17 April: We arrive in St. Petersburg at 5am, find our driver immediately and go to the hotel. It is about 5:30am, we have a chance to shower and rest a bit before breakfast.
As we prepare to meet our new guide and see the city, I cannot find my camera. After searching all the luggage and the room, I go looking for Betty hoping that she either has it or knows where it is … NOT! Damn, I have lost a good camera or it has been stolen; a Canon Rebel XT, digital SLR. But even worse, all the photos and memory cards since midway through China are in the carrying case.
Our guide, Pauline, takes us on an introduction tour of St. Petersburg. The Peter and Paul Fortress, the first building of the city is the burial place of all Russian Emperors. Then we see the awesome St. Isaacs Cathedral, the forth highest in the world, beautiful.
All morning while in the van, Pauline has been on her cell phone checking with the “Lost and Found” at both the Moscow and St. Petersburg railway stations. She also called the transfer company that provided our van and driver early this morning. Nothing.
In the afternoon we visit the Ethnography Museum. They have displays representing the lifestyles and cultures of many of the 60 or more ethnic groups in Russia. It was really interesting, we could have easily spent the entire day.
On the drive back to the hotel, Pauline got feedback from the various places she had asked to look for my camera. No luck.
Natalia, our travel and visa pro tour contact in Russia, was also busy trying to find the camera and sent a person to the Moscow railway station to talk with the conductress on the train.
With a couple of free hours remaing in tne late afternoon, Fran strikes out on her own to visit some shops she had read about. Someplace along the way she started walking back toward our hotel. About this same time, it started snowing; big wet flakes. During this time, I walked a few blocks to an ATM for more rubles. By the time I returned I was pretty much wet on the outer layers. As Steve, Betty and I sat in the warm hotel bar having a beer, little did we know that Fran was walking the streets of St. Petersburg, wet and cold trying to find our hotel. A beer or two later, we saw a cab stop and a cold, wet Fran got out and headed straight to the warm bar. The stories of her adventures flowed like the beer.
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We arrive at 4:30ish. The driver is unable to speak English and has to stop and ask directions. When we arrive at our hotel there is no breakfast which we had been told there would be, only one room is open – Charlotte’s and mine, and Chuck has lost his camera. Betty asks the manager to call her superior and amazingly, everyone has his and her rooms. Unfortunately the problem with the camera isn’t so easily solved. We start our tour at 8:00 with a drive around St Petersburg to see the beautiful buildings. The Peter and Paul Fortress, Naval Academy, St. Isaac’s Cathedral – the forth highest in the world. It is Russian Orthodox and is beautifully decorated with paintings, mosaics, and icons. I lit a couple of candles – a poor substitute for an Easter service, but —-. We also went to the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood – not open to the public. Many churches were destroyed during WWII and have undergone major if not total rebuilding. St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad) was under siege for nearly three years. Furthermore during the communist regime all religion was suppressed and churches were converted to offices or storage facilities. We also visited the cathedral of Peter and Paul which is where the Romanovs are buried.
The last site of the day was the Museum of Ethnography. Our guide Pauline, had not conducted a tour to this museum previously. She said mostly school children went there. It portrayed the daily lives, customs and costumes of the many peoples in the former Soviet Union. I could have easily spent much more time there!
We had the rest of the day free so I walked around the city for two and a half hours – lost in a snow and sleet storm. I finally gave up hope of finding the hotel, so I went into a couple of shops trying to get someone to call me a cab. At the first place – a warm delicious smelling bakery, I got a hot cup of tea, but no cab. Back out on the street. At the next place – a men’s dress shop – two young sales girls took pity on my poor bedraggled self and figured out I needed a cab, which they called, and while I waited for the cab, they made me a hot cup of coffee. They were sweeties! Got back to the hotel at 6:30. Fran