One day trip to Saint Petersburg, Russia

Real life and culture experiences in Saint Petersburg, Russia

I had a spare day and decided to take a trip to Saint Petersburg. Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia with population of around 5.4 million. Saint Petersburg is located about 700 kilometers North-West from Moscow on the shores of Baltic sea. It was founded in 1703 and served as a capital of Russia in the pre-soviet history.

There are two primary ways of getting from Moscow to St.Petersburg: trains or airlines. Travel time with both modes of transportation is almost the same. Airline travel however involves hassles of getting to/from airports and annoying security checks. Airline tickets are also pricier. Trains depart from Moscow downtown and arrive St.Petersburg downtown, and considering all the factors of convenience, train is better.

I bought train tickets for 4280 Rubles return. As of today’s exchange rate of 65 Rubles per one USD, it’s about $65.8. Hereafter I will be using this exchange rate. It fluctuates daily however, check current exchange rate to get an idea of what costs I mention are in your country’s currency.

My train leaves at 6:05 in the morning and I wake up at four. It is September and it’s raining heavily in Moscow with outside temperature somewhere around +2..+4. Heavy rainfall is accompanied by a stormy wind.

I dress, grab my bag and leave my apartment around five in the morning. I walk (or more like run) in the pouring rain and strong wind to a nearby bus stop to grab a taxi. I could order a taxi from home and have it at the entrance to my apartment building. The address of my place is a bit tricky, as area of Moscow where I live has no street names. For some drivers that is confusing and although every map has my apartment building, taxi drivers get lost frequently. To avoid any mishaps I go to a place any driver would find easily and that is a nearby bus stop, next to a subway station.

I have to use taxi , because subway opens at 5:30 in the morning. It takes approximately forty minutes of subway ride to the train station, meaning I do not have time to use subway.

Those days when we called taxi calling taxi phone number are all gone. Taxis are all on apps now. Yes, we have mobile internet in Russia, it is speedy (LTE) and very inexpensive. I pay 500 Rubles ($8) monthly for 700 minutes of talks and 4 gigs of internet traffic. We have Uber and Gett in Russia, but also we have local taxi service apps and I use one of them.

The search icon spins endlessly, suggesting no taxis are available. I close the app and raise hand. A car, parked nearby, moves and stops next to me. Many people in Russia make money working as taxi drivers — unofficially, picking random passengers on streets. In Russian slang they are called “bombila”. That means someone who bombs (or drops bombs). Not sure about etymology of this word.

In Russia taxi drivers love to talk to their passengers. This one tells me one of the stories of how a desperate passenger hires him to drive from Moscow to Sochi for some emergency and pays him crazy deal of money. I have this feeling that I have heard similar story before, from some other driver, but I just listen, nod and gasp in the most dramatic moments of his talk.

The driver drops me at the “Square of three railway terminals”. There are nine major railway stations in Moscow and three of them located here, around this square. Terminal that I need is Leningradsky. Leningradsky terminal serves North West destinations. The platforms are behind the terminal, there is quick bypass, no need to go thru the terminal with its security checks. Platforms have separate security checks on entrance.

I spot a bus with Chinese tourists unloading and walk faster to avoid getting behind them at security check.

Boarding to my train has already begun. I find my car and train attendant checks my ID. We use internal passports for ID in Russia, so the attendant looks at my passport and checks my e-ticket on her handheld wireless device. Train tickets are all electronic now. I had a printout of my boarding coupon, but it is of no use.

It takes 3 hours and 55 minutes non-stop to cover about 700 kilometers distance between Moscow and St.Petersburg. The train leaves at 6:05 sharply.

Trains, unlike everything else, are very timely in Russia, delays are unusual.

The train I am taking has the name of “Sapsan” — peregrine falcon in Russian. The train is built by Siemens. It is very comfortable and speedy, running at 150–250 Km/hour. For the ticket price you get comfortable seat of an airline business class size, basic amenities like luggage racks, toilets, rails and hangers for upper garments.

The train is very quiet inside, but it shakes quite a bit, primarily because it runs on older tracks shared with freight trains (very few now as they are moved to the lines to give way passenger traffic) and regular passenger trains.

Since I did not have any breakfast, I go to bistro car to get some food. Food on Sapsan is good, not exactly cheap, but still affordable. I get Americano coffee and an apple stuffed pancake, all costs 340 Rubles ($5.2). The coffee is real small, like double espresso, but it tastes good. The pancake is excellent. Chinese tourists at the next table eat instant noodles. The guy buys two beers. Strangely, for many people in Russia travel equals drinking.

