Saorrento

Six weeks, seven countries and twelve cities later, our tour to Russia the long way round has finally drawn to a close. It has been the most incredible experience and I am very glad to say there isn’t any one thing that stands out well beyond the others, there were so many magical moments of our trip: seeing snow and wild Elk in Golden Colorado and dining out with Jon and Julie who we both had a fantastic time with; the neon extravaganza of both Las Vegas and Times Square in New York City; the climb to the observation deck of the Empire State Building; seeing Phantom of the Opera on Broadway; my first rail trip in England going out to Bristol and the Eurostar voyage to Belgium; pub crawls and luxury dining in Belgium; hiking through the snow in St Petersburg to various World War II monuments; getting up close to Soviet and German war machines and other various relics of the Cold War at a number of Museum exhibits; travelling from St Petersburg to Moscow by second class rail, with snowy landscapes out the window; cruising down the Rhine river in Frankfurt past the many vineyards, medieval styled castles and villages. These are just a few of the highlights, simply put; ‘The Long Way to Russia’ has been an EPIC adventure!

What’s next? Well this trip has wet our appetites for so much more travel; I personally would love to see a great deal more of Colorado during the ski season as well as re-visit Frankfurt and spend time touring about Germany. Things like a Route 66 road trip in the United States, a month long stay in Germany and other Euro Road trips are just some of the ideas buzzing through my head for the near future.

Of course then there are also new exotic locations such as the likes of Egypt, Antarctica and Dubai which are pretty high up on the list of new places too. So if nothing else, WATCH THIS SPACE!

Our Russian experience has been incredible and happily concern free. Upon preparing for this trip, we did what many before us had done, we read numerous Travel blog entries of peoples experienced in Russia, visited the Trip Advisor website for the dos and don’ts and for the most part they all painted a similar picture, that Russia wasn’t going to be easy.

Various blogs warned of trouble with corrupt policemen, requesting bribes and falsifying reports. Our research also emphasized that non-Russian speaking people will struggle and that Moscow was very expensive to live in. Although up until our last day we were wary of the police and kept a separate stash of bribe money on us at all times, not once were we or anyone else around us stopped to have their credentials checked. For the most part, even in Moscow we felt quite safe. Though in neither place did we temp fate by lurking about on our own at night.

The Russian people we found were very polite and most spoke some level of English, easily enough to get by.

We were prepared, entering the former USSR with packets of Lays chips, printed translated phrases specifically if we got detained by law enforcement; we even brought into the country a 6 pack of toilet paper - all of which were never used.

Choose your time of year carefully
My advice for anyone wishing to travel to Russia; carefully consider what it is you want to see. We arrived in Russia for two weeks in early October, by then the general tourist rush was almost over which was fantastic, we had Russia to ourselves. On the down side, since the tourism at this time has generally started to wind down and winter not too far off a few of the popular monuments and park areas had begun to close for renovations. On the other hand though October is usually when the first snow is expected, and we were very lucky to experience St Petersburg in its white glory for a day.

Shopping in Moscow and St Petersburg
In addition, we both went to Russia under the impression that Moscow would be a lot more expensive than St Petersburg, and although this is true to an extent it doesn’t necessarily extend to souvenir shopping. In fact we discovered that general souvenir items, especially Soviet marked ones were a good couple of hundred Rubles cheaper in Moscow. Although a few hundred doesn’t seem like much, it does add up after a while and could be better spent on evening drinks!

Dive in and try the local foods and drinks
Although popular western foods like McDonalds and Pizza hut do exist in Russia and at pretty reasonable prices, don’t be afraid to try some of the local cuisine. After all you’re in another country, you may as well give everything a shot… including the Vodka, which I must say is of much higher quality than anywhere else I have drunk it.

Borche Soup, a popular local soup, from memory consisting of beetroot and cabbage is very delicious, and fantastic for the cold days you can expect in October. Don’t assume soft drinks are cheaper - it wasn’t uncommon to find a pint (500ml) of Russian beer to be cheaper than a 300ml bottle of Pepsi. If you eat like a local, food will be very cheap for you in both St Petersburg and Moscow.

