Homeward Bound

What is it that happens to luggage on the return trip. Why is it that what you neatly packed into your suitcase on the way out will now not fit into a bag twice the size. All the boxes of biscuits, chocolate and soap we had brought with us for our various hosts were gone and the only extras we had acquired were a handful of souvenirs. But after munch huffing and puffing, squeezing and squashing we were done and ready for check out.

It was with no great sadness that we departed the Petro Palace. The hotel, allocated a four star rating, was in truth a two star. There was no in-room wi-fi, unless you paid £15 per day and water had to be purchased. (I forgot to mention that you cannot drink the tap water in Russia – too many impurities.) There are two important points in the hotel’s favour: it is located in the centre of the city and adjacent to all the main areas and buildings of interest, plus the concierge service was fantastic. The girls who manned the desk spoke fluent English and went out of their way to supply our every need. Top marks. 

It was, however, with great sadness that we left St Petersburg itself.

There is something entirely magical about St Petersburg. Peter the Great is said to have envisioned the city rising out of the mists of the marshland bordering the River Neva. And even today, given the season and the weather, St Petersburg can be wreathed in mist. You could say that every city has its complexity and its unique spirit but St Petersburg has an extraordinary presence. Everywhere you turn there is a harmony of line and an apparently effortless fusion of water and buildings. It has a turbulent history too, beginning with the loss of over a thousand lives during its construction and, of course, the blockade that stretched from September 1941 to January 1944. And somehow its history and spirit seem to flow through the waterways of the city and into the veins of the people. How could we not be sad to leave. 

Our final few hours in St Petersburg were to be spent at the Mariinsky. First, we were to watch another company class – this time one which Xander was taking – and second, a performance of Shurale, a ballet based on a Russian fairy tale and made up largely of folk dances.

Develope

Arabesque

5th position

Pas de trois

The class started out with thirty or so dancers but by the end only five were left, including Xander. I have a video I would like to share with you of two members of the corps de ballet. (I'm still getting the hang of my video camera so apologies for not being able to make a clean ending - obviously the contents of my handbag are fascinating...)

It was difficult to appreciate Shurale. We were sitting high up in the ‘gods’, which provided a wonderful view of the stage, but our minds were elsewhere – the journey home, and all the hassle and rigmarole associated with flying in these post 9-11 days. We shouldn’t have worried though, the taxi arrived promptly, and at precisely half past two we were heading away from the Mariinsky watching the figures of Xander and Dimitri disappear into little dots.

One word of advice:  if you’re flying out of St Petersburg airport: don’t leave it till the last minute. Aside from not being able to check-in on line, which is pretty standard for British Airways, the baggage security check takes place before you get into the departure hall. And once you have checked in, the queue for passport control takes forever. We must have been almost forty minutes waiting to be checked out of the country.

How quickly our ten days in Russia had gone. We had seen so much, made new friends and gained insights about the country that few people achieve in a handful of days. It was a little too soon for a post mortem, we needed to let our memories filter our experience. And that would take some days.

Until then.


PS Since I have now mastered the art of uploading video, you can see the Dance of The Little Cygnets in glorious techni-colour in the previous blog, Tsarskoye Selo.

Tsarskoye Sela

Another day; another palace...

Assembly point: the Concierge’s desk. Time: 10 am.

We were headed to Tsarskoye Selo, AKA Pushkin Palace, once home to Catherine the Great, and some fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg. This time there were just the three of us, plus our guide, Maria. And we heard Maria coming... The quick, sharp clack of steel-tipped heels on tiled floor informed us we were going to have to pay attention.

The hotel provided the people carrier – a relic from the Cold War, possibly – but although it rattled a lot and you had to sit in very specific places to feel the air conditioning it proceeded at a cracking pace along Nevsky Prospect. “See, over here on the left, apartments built in the time of Stalin, and over there on the right, buildings erected in the Kruschev era. Notice the functionality of the latter. Now, also, see here the memorial to the great Siege of Leningrad... Would you mind, please to pay attention.” Glower, glower, tch, tch.

On arrival at Pushkin Village – Pushkin did indeed have a dacha there – we joined a line of visitors. Not for long though. Maria didn’t like to wait, and gave us a master-class in queue-jumping, elbowing out of the way competing tour guides with the skill and fervour of a rugby forward. We looked straight ahead, avoiding the glares and unseemly gestures of those we were leaving behind.

In front of the palace a small group of musicians, dressed in uniform, suddenly burst into a medley from Swan Lake – dance of the cygnets followed by big swans – which proved irresistible to Gail who, handbag in hand, pas-de-cha’d her way to the end.  Here is a video of the occasion - apologies for camera work, it was my first attempt!

It was only yesterday that I wrote in purple prose about the architecture and collections in The Hermitage so I don’t want to repeat myself and bore you in the process. Obviously, the palaces have their own personalities and collections – and Tsarskoye Selo is much smaller - but there are only so many mentions you can make of corridors of tapestries, halls of chandeliers and truck-loads of precious jewels.

Tsarskoye Selo was Catherine the Great’s favourite residence – she spent the summers there – and we could see why, given that Saturday was shaping up to be one of those glorious autumn days and the palace with its hundreds of windows was sparkling like a fountain in the midday sun.

One of the main attractions of the palace is the Amber Room. This sounds exotic but when you actually get in there it’s a huge disappointment. There are no big slabs of amber but thousands and thousands of tiny pieces that go to make up the wall panels, and it all looks like plastic, a brown plastic mosaic. It is not the original Amber Room either, since this was taken away piece by piece during World War II by the marauding German army. There is a great mystery as to where the stolen amber went: some say it was taken to a castle in East Prussia, now Kalingrad, which was subsequently razed to the ground in an air raid; others that it sank without trace in the Baltic. Suffice to say what you’re seeing now is a testament to the dedication of the restorers who, over the course of many years, painstakingly recreated the room from drawings and notes made across the centuries.

We did enjoy a separate exhibition of Meissen china, which was tucked away from the main route through the palace. We couldn’t afford to buy a dinner service in the museum shop but Gail and I came away with identical bone china bowls. Memories are made of this...

Perhaps the best part of our visit to Tsarskoye Sela was the park itself. Vine-covered, crescent-shaped walkways led to ornamental pools, and great sweeping lawns took you down to the pellucid lake. (I just had to get that word in; it’s such a favourite, and only three syllables.)

 Every so often amidst the trees we’d see a bridal couple being photographed – obviously you want the grand-children to know you married in style even if you now live in mutual loathing on either side of Russia. 




Which reminds me... Last night on our way to Terrassa, we kept seeing