Whenever I travel on Sapsan or fly one of the airlines, I see people buying and drinking alcohol real early in the morning. It’s like having alcohol before riding a train or flying is an important ritual.

I finish my coffee and pancake and return to my seat. You can’t photograph much at 200 Km/h speed, so here are two pictures of my train travel.

The train arrives to St.Petersburg exactly on time. I leave the train and walk to the subway station nearby.

St.Petersburg subway still uses metal tokens for payment. I have two tokens from previous trips, so I use one of them. St.Petersburg subway is not very different from Moscow subway. Same trains, just the design of stations is different.

I am for just one day in Saint Petersburg and I have three places to visit. The first places of visit is church.

Russians do not talk about religion, it is considered a private subject.

The church I am visiting is located far from the historical center. The church building is very old though. It was built in 1906 and since then never changed its purpose. In soviet times communists tried to turn this church building into a club, but no one would visit it, so it was reopened for services. The church is made of wood and has no paintings on walls and ceilings inside as most Russian churches have. No pictures from the inside because my visit was during the service.

For those interested in visiting Russian Orthodox church I wrote an article on norms of behavior when visiting Orthodox church in Russia.

It turns out, today is a big holiday, and church is packed with people. Orthodox services are beautiful. I decide to stay and witness the whole thing. Liturgy is over, but other services start.

After leaving the church I walk to a subway station, not the one I came from. It’s a longer walk. To give you an idea of the area, here is a picture of it. This part of St.Petersburg is far from the center. The architecture is a mix of old soviet apartment buildings and newer developments. There are two shopping malls, smaller shops, gas stations, car washes, restaurants and everything else an ordinary resident of this area might need.

Subway takes me to St.Petersburg downtown. After existing subway I head to a cafe to have coffee and some food. I’ve done some research on places to eat and this one was on a shortlist. St.Petersburg has many places to eat and in fact I believe more in number, variety and better in quality, compared to Moscow.

The place I am in has name of “Радости (Joys)” and it’s almost empty. There is some student sitting at a table next to me, reading something on his laptop and some people in the other part of the cafe I can’t see, only hear their voices. I order large coffee and some food. The picture shows how they serve coffee. Nice! The coffee tastes real good.

I finish my meal — egg scramble with two tiny toasts, butter and pickled salmon, (510 Rubles $7,85), pay and go outside.

Again, I use the app to call taxi. The app says, taxi will arrive in 5 minutes. I wait and wait. After 15 minutes I text the driver asking if he is coming at all. No reply, but the car on the screen, indicating his location, starts to move. After another five or ten minutes of wait the car arrives. It is dirty inside and smells shit. Maybe it’s the driver smells this way I do not know. Car driver makes kind of, sort of apologies, saying this is his first day working with this app.

In Russia customer service and politeness rarely go together, although things are improving.

I can see the driver struggles with app buttons and can’t figure how to make the app work. The ride takes about 15 minutes and costs 160 Rubles ($2.5).

Here I am at a second point on my list of places to visit. This place is special in its own way. Although St.Petersburg is located on the shores of Baltic sea, you absolutely can not view an open sea from almost anywhere within St.Petersburg city limits. All the open water you see in St.Petersburg is Neva river and a bunch of smaller rivers and channels. All the sea shoreline is taken completely by factories, shipyards, docks, wharfs and commercial sea port. I asked locals many times if there was a place to see Finnish gulf, and the only way seemed to be was to drive outside city.

However just recently, one of the factories, cable factory, located on the northern tip of Vasilyevsky Island abandoned its premises. The ownership of the factory site went to private hands and now being turned into a place of arts. Currently the process of rebuilding former factory into a public place is still undergoing. What they managed to do so far is wooden deck and a lawn with upright structures also made of wood. Those are for sunbathing.

The factory building inside is now empty as they removed all the equipment. It’s just an open space now, waiting for events to be held. Factory floor is used by skaters and there are some skate jumps for them to use. Two food trucks with coffee and some simple snacks represent food infrastructure.

I go to the deck and take some pictures. It is real windy here, the wind knocks me off my feet. The weather changers abruptly, it was sunny a minute ago and now it rains heavily and rain quickly turns into hail. Rain and hail stop as quick as they begin. From the deck you can see open Baltic, shipyards on the opposite side of the bay and a ring-road bridge. The ferry on below picture takes passengers and cars from St.Petersburg to Helsinki, Finland daily on an overnight sail.

