Go reader CORMAC BYRNEgot an enticing view of Russia in a city with a short but turbulent history
SOMETIMES WHEN you cross a border you hardly feel as if you are entering a different country. Not so with Russia. After Finnish police have checked our passports on the train to St Petersburg from Helsinki their Russian counterparts march through the carriages to inspect them again. After long stops on the border the train trundles on, and Finland’s neat patchwork of forests and fields gives way to straggly wild flowers, long grass, shrubby bushes and a mix of birch and coniferous forest. This has the feel of a real frontier.
Founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, St Petersburg was built to be Russia’s window on the West. What was marshland was filled with magnificent palaces and monuments, the streets between them laced with canals and rivers.
At first sight my accommodation comes nowhere near this vision. The woman in the floristry points me to an uninviting grey metal door with an intercom buzzer. Inside, the flaking walls and grimy staircase are equally unpromising. But it looked nice in the photos, I tell myself, near collapse on the seventh floor, with 15kg of pack on my back.
Then I walk into a beautiful, eclectically decorated apartment converted from a communal flat. What once housed several families around one kitchen and living space now caters for visitors to St Petersburg.
The tsar’s vision of a city filled with ornate palaces, monuments and churches along tranquil waterways and grand boulevards is still alive. There are two good ways to get a feel for the place: by foot and by boat. St Petersburg’s historical core is compact enough for walking but large enough to give a big-city feel.
Despite the fact that many street signs are only in Cyrillic, I find the city easy to find my way around, its bridges, waterways and landmarks making easy reference points. I had heard stories about pickpockets and corrupt police, but I encounter no trouble at all. The city feels as safe as any other of its size.
Boat trips abound in St Petersburg, making full use of its network of canals and rivers, though out on the wide Neva it gets quite chilly, and the blankets that were handed out come in very useful.
The tour guide speaks in Russian, which seems to be the norm on boat trips. While a fair amount of English is used at the main tourist sites, and in restaurants and accommodation, the city hasn’t thrown itself over to pulling in English-speaking tourists. Most visitors appear to be Russian, which I find refreshing, as the city feels both Russian and international.
Chief among the city’s sights are Dvortsovaya Ploshchad, or Palace Square, on which stands the enormous Winter Palace – home to the State Hermitage Museum – Nevsky Prospekt, the main avenue, lined with a diverse range of architectural gems; the excellent Russian Museum; and the golden domes and spires of St Isaac’s Cathedral, the Admiralty and, across the Neva, Peter and Paul Fortress.
One of the city’s most photographed religious buildings is the wonderfully named Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, a multicoloured, onion-domed Russian classic. As with many of the city’s churches, its religious role was extinguished during the Soviet era and it fell into disrepair. It has been beautifully restored.
The city’s architecture is not all distinctly Russian. Much of what I am looking at was designed by Italian architects, and at times the city also has quite a Parisian feel. If there is one place where the Paris-St Petersburg comparison definitely comes into play it’s Peterhof, a grand tsarist palace a half-hour’s hydrofoil journey along the Neva to the west of the city.
Often likened to Versailles, the palace grounds are a riot of fountains and gold. Alongside this formal extravagance are stretches of wooded parkland, full of red squirrels that keep visitors entertained.
As if that were not enough of the imperial love affair with all things golden and opulent, back in the city I visit Yusupov Palace, infamous as the place where Russia’s most notorious holy man, Rasputin, met his end in 1916 – through a combination of poisoning, shooting and drowning, as one method alone could not finish him off.
The palace is much more than a shrine to gore, however, being one of the few in the city not destroyed during the revolution of 1917.
Its unremarkable facade gives way to exquisitely preserved rooms, opulently furnished against a sumptuous palette of reds, blues, greens and even more gold. As I gawk in amazement I cannot help but think that, as most Russians were living in dire poverty at the time, it’s no wonder they rose up.
With the occasional exception, most of the city’s historic buildings appear to be in immaculate condition.
A prime example is Smolny Cathedral, a short bus trip, or long walk, from the centre of St Petersburg. When I first saw this blue-and-white baroque masterpiece – now a concert hall – it was through a car window at night, in torrential rain. It glistened like porcelain. The second time it is in glorious sunshine, and it looks like icing on a crazy wedding cake.
Indeed, this is one of many spots in the city where young Russians pose for wedding photographs, alongside stretch limos – the vehicles of choice for the big day.
My visit to St Petersburg over, I make my way back to Finland Station for the Helsinki train. Leaving the metro station, I ponder its name for a moment: Ploshchad Lenina, or Lenin Square. Although its people have ditched Leningrad in favour of the city’s original name, it has not been forgotten that Vladimir Lenin arrived here on a train from Finland in 1917. The rest, as they say, is history. Indeed, at just over 300 years the city has a short history but a monumental one, and I am glad to have briefly touched it.
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