Wow, where do I start. What a day. I got up a little before Anneka and was antsy to get out. We bought a two day pass to the Hermitage so I thought I’d go back to wander through it some more then hook up with Anneka a little later in the a.m. I stopped by a little pastry shop on the way over, one that we’d noticed the night before, and got a couple of pastry’s. Next door was a little “convenience store” for lack of a better term, where I got a Coke and that was my breakfast. We broke the bank on dinner ($90) the night we arrived and on breakfast ($45) the next morning eating at the hotel since we didn’t feel like stumbling around for either until we got a little more comfortable with our surroundings. I also thought that an extra day would suddenly help us figure out Russian.
Not a chance.
I still panic a little every time its my turn to order a meal or buy a ticket and I divert my eyes away from whoever I’m dealing with to look at the print of a menu or ticket price sheet only to see letters and words that make me think, “Did someone print all this upside down and backwards?” It’s shocking how isolated you feel when you look back up into the emotionless face of some babushka ticket lady and realize one of you might as well be on the moon, that’s how far apart you are. More amazing is when you, in complete and total exasperation, still state what you need in the slowest English you can produce and they rattle off some long chain of words, likely asking you what you want or telling you where to go or whatever, and the words go right over your head to the Russian dude in line behind you who is rolling his eyes wondering why you sit there, motionless, with that deer in the headlights look on your face doing nothing. I actually can’t wait to get back to Sweden so I can “understand” what is being said.
Anyhow, I got to the museum a little early so I waited around a bit for it to open. There was a very long line and I was grateful for already having a valid ticket as it allowed me to bypass all of it and go right in. I went first to the ticket office to inquire about entrance to the “jewels” section of the museum. Come to find out
Wow, Anneka just got back from the sauna. She was gone for like two minutes. Why bother spending four minutes getting to a sauna that you can only stand to be in for two?
So, anyways, come to find out that they only let 30 people in per day to the jewels and gold section of the museum – two groups of 15. So I went ahead and purchased two tickets to the 12:10 pm entrance and hoped that Anneka would be to our predetermined meeting place sharply at noon as we’d agreed so that I could get her and we could go in. Well, she was about 20 minutes late and I can’t blame her. I can’t name a single incident in our nearly ten years of marriage where I’ve actually met her somewhere when I said I would. So, it’s really no surprise that she’d be late since in practicality, she was perfectly on time. When she arove (past tense of arrive, like unto arrived, but sounds better) we hustled inside and with a little sweet talking (done all with hand gestures since we speak no Russian, see above) they called a guide down to pick us up and take us to the rooms. We had no idea that your tickets bought you a guided tour, in English, of the rooms. Interesting thing here is how did they know to send for an English guide? Must have been that classic “I don’t speak Russian” deer in the headlights look (see above, again) I gave the babushka at the ticket counter as I slid the 12:10 entry tickets across to her at 12:30. Somehow it all worked out and we were told in the heaviest of Russian accents to “ghwait ghere”. A guide showed up a couple of minutes later and after a brief tongue lashing, in really good English, she took us on our tour.
Two things: Turkish Sultans know how to diamond encrust their gifts to their Tsar friends, and, our guides breath made garlic smell like perfume. The outside of the Hermitage is under restoration and they grind, scrape and sand on it all day. I’m sure if you just pointed this woman at it and had her regurgitate her memorized spiel over the course of the day the paint would fall off on its own… Seriously though, take everyday objects – swords, horse riding gadgets, personal hygiene stuff – and make it out of solid gold, then encrust it with diamonds and that is what this room was full of. I could live high on the hog for the rest of my life selling one chalice in there on the open market. It was truly remarkable.