Public Rest Rooms
Public rest rooms vary greatly; we always tried to go to ones either in shopping centers which may cost you 20 Rubles entry, or those of more international standards such as the likes of McDonalds. If you can afford to be picky when looking for a WC, look for the golden arches! A lot of the general public toilets don’t encourage flushing of used toilet paper, as a result the bins that the paper gets thrown into stinks out the facilities pretty quickly.

Be sure you also carry a small packet of tissues and a small 100ml bottle of hand wash gel as not all public toilets will have ample supplies of toilet paper or soap dispensers.

Public Transport
Public transport in Russia, specifically trains is rather cheap. We only went on the Metro in St Petersburg once doing about 5 stops on 20 Rubles. Moscow on the other hand, we lived on the metro since it was a necessary means of transport between our hotel and the city center. You can purchase 10, 20 and 50 pass tickets for the metro. Unlike other city systems like London and New York, Moscow does not have a concept of Zones, so for all intensive purposes, the entire metro system is Zone 1. Simply swipe on to enter the metro station and that is it. We found the 20 pass cards very useful, costing around 320 Rubles. The metro itself, although all stops are written in Cyrillic, the system is exceptionally well colour coded. I found it easier to use the Moscow Metro than I did using the London Underground!

Frankfurt has been a breath of fresh air after our 11 day tour of Russia. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed my time in both St Petersburg and Moscow; I could spend a great deal longer further experiencing the history and culture of Russia, as well as the approaching minus degree Celsius temperatures, however, for a first time visit, a change of pace was definitely welcomed after the 11th day. Little things like having to carry your passport around you at all times whilst in Russia slowly became more like having a ball and chain around your foot. The heightened sense of alert you had to maintain; watching out for pickpockets, and being prepared to mime what you are after to non-English speaking people became quite exhausting to think of (though I must stress we did not see or experience any pick pocketing). It was nice to finally be rid of all these things and just relax a little.

We checked into our hotel just after 5.00pm. Immediately after checking-in we looked up the tours on offer at Green Line Tours conveniently located across the road from the Savoy Hotel where we were staying. The tour group boasted many tours ranging from full day excursions to brief half day ones held in the afternoon. Tours featured river cruises, wine tasting, tours of gothic castles and other city based trips. Given that Tuesday was now next to gone and we were due to leave for the airport at 7.30pm on the Thursday, Michelle and I booked a day tour going from 10am-7.30pm for the following day and a 2hr city tour for the Thursday morning. With our tours booked and the sun well and truly gone there was little more to do than to have dinner, finding an Irish Pub only three doors down from our hotel. We both felt like we were eating dinner at midnight and although it was only 8pm in Frankfurt we kind of were since our bodies were still on Moscow time, some four hours ahead of Frankfurt.

The next morning we headed straight out for the tour shop across the road to begin our day tour of the Rhine River. The Rhine is one of several prominent rivers running through Frankfurt. This particular river system is host to some magnificent gothic styled castles and a number of vineyards running parallel either side of the river. Our tour included a guided coach tour to the Rhine where we then boarded a riverboat making our way up the Rhine. The tour also included a restaurant lunch and wine tasting.

Due to the approaching off-season, where even the Germans try to flee the country during the winter months, our tour group was relatively small consisting of about four different country groups, 11 people in total. Amongst them were four Aussies, Michelle and myself, along with an elderly couple from Melbourne. A very nice couple Michelle and I befriended from the island of Samoa, two couples from Dubai which were also a delight to talk to and last but not least a middle-aged business man who could only speak Portuguese.

Unfortunately for him, no one else on the tour spoke Portuguese, including the tour guide. During lunch, which we had before the river cruise, the Portuguese man downed four glasses of Red wine within thirty minutes. The rest of our group sat back in amusement, finally all agreeing that since he can’t understand a word of English he may as well just sit back and enjoy himself. On the river cruise our tour group was joined by three other tour groups, where the Portuguese found some fellow people he could communicate with. In celebration of his new found comrades he had two stines (1ltr mugs) of beer. Needless to say when it came to the wine tasting at the end of the evening he had his head buried between his legs not even capable of facing the sample of wine before him.