I stand in the wind for about half an hour, taking pictures and enjoying the place and beautiful scenery.

This is something Moscow does not have — open space and no people around. Everywhere you go in Moscow you are in a crowd and feel crammed in between tall (for the most part ugly) soviet buildings.

Having view of the horizon and open sea is a pure bliss and I enjoy it, standing in the wind. This probably is the only place in St.Petersburg with unobstructed view on the Baltic sea.

Time to leave. I order another taxi using the same app and it arrives shortly. The driver is grim and not very polite. I can see clearly he is local. In Russia people call St.Petersburg “the cultural capital”. I do not know what is so cultural about St.Petersburg aside from old architecture if it can be called culture? I have also heard that locals are more polite compared to people from Moscow. Nonsense.

St.Petersburg people can be the same impolite, grim, sometimes rude and obnoxious as moscovites.

This is a Russian thing that has deep cultural roots. What is different in St.Petersburg people compared to moscovites, they are slower. Differences end there.

The taxi is riding me to the third point of visit. I take some pictures through the car window. The scenery is usual for St.Petersburg: rivers, channels, old buildings side by side, cathedral domes.

The ride was short and I paid 250 Rubles ($3.85)

The third point of my visit is an island, located in the middle of man-made channel in St.Petersburg historical center. The name of the place is “New Holland” (Russian — “Novaya Gollandiya”) and it was built in 1829.

The island used to be a military site throughout all of its history. Few years ago the island was given to private hands and turned into a place of arts and events. I visited New Holland two times before and each visit it was under extensive rebuild. The island has some historical buildings formerly used as prison, workshops and warehouses. Rebuild is not over yet, but most areas of the island are open to the public.

The lawn! They have done a real good job on the lawn. I have never seen such a good lawn in Russia before. The whole island area is polished and spotless. Every detail is very well though through. I went to the toilet and it was shining clean, not smelling shit like most public toilets in Russia, nice tiles and decor, working hand driers, hot water in the tap.

One of the buildings is occupied by cafes and various types of eateries. I go a place called in a Western manner “Dickman’s Deli”. Small self-service bar type of place, two small rooms with seven tables or so. Young guy who came before me buys a beer. “You have the passport on you, don’t you?”, the bartender asks. Few years ago they started to enforce legal age law, so this question is not unusual. The guy shows his driver’s license and gets his beer. I get APA beer and pastrami sandwich. The sandwich was good, not perfect though, pastrami from “Voronezh“ in Moscow is better (but pricier). I paid 640 Rubles for beer and a sandwich (about $10). The place is very cosy with red brick walls, minimalistic decor, bar style tall tables and chairs.

I leave New Holland and go for a stroll in central St.Petersburg. The city is large. I walk almost aimlessly, heading towards train station through streets of the old Saint Petersburg.

Despite revolutions, World War II bombings and decades of soviet history, the city managed to retain most of its historical architecture.

Because of its architecture, rivers and channels, walking in downtown St.Petersburg has its specific charm. The buildings are all grey-ish however, show lots of deterioration. The city can feel very depressing especially in fall and winter, when it’s dark and whole place is devoid of almost any color.

My walk takes about two hours and finally I reach a small craft beer place called “13th TAP”, located in the basement of an old building. I have read many good references on the internet about it. References did not lie, he place is cosy, not pricey and beer is good. I am the only customer.

Russia had an explosion of craft beer production in the past ten years or so. Consequently, most larger cities now have a huge number of craft beer places. They all vary in style and types of beer they serve. I like what this place serves because all the beer they have is not that strong, as most local craft beer is.

I rest for about half an hour, drinking beer and having some sausages for a snack. We chat with the bartender, a young, friendly and smiley guy. He knows beer and he loves to talk about it.

Younger generation of Russians is more friendly, less reserved and suspicious. Not being brainwashed by destructive soviet propaganda, they are more open to the world around them, more easy going.

I finish my beer, walk to the train station, go through the security. The train already open for boarding. On the other track double decker sleeper train bound to Moscow pulls in.

Again, the train attendant checks my ID and lets me in. Return trip is same four hours and at 0:40 I am in Moscow. The subway still works, so I take subway. It takes almost an hour to get to my place.

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