From: bakker@cs.uq.oz.au (Paultje Bakker)
Newsgroups: rec.travel,bit.listserv.travel-l
Subject: TRAVELOGUE: From Leningrad to St. Petersburg
Date: 12 Apr 92 06:11:24 GMT
Reply-To: bakker@cs.uq.oz.au
Followup-To: rec.travel
Organization: Depts. of Computer Science & Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

(* As part of an ongoing campaign to bring substance to this
newsgroup, here's a travelogue written by my flatmate when he visited
Leningrad last year. He has no net access, but feel free to send any
comments, questions, abuse etc via me at bakker@cs.uq.oz.au *)

From Leningrad to Saint Petersburg:

Visiting Russia in a Time of Change

Our bus was just 30 km over the Finnish-Russian border; we were bound
for Leningrad, travelling through the military zone, a wilderness
where no one is allowed to live. Suddenly two ancient Ladas in front
of the bus started braking, forcing our bus driver to pull over. I was
expecting perhaps KGB or Russian police. With gusto, the Lada drivers
flung open their boots and started waving bottles of cheap Russian
vodka and champagne, and Russian dolls at the mainly Finnish
passengers on the bus.  Some of the Finns were laughing and
exclaiming, 'Primitive Russian Capitalists'. The wealthy Finns
have a contempt for the poor Russians, and it is little wonder after
50 years of having to toe the line of their superpower neighbour; they
were finally getting their own back.

This was Glasnost. The near collapse of 75 years of communism had
unleashed a generation of young Russian capitalists. By selling a few
dolls, or communist emblems, Russian watches, caviar, or Leningrad
guidebooks to Western tourists, they could make a month's wages in
a few minutes. The average Russian working for a wage makes so little
that many Russians have an attitude to work expressed by their saying,
'they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work!'  As a Westerner
walking around the streets of Leningrad, I was frequently approached
by Russian hawkers.  If you like bargaining, half the fun of your trip
can be dealing with Russian hawkers, and of course the taxi drivers,
who are notorious. The meter in a Russian taxi is only an ornament;
you have to bargain with Russia's modern day equivalent of the highway
robber, the taxi driver; and most often you have to pay in Western
currency.

Once in Leningrad I was amazed by the grandeur of the city: it is the
Paris of Eastern Europe. The Winter Palace, the Summer Palace, Saint
Jacob's Cathedral, and the oddly named Museum of Religion and
Atheism (which was once a Russian Orthodox Cathedral) rival the most
grandiose architecture of Paris. The Hermitage Art Museum is second
only to the Lourve in Paris in the size of its collection of great
works of art.

Leningrad was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great as Saint Petersburg,
and for two hundred years he and his successors transplanted to their
capital the most lavish styles of Western architecture. Traditional
Russian architecture, like the onion shaped domes of Red Square, is
almost absent.  The most notable exception to the Western style of the
city is the magnificent iconed walls and onion shaped domes of Saint
SaviourUs Cathedral, just off Nevsky Prospect, the main street.
Peter the Great was obsessed by all things Western (you can see this
in the rooms of his Summer Palace), and he built Saint Petersburg on
the Baltic Sea as a cosmopolitan gateway to the West. This still shows
in the attitudes of the people, who were well dressed, sophisticated,
and Western minded.

The hunger for Western things is as strong in the people today as it
was with Peter the Great. I was often running into young Russians,
some wearing American university sweaters, offering to swap watches,
backpacks, or anything else I had from the West. This generation of
Russians spoke excellent American-English, and they embraced
Westerners fondly as new found friends. They particularly liked
Americans. Young Russian women at American style 'beach' parties
on the rocky shores of the River Neva would grab American men and take
them back to their apartments, to presumably improve Russian-American
relations at a more personal level.  I was astounded by how much alike
were the people of the two great opponents in the Cold War, and how
well they got on together.

 Before my very eyes a new way of life was being born. Sometimes it
was a re-inventing of the old world before communism. At the
Literaturnoye Kafe, I had a three course dinner with drinks for the
princely sum of $8, a few weeks wages for the average Russian.  The
Kafe had been a meeting place of Russian writers before the
Revolution. There was only one meal on the menu, and the food was
mediocre, but I sat charmed by the sweet sounds of Brahams and Mozart
played by talented musicians, and enchanted by the costumes of the
czarist period that the waitresses and waiters were dressed in. I was
tempted to forget that it was July 1991. In August, when I heard about
the coup by the hardline communists, I could not believe that the
people of Leningrad would let their country turn away from the West
and re-embrace communism. Of course, they didnUt; and in September,
the name Leningrad, as a consequence of a referendum in the Spring,
was changed back to Saint Petersburg.

Getting to Russia was simple and easy. I was recommended the Finsov
Travel Agency by the staff at the Youth Hostel in Helsinki, which is
set in the stunning Olympic Stadium. Finsov arranged everything, and
within three days I was in Russia with a visa. This was quick. To get
a visa to enter Russia you need pre-booked accommodation and a return
ticket. It can be difficult getting these, because quite often you
don't know when you will be able to get in. But the Finns, because
of their special relationship with the Russians could get one within
days. Things may have changed now, but I doubt it. This Finsov tour
was the quickest and easiest way I could find. Finsov basically just
dropped me off at the pre-booked Hotel and picked me up, and I was
given complete freedom to roam around the city for four days. It cost
around $350 and this included the visa (which is expensive)
accomodation, travel, and meals.

Kevin Blackburn

--
PaulBakker ------------------------------------- email:bakker@cs.uq.oz.au
Depts.ofComputerScience/Psychology,UniversityofQueensland,Qld4072,Australia

"He who slings mud is sure to lose ground" - Lady Flo 
Newsgroups: rec.travel