The Rhine looked even better than advertised on the brochures. The water was a dark blue and the hilly landscape on either side was full of vines ripe with fruit. Perched every couple of miles along the hillside were castles, each and every one unique with its own splendor design. Also along either side of the river were bustling rail lines with both electric passenger trains and diesel powered cargo trains shunting through into the hillside tunnels and out into and amongst the small near-medieval styled villages at the base of the escarpment.

The only thing amiss with the day was the level of foggy haze between the river boat and hill side didn’t play too nicely with photography, with each and every snap taken requiring dramatic enhancement through Photoshop.

After the Rhine river cruise which ran its course of two hours we made our way to the bus which took us to our final stop; wine tasting. I had been good all day, saving myself for the tasting, hoping to go back for seconds and even thirds, sampling the whole of the vineyard. Unfortunately this was not to be.

I can tell you right now, my number one purchase for the next adventure overseas is going to be a compact laptop. I am currently somewhat squashed up, having my chair back as far as it can go to compensate for the passenger in front who has put their chair back – I can only just get the laptop screen upright and just millimeters off having to suck in my stomach to fit the laptop infront of me. The Singapore Air flight from Frankfurt to Singapore whom yours truly is currently on has so far been pretty comfortable. Almost limitless video on demand covering a pretty broad selection of TV shows and movies. The service is very good, though with everyone else on this flight asleep but me it makes it very easy for the hostess’s to keep up with the regular scotch n’ coke requests. The TV panel in the chair is pretty impressive; it comes with Video in ports to plug your laptop video feed into it and use it as another screen, there is also usb, cat-5 and 240 volt power on the armrest. Though unfortunately the power on the armrests don’t work on most of the chairs, yes, the kind hostess even checked the empty seats for me. All I will say is the future of flying is looking pretty cool! Where was I?
Yes, typically on wine tours and particularly tastings that I have done in the past, one approaches the tasting bench and points at particular bottles of wine and the server will pour a quarter glass for your evaluation. If you’re lucky, the server behind the bar will know their wines and suggest a specific order to sample them in and provide a brief summary on the life of the grape you are currently tasting. Although the wine sampling in this particular instance was carried out by a German woman who definitely knew her wines the wine portions themselves were not that generous, measuring to just over a quarter of a shot glass each, with one sampling of each wine per person.

I found the wine itself to be mediocre. Although I do not question that the quality to be far superior to that of Australian wine (the host assured us that her wine had no added sugar, which I learned is responsible for the nasty headaches that some people (fortunately not me) get from their third or fourth glass) my Australian pallet just did not appreciate it fully and I found the wines on the most part either too bland or too naturally sweet, there was no middle ground. One wine did impress me however; although it tasted more like an alcoholic fruit drink than wine. It was more in the genesis of it that impressed. The wine called ‘Ice Wine’ founded in Germany exists now in Germany, Canada, New Zealand (and two other places I cannot recall). What is particularly unique about this wine is how it is produced. On the first frosty winters morning of the season where the temperature is a perfect minus seven degrees Celcius, the grapes are harvested. During this temperature the grapes are frosted over by a thin layer of Ice. The harvesting process for this particular wine is done by hand. At the very same time the grapes are picked in the dead calm of night well before sunrise the barrels of grapes are rushed down the slope of the vineyard into the refinery where the grapes, still in their frosted state are crushed. In this state only pure grape juice is processed. To put it another way, it takes 12kilograms of grape to make an ordinary bottle of wine, for Ice Wine however, since all you get from a grape is just a drop or two of pure grape juice, 80 kilograms of grapes are required to make a bottle. Once the morning breaks it is all over, that is the Ice Wine harvest for the year. An entire years vintage of Ice wine harvested in just one night. When the morning sun hits the vines, the icy layer around the grape will melt away turning it back into just an ordinary grape for what in comparison is just ordinary wine. This makes the wine very unique, and the fact that it also has a potentially unlimited shelf life (requires re-corking every 20 years), it is a collectors dream.

So the tasting part was a bit of a letdown but I did learn a lot about the wine process and keeping wines. Such as, white wines once open, provided that they are refrigerated will last for two or three weeks. If storing wines, ensure that you either store the bottle with the nose down (so the cork is always completely submerged) or if laying on its side make sure you rotate the bottle 180 degrees every six months (something I plan to do as soon as I get home) and obviously, keep out of direct sunlight or keep in a wine fridge.

