Happy 4th, Russian Style

What an eventful five days. These past days in Russia have been absolutely nonstop. Our week started off trying to get 600 people through Russian customs, three hours later it was great to be off the dock. Everyone was two hours late for all the tours we signed up for. Needless to say, they all took place, just a bit delayed. A group of us got on a small boat which was on the Neva River along with other canals. All the sites were incredible, the entire city is surrounded by water so it was really pretty, unfortunately the speaker was broken on the boat, so we had no idea what we were looking at.
After a bit of that we saw a few sites like St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Hermitage, and a few other spots. We got stop by a souvenir shop afterwards, we were greeted with big smiles and a shot of free Vodka as you walked in the door. Welcome to Russia. After a bit more sightseeing we ended our night relatively early as we wanted to get an early start on Wednesday.
Due to the location of our boat, it was a 45 minute walk and needed to cross a bridge to see anything of significance in St. Petersburg. The walk was quite dreadful, crossing traffic is a nightmare, pedestrians never have the right of way and they all drive like a bat out of hell. After I crossed the street the first time I was more scared of getting hit by a car than I was of the thousand warnings of pick pocketers in the city. We spent our day with more sightseeing and went to the Church of Spilled Blood. It’s an incredible church that’s now used as a museum where Alexander II was brutally murdered. This building was probably the most incredible structure I’m yet to see, it looks like something you’d see in Disney at the Magic Kingdom. Wednesday night we went to see the Swan Lake ballet. It was very impressed with the choreography and the incredible orchestra. It was no Barn Theatre performance, but still a very memorable experience. Afterwards we went to this bar called Liverpool. The owner is from England and is a huge Beatles fan. The menu was even in English, therefore we were in heaven.
At the beginning of the week we were really hoping to travel to Moscow on the overnight train which takes about 8 hours. About 100 kids went at the beginning of the week through SAS and had quite the experience. The city is 10 times more spread out than St. Petersburg, and said it would have been an absolute nightmare if we were to go on our own. Unfortunately a lot of them didn’t have the best trip. One bus load of students saw a man about twenty feet from them on a three story scaffolding slip and fall shattering every bone in his body. Another bus saw a terrible fatal car accident happen at the intersection they were at. A car clearly did not see the red light and was going well over 70 mph and slammed into a car a few yards in front of them. Everyone said there is no away any of these people could have survived, but we obviously don’t have that confirmed. After hearing these freak accidents we decided we didn’t need to go to Moscow.
Back in St. Petersburg Steph and I put on our walking shoes on Thursday and covered every square inch of the city. We went into every museum, cathedral, and palace and we find on a map. We spent about 14 hours on the main island and came home around midnight. I was told the Hermitage is the largest museum in the world, if you spent one minute at each piece of work it would take six years to see everything. We cruised through it in under three hours and I think I saw everything. They had incredible works of art of Picasso, Monet, and Leonardo Da Vinci. A lot of the work dated back to the 15th and 16th centuries. After the Hermitage we went back to St Isaac’s Cathedral and hiked up about 500 steps to get to the top dome where you could overlook the entire city, the view was incredible. We also went inside the Church of Spilled Blood, the entire fixture was made from mosaic. This artwork was unbelievable. My pictures don’t really do justice, but I did get some good ones! Around sunset (midnight) we decided we better head back to our island to meet the rest of the group at the pub and call it a night.
Friday wasn’t your typical 4th of July. A group of us went to look at a school about an hour away from the city for one of my classes. It was a “standard” high school in one of the most rundown buildings with no sign out front implying the warehouse is actually a learning facility. When we were there, there was a group of 25 kids aged from 7-12 there for a summer camp playing games. They all came up to us, said hi, their age and their name. That was the extent of their vocab. It was fun to see the games they played, very similar to ours, I got a big group and played catch with a few of the kids and then taught them monkey in the middle. It was very funny. After hanging out with them, we got a tour of the school and learned about their curriculum. It seemed quite similar to ours, much more emphasis on Russian composition, it seems as though their language is more confusing than ours, and Russian literature and history. As shady at the school was I was very impressed to hear that nearly 100% graduate from high school as well over 90% will attend some sort of college or professional education for at least two years before starting a career.
Friday night there were over 100 SAS kids hanging out at the two bars which are about 50 feet from the boat. This is usually where most people started their night and tended to venture off from there. Do to the dance show we received from a local lady cougar no one wanted to leave. Much to our surprise we saw fireworks way off in the distance. This moment nearly brought tears to our eyes as we all reminisced over our favorite 4th of Julys back home. Not your typical 4th of July celebration, but certainly one I will remember forever.
After last minute shopping we all headed back to the boat early so we could get through customs at a reasonable time. The crew put on a huge BBQ for us on the top deck complimented with an American flag cake and USA decorations.
I think it’s safe to say I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in St. Petersburg. This country has certainly been through incredible turmoil in the last fifty years and it’s incredible to witness the progress they have made. Next stop Copenhagen, Denmark/Sweden. Better get working on my class work; I have three six page papers due in the next 48 hours. Stay tuned for updates later in the week.