to find a library to use yet. With
sharing a room (and a small desk), sometimes it’d be handy to slope off to a
library for a little bit and get some work done. Annoyingly, we haven’t managed to find
one. Our friends, who have been living here since September, have also had this
problem and the libraries that they have found have all got strange rules like,
‘no coats, bags or books to be taken into the library’ which isn’t ideal!
- I've had my purse stolen already! On my first trip out to a big shopping centre, we'd only been in about 3 shops when I noticed that my purse was missing. Just as I was telling my friend that it was gone, my phone started ringing. I answered it and there was a Russian lady on the other end, asking me if I was shopping in this shopping centre and then told me that she had my purse in River Island. This was so weird, because I'd not bought anything yet, let alone in River Island so there's no way I'd have mislaid it or dropped it. Anyway, we went straight there and my purse was returned to me (about £75 lighter!!). Apparently it was ditched somewhere and the security returned it to River Island, because it's a River Island purse. I was so lucky though, because all of my bank cards were still in it. I'd be buggered if they'd taken them. Also, it was lucky that I had my MTS card with my mobile number on it, or I'd probably never have been reunited with it. It sucks, but it happens and it could have been worse. I've always thought I'm really vigilant when shopping and I always make sure my bag is in front of me, but obviously I'm not vigilant enough. A (slightly more expensive than hoped) lesson was learnt.
The Downright Strange (I wish I had photos of some of these)
- As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the tracksuit-clad feline being led around Petersburg on a lead. I've seen dogs dressed up, but never cats and why was this cat on a lead? Seriously, who on earth walks their cat on a lead?!
- We left a club at 5am on a Saturday morning and amongst
the taxi’s outside, there was a woman offering rides on her horse (not a
euphemism). Imagine getting a horse home instead of a taxi!
- I was stood in Palace Square and two men tried to get me to hold monkeys for a photograph... monkeys in ski suits. I definitely didn’t think I’d be seeing monkeys in Saint Petersburg.
- While walking back from The Mariinsky Theatre, we spotted two horses walking down the middle of
the road. As they got closer, we noticed that the people on the horses were not
only riding bareback, but they were also
swigging on bottles of beers. Just casually riding down the middle of the road
at about 11pm... drinking beer... on horses.
I think I’ll designate a special section under each post for all
of the strange things that I see. I am certain that there will be many more to come.
We've had this week off school, so I’ve spent it gallivanting
around Petersburg. Will update you all soon!
XxX