By the time the wine tasting was over our Portuguese friend had stumbled outside for some fresh air. The whole way home on the coach he was passed out in the front seat.

The next day we did a city bus tour around Frankfurt. The city itself is rather impressive, like most European cities (although somewhat self inflicted) it too suffered its fair share of damage during World War II. Even back then Frankfurt was considered the financial capital of Europe. Today Frankfurt is a dazzling clash of both modern and historic architecture side by side. The city itself, from what I observed at least is almost as popular for its adult shops and strip clubs as it is for its many wondrous cathedrals. Although the strip clubs that I observed seemed to be all located on one street which makes them far easier to avoid than the many cathedrals around the area. I had to laugh at one of them though, the location of the most prominent of strip clubs the ‘Dolly Buster Center‘ I thought was rather apt; for right next door to it was McDonalds. So children, line up here for your ‘happy meal’ while your parents go for their ‘happy moment’ in the building next door!

In less than an hour of being in Frankfurt walking around the streets I fell in love with the place. I can’t pin point exactly what it is that captivated me, I believe it to be more a combination of things; the mish-mash of classical and modern architecture, a electric-tram system running through the city, the Rhine River just on the other side extending outwards to gothic style castles and quaint medieval style villages. This city has it all, all within walking distance or a brief drive. I definitely want to come back to Frankfurt and take a lot more time exploring what this city has to offer.

So far Moscow has been equally as welcoming as its counterpart to the north, St Petersburg. The following morning after our arrival the night before we awoke early, today was going to be a long day; we had two tours booked. First was a metro tour, which involved the guide meeting us at our hotel and then walking from our hotel to the closest metro station and showing us about various station stops helping us become familiar with the key transport of the city. Later that evening the same tour guide will take us on a night city tour of Moscow. We opted to do this as we both figured it would be the safest environment to take photos at night. From prior experience after doing a single tour both Michelle and I were usually quite buggered in the evening, suddenly the idea of doing two tours in a single day didn’t seem like such a great idea.

However before all that was breakfast. It has to be said, it is healthy for me to be on holiday, be it a work trip to Sydney or a holiday abroad, these are the times I have the healthiest breakfasts. First course; fried tomato with herbs, egg, sausage, perhaps some hash browns and baked beans with some freshly squeezed orange juice. Second course; a bowl of assorted fruits including apricot, pair, banana with strawberry yoghurt drizzled on top, and on occasion to finish it off a cup of coffee. This usually sees me through usually till early afternoon if not till lunch time.

Since St Petersburg, one thing Michelle and I have now realized is that in some sense we over-did the tour bookings. At the time we had read a lot of horror stories about tourists getting about in Russia, so for us, the tours were a ‘worst case scenario’ contingency, worst came to worst we would at least have safe guided tours. What has actually happened is that during our free times we’re happily going off on our own and visiting museums by ourselves and seeing the sites without feeling the need for a guide at all, so when it came to our first two tours in Moscow, we both looked at them purely for their instrumental purposes. Tour one, for helping us acquire a 20 pass metro card (for about 300 rubles, approx AUD$10), and tour two for its ‘wheels’ in getting about all the popular night time photo sights. All the tour guide talk in between (the bits we chose to tune in for, the keyword ‘soviet’ got my attention every time) was just icing on the cake.

The metro passes we acquired in the morning tour I am proud to say have had a significant workout since. The metro system in Moscow in many respects is similar to London’s but with a few advantages; one, unlike most other city rails there are no zones, all of Moscow metro is one zone, London has about 7. Secondly, the underground stations are like museums themselves; some are pre-World War II and others post, all uniquely decorated in marble, some with large statues of solders in memory of battles previously fought, others celebrating various trades and traditions unique to Russia. All were spotless and well maintained. The metro lines themselves were mighty efficient with trains coming every two minutes, and during peak between every 30 seconds to a minute apart. Even with all the metro signs written in Russian, I still believe this metro system to be the easiest I have ever been on.

