St Petersburg, but not in a nutshell

If there is one thing completely impossible, it's fitting St Petersburg into a nutshell. The city is vast, the streets are wide and royal and impressive. I don't know why I was expecting it to be quaint and cute and PEDESTRIANISED. Huge mistake.

Quaintest street we could find. Though still not pedestrianised.

Go to St Petersburg and you will walk. A lot. And travel. A lot. This was the one of the things none of the online guides mentioned. Most of the things they did mention, however, turned out to be incorrect. 

(Which was a relief, mostly. I got a bit miffed, you see, reading everywhere that St Petersburg is an unfriendly place, having booked this trip based on a romantic notion of snow covered Russian orthodox church rooftops and grand (yet pedestrianised!) streets. This was the place I had always wanted to visit, and the first holiday-without-twins for me, and I was going to be barked at by everyone?) 

 

Russian orthodox church rooftops, snow optional.

So, as a counter-intelligence exercise, I have made a list of the things travel guides tell you about St Petersburg that are not true.

1) Russians are rude

We only got yelled at once. No one swung doors in our faces at metro stations (though some doors did swing themselves back with vigour) and even the most poo-faced shop attendant managed a smile when we tried a tentative 'spaseeba'. We had a few chats with 'real Russians' and they were all nice, interested and proud of their city.

Ah yes, the one time we did get yelled at, was by a tiny old lady in a pyshechnaya (doughnut café) and since she spoke nothing but Russian, I still don't know what we did wrong. Though small, the lady was quite intimidating. We decided to stay and sit a while longer, as it clearly annoyed her in some way.

Very nice Russian who gave his dog socks against the cold.

2) The metro system is impossible to navigate

We were warned that, as all of the signs are in Cyrillic writing, we would have to count the stops religiously if we didn't want to get totally lost.

Actually, all stops, and all metro maps, have the names of the stops added in Roman writing.

(The trains are however at an incredible depth and some of the escalators are still the old wooden ones. Fire hazard if there ever was one, considering all Russians seem to be smokers.)

Do use the metro system, it is a cheap way (50 eurocent for a single journey) to cover a lot of ground in this big city.

3) You can't go to a bar or restaurant without coming out smelling like a chimney

I brought a bigger suitcase and a load of clean clothes to accommodate this piece of advice. Nearly all the clothes remained unworn. We clearly didn't go to the 'go to' places...

4) Taxi drivers have no metres and therefore will scam you

We chose not to negotiate but to accept the prices quoted to us by different taxi drivers. As a consequence, our taxi trips had hugely varying prices. One 20-minute drive in a private car in grid-locked traffic cost 1000 rubbles (14 euro) as did the 45-minute journey to the airport. A 10-minute journey through deserted night streets was only 200 rubbles (just under 3 euro).

The one time we really felt we got ripped off, was by a taxi driver who DID have a metre, which was ticking away at terrifying speed, resulting in the most expensive journey we took: 1900 rubbles (about 27 euro) for about half an hour's drive.

None of these trips broke the bank.

5) It will be REALLY cold

We went in the middle of February and although there was still some residual ice on the roads, cold it was not. The people we spoke to explained this was the third consecutive winter without much snow, and it hadn't been properly cold in a while. What with all the underground travel we did (where it is hot!) and all the buildings we went into, we didn't even need scarves.

The river Neva certainly looked cold.

Naturally it can be really cold in St Petersburg. If it is, you can always buy a furry hat there. You might even get a smile out of the grumpy salesman by whispering 'spaseeba'.

More about what to do and where to eat in following posts.