After the Hermitage we hopped on a boat for a “hydrofoil” ride to the summer residence of Peter the Great – Peterhof, on the outskirts of town. We thought the hydrofoil would be really speedy and would offset its cost in time savings. Not so. It cost $12 per person per ride, there and back for a $48 total. The bus took just as long (half hour) and cost significantly less. What really made the trip crazy though was that, unbeknownst to us, you buy your ticket for the boat ride over at the dock at the Hermitage and you disembark onto this jetty just out of sight of the palace when you get there. You buy your ticket to the grounds of the palace while still on the fenced in dock.
We didn’t have enough cash for the tickets to the grounds.
There are no ATM’s on the jetty.
The booths were manned by babushkas that speak no English.
Deer in the headlights (see above, again)
We literally were stuck. Just paid fifty bucks to get to a dock that we couldn’t get off of and had no money or ability to get any money. About the only option we had was to get back on the boat we’d just got off of and go back to the Hermitage and call it a really nauseating (motion sickness from the turbulent water) one hour trip to no where.
Alas, I saved the day. Pulled out my best display of dismay to the guard on duty who lets people back onto the dock. Kept saying the word “Bancomat” which is the word for an ATM in virtually all other countries in Europe and hoped he’d get it. When he was done with his explanation to no one (I was on the moon) he called a gal over that was loitering that he must have known and she addressed us in broken English. What a godsend. We were able to successfully explain to her our dilemma, that of having bought tickets to get to the palace without actually having enough money to go get off of the dock much less into the palace. I’ve never felt like a bigger dork in my entire life. That sense of dorkiness was however mitigated by the fact that likely 99% of the others on the dock at that moment didn’t understand a word of what we, or she, was saying. In hindsight some British dude came up to me and asked what time the last boat returning to the Hermitage left at and I told him only because it was pointed out to us when we bought our tickets before we’d left. After I told him, “Five thirty” and he walked away, I realized I should have sold him the answer for the 240 Rubles we were short.
So, this gal helped us out. We’re not sure how but in essence she talked to the guard who basically let us go in the out gate, or out the in gate depending what side you were on. But we gave her what money we had, roughly enough for one of the two needed tickets, and we assume she gave that to the guard who let us pass. It was a really weird moment of silent communication. Just the flick of the head and a glance with the eyes told us it was time to make our dash off the dock. Once we got off we found out that there are cash machines on the other side of the palace but off the palace grounds and so to get some money we’d have to leave and then pay another entry fee to get back in. We thought we’d do it, just leave, get some money and come back in. Or, have one of us leave, get the money and pay to get back in. That would be equivalent, cost wise, to if we’d paid to get in in the first place. In the end we decided against it since we only had an hour and a half to see buildings, gardens and forests as sprawling as Versailles. Plus I had to pee really bad and they charged 15 Rubles to use a potty. Since we had no money we occupied a decent chunk of our time looking for a suitably private enough tree to water…
We did see the amazing cascade of water that is the highlite of the palace grounds. Kudos to the Russians since in all our years it is the only fully operable set of fountains we’ve ever seen among all the palaces that is fully functional. And they were in amazing condition. The guilding (sp?) was fresh and the figures sparkled in the off again on again sunlight. It helped that the G-8 summit was there last year and they wanted the place spruced up for all the G-8 leaders. It was stunning in every way. We can only imagine what the inside of the palace and the formal gardens on the other side of the palace looked like. We had no money and so we couldn’t pay any entrance fees to do or see anything. It wasn’t a total bust. We were grateful to have seen what we did and we left Peterhof with an appreciation for what palace fountains across Europe’s finest capitals would look like if they were restored and if they could afford to run them. We’re still wondering how they afford to run the ones we saw. Even Versailles can’t run theirs except on weekends and holidays.
It was an amazing day. St. Petersburg is a truly amazing city with so much potential for the future. The Hermitage is perhaps my favorite large scale museum with truckloads of art and artifacts. We read in a guidebook today that only 5% of it is on display. Heaven only knows what else they have in there. Perhaps E.T. or Micheal Jacksons real nose?
More tomorrow.
Chris
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