After our morning tour of the metro system our guide dropped us off in Red Square. Surrounding Red Square were a huge assortment of souvenir style markets, each tent selling various Soviet and Russian knick knacks. Feeling quite proud that we did the majority of our shopping already in St Petersburg (the cheaper of the two capitals; Moscow is the third most expensive city in the world) we decided to have a brief look to see what the richer city had to offer. To our great disappointment we quickly discovered that we had been had in St Petersburg with the exact same items on sale in Moscow for 300 rubles cheaper. I’ve since ascertained, between a larger population and many more souvenir shops to compete with competition have brought down the prices to a low. So there’s a travelling tip for you, do your entire souvenir shopping in Moscow.

A few days later we caught the metro all the way out to Victory Park, a monumental museum to the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War (this being the war against Nazi Germany in World War II). Proudly featured at the main entrance of the museum lies an obelisk, the height of which is exactly 141,8 meters; 10 cm for every day of the War. The war monument in its entirety; the museum featuring an array of exhibits from fine art to the tools of war, including a collection in the thousands of ‘Iron Cross’s’ worn by Nazi troops to the outdoor grounds featuring Soviet and Nazi armourments in the form of Tanks, Helicopters and Fixed-Wing crafts was all very proudly presented and when one looks back through the history and the origin of the Patriotic War particularly along the Eastern Front you can see why Russia is so proud; in the midst of near annihilation, the Soviet Union came out on top.

It almost makes me regret that I was not an observer of those times (yes, I chose my words very carefully there), the politics between governments, the double-sided deals between such great powers. It has been fantastic to say that I am here in Russia right now, seeing what is left, what remains of what many would undoubtedly exclaim as an end of an era and tracing back the origins to the Great Patriotic War to the very beginning.

It On June 22, 1941, Germany broke its non-aggression pact with the USSR and began an invasion. According to the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler’s own autobiography ‘Mein Kampf’ the war was out of necessity, acquiring new territory for German settlement in Eastern Europe. He envisaged settling Germans there as a master race, while deporting most of the inhabitants to Siberia and using the remainder as slave labor.
Stalin, realizing that the non-aggression pact wouldn’t last forever proceeded to mass develop and ready legions of tanks and infantry, only he didn’t expect Germany to break the pact so soon, needless to say, the Soviet Union was somewhat prepared to defend the Mother land.

The Soviet army on the eve of the German attack had significant power, on paper. On June 22, 1941 the Red Army and Navy had over 4.6 million people, 23,000 tanks, 18.700 planes, 910 ships and cutters.

The Soviets were prepared for winter warfare and on December 5, 1941 reinforcements from Siberia attacked the German lines around Moscow, supported by new T-34 tanks and Katyusha rocket launchers. The exhausted and freezing Germans were routed and driven back between 100 and 250 km (60 to 150 miles) by 7 January 1942.

The Germans introduced forced labor across the occupied territories of the USSR. A working day was 14-16hrs long. The population was not supplied with clothing, shoes or the means to stay clean. The bread ration was 200-300 grams per day. But these official food rations often were violated. Over 4.1 million people died of starvation, infectious diseases, hard work and lack of medical supplies.

Ultimately, bit by bit, like a game of Chess between these two Superpowers, the Red Army forces knocked down the pawns in its path and in the years ahead and won back the Mother land, forcing the Germans to retreat further and further back. Finally, upon the assault on Berlin where the Fuhrer himself admitting defeat took his own life, the war was one. The city’s defenders finally surrendered on 2 May. However, fighting continued to the north-west, west and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on 8 May as German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.





Russia has been an eye opener; never before have I stood in streets with such history, visited museums with such fresh ‘larger than life’ monuments of an era only foretold to me (and people of my generation) from Hollywood films and (for those fortunate by their Grandparents, sitting on their knee and be told stories of a lifestyle which today many of us take for granted.

The snowy haul to Moscow
If you haven’t already realized by now dear reader snow is something that I am easily excited about. Having seen snow only once (in my life) for a week whilst skiing in Australia before this trip, I have now seen it multiple times in different countries and it is fantastic. Unlike the locals I am not as yet put off by the slushiness occurrence that happens after snowing, it is still rather magical to me.

We are currently travelling by train from St Petersburg to Moscow, and the outside view for lack of a better word is spectacular; we have passed a number of snow lined forests, villages and streets buried in snow with dim light glowing from the windows and smoke pouring from the chimneys, it is incredible to see.

The railway yard leaving St Petersburg was also rather extensive, it seemed to take forever to finally leave the compound, passing various war torn buildings and rail lines and engines that had long since been discontinued.

I am eagerly looking forward to Moscow, but I have been warned that it is a lot different to St Petersburg. For one, the population is incredibly larger, and that alone produces its own problems. Law enforcement is a lot more strict; in the metro stations random passport checks are done on both tourists and locals (yes, Russians have both domestic and international passports), and in earlier reported cases, most dating back to 2004 some police officers would for no reason confiscate a tourist passport expecting the tourist to pay a bribe to have it back. In addition, pick pocketing in metro areas and around various tourist attractions is also a high risk.

As an initiation to Moscow we have arranged an ‘on foot’ tour in the morning to introduce us to the metro system (and hopefully purchase a week long ticket) and various other parts of Moscow. Two hours after that tour we start a night tour which is a more generalized city tour. The photographer in me whom especially likes to take night photos will be seizing this opportunity (with a Russian speaking guide) to do so, as I am not yet too sure just how much roaming the streets at night I want to do in Moscow, let alone with a camera and a tripod – it couldn’t be more obvious that I was a tourist even if I had a flashing neon sign saying so in Russian.

Aside from having to be a bit more travel conscious, which we initially treated St Petersburg with also, I am looking forward to a new landscape, new tours and a different perspective on historical significance. I will however miss the extreme low minimums and maximums that St Petersburg had on a daily basis, Moscow from the looks of the forecast is a lot warmer, with a maximum of around 14 degrees and a minimum of 6. I’d say there was a very slim chance of us seeing snow in Moscow.

The capture of Leningrad was one of three strategic goals in Hitler’s initial plan, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, for invading and conquering the Soviet Union. Hitler’s strategy was motivated by Leningrad’s political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution, its military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories.

The Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade was an unsuccessful military operation by the Axis powers to capture Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. The siege started at 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed. Although Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city at 18 January 1943, the total lifting of the siege happened at 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest and most destructive sieges of major cities in modern history and it was the third most costly in terms of casualties.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment.

The siege continued until January 27, 1944, when the Soviet Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city. In the summer of 1944, the Finns were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the Vuoksi River.

On October 29, 1966 a monument to the Road of Life was erected. Entitled ‘Broken Ring,’ this monument pays tribute to the many lives broken by the blockade.

Daily forecast: Max 3 degrees, Min 0 degrees

The amount of walking the day before in the near zero degrees had started to pay its toll, Michelle and I were less than energetic to get out of bed for what was to be our last guided tour in St Petersburg; exploring Yusupov‘s Palace. Finally, after summoning what little motivation we had left we made it down stairs into the lobby where our tour guide was already waiting for us.

“I hope you brought your umbrella!” she said greeting us, both Michelle and I looked blankly back at her, still waking up, and our bodies not eager to return outside into the cold.

I then recalled the forecast that I read from the night before; maximum of three degrees, and a minimum of zero with a chance of showers.

She then continued “It has been snowing all morning”.

Hearing those very words I suddenly snapped out of my fatigued phase and my face lit right up. We then proceeded out to the street where our driver was waiting. Opening A gentle gust of snow filled breeze blew into our faces greeting us as we exited through the hotel doors.

Our guide ran straight ahead to get into the car as if trying to evade a torrential down pour of heavy rain, but it wasn’t, it was snow! From her eyes and those of any local bystander we must of looked ridiculous, we were in complete awe, observing everything the snow had touched, taking photos of each other and of the canal in front of us. Eventually we made it to the car and began our tour.

Almost every word from start to end of the tour was white noise for me; I was too captivated by the view outside. The entire cityscape seemed to transform, what was a cold dull-looking post Soviet city (which despite the gloomy description I loved) was now a white, almost happier looking city (which I loved even more). There was no doubt about it, St Petersburg was built for the snow, and everything about it took on a happier transformation. I couldn’t help to think how fortunate we were, although various internet sources reported that the first snow for Russia is usually expected by mid October (hence my insistence on touring Russia at the end of our trip), our travel guide a few days ago dimmed that hope saying that it usually doesn’t snow until January/February.

We arrived at Yusupov‘s Palace, located across from the grand bay that cut through the very heart of St Petersburg. Entering the palace I glanced back over my shoulder taking in one final look of the snow falling outside as it was more than likely the snow would of melted away by the time our four hour tour was completed.

The palace itself was very impressive, each room carefully restored back to its original glory – the palace boasted a number of drawing rooms and lounge areas, each decorated in a unique colour scheme, usually a blue, red, yellow and green room. The floors were paved with only the highest quality marble and wood finishing’s, the plaster work on the ceilings easily rivaled those of European castles I had previously seen.

Interestingly though, more important than the value of a material was the perceived value of the end result. Although there were a number of extremely intricate designs that boasted genuine gold and genuine oak materials, there were equally a number of design features mimicking particular materials which ultimately were more expensive to produce than their genuine counterpart. Examples of this were the marble pillars in one of the guest lounges; the room although square in design had pillars placed in a circular fashion giving the room a cylindrical illusion. The marble pillars, almost sky-blue in colour were in reality nothing more than the result of an acrylic process. Although they looked real, they clearly were not as the colour was not a natural marble colour. Yet, despite the fact that the pillars are fake, they are worth more than if they were cut out of genuine marble. Another example being the wood carvings; a lot of the embossed carvings in the wood were in fact simply plaster mouldings stained to look like oak and then glued onto the wooden piece, be it a door or wall feature. Value didn’t seem to be a case of what materials were used rather what the end result looked like. Similarly the chandeliers, although a fair few of them were genuine gold and crystal, a number of ‘gold looking’ ones were in fact nothing more than paper mache painted gold.

No matter how incredible each room we passed through looked I always gave glance to the windows first determining whether or not it was still snowing. I felt like a kid on excursion waiting for the recess siren to sound so I could go out and kick a footy. The only difference was I was paying for this class.

Class ended two hours earlier than expected, partially because being the start of the off season the palace wasn’t nearly as busy as what it usually was so we had no waiting times to enter the individual rooms and partially (not from our guides lack of asking), we (especially me) simply had no questions for her.

We collected our coats from the dry room and started pondering what we should do now. Michelle suggested visiting the statue of Lenin that we had passed in the transport that picked us up from the airport the day we arrived. Fortunately, although a good thirty minutes out of St Petersburg, both our driver and guide take that direction home, so we went along for the drive as far as the statue of Lenin, less than a couple of kilometers from the Broken Ring monument where the 1941 Leningrad Blockade took place.

The three of us parted company with our driver, our guide supervising our metro ticket purchase back to St Petersburg central before leaving us in the wilderness and then we were on our own. We raced back upstairs from the metro underground to street level which had a good few centimeters of snow on the paths with it still snowing and headed straight for the Lenin monument. It is funny to imagine that less than six months earlier we were in the tropical heat of Vietnam taking vodka shots from a water bottle in front of a Lenin statue we found and now, in the midst of a Siberian snowfall, in front of a larger than life statue of Lenin in RUSSIA. Unfortunately this time we didn’t have any vodka, more so to just keep ourselves warm than to toast Lenin. For reasons I have yet to fathom, the Vodka here is a lot smoother to drink than the crushed-ants-tasting spirit we are familiar with in Australia.

After sliding about in the snow, taking numerous amounts of photos and pegging snow-balls at each other in less than zero degree weather, whilst snowing, we began walking towards a obelisk looking structure in the distance, which our guide had informed us was the Broken Ring monument.

The Broken Ring monument was massive. It was the center feature of an even larger multi-lane roundabout, clearly marking the entrance into St Petersburg. Beyond the monument looking outward away from St Petes was a vast landscape of snowcapped trees and valleys. In August 1941, some 68 years earlier, all railway lines to Leningrad had been severed, and the city was encircled on land by Finnish armies to the north pressing onto the very spot we stood and German troops to the south attempting to invade through Stalingrad.

None of this, neither the Lenin statue nor the Broken Ring monument would have looked anywhere as impressive without the snow blasting the statues from the side as it currently was. We wandered around for probably close to an hour before realizing that we were slowly losing sensation in our feet and in our hands. Stopping at a pizza hut store on the way back to the metro we warmed ourselves back up both agreeing that this experience bet all three guided tours hands down. This was the real Russia both of us had been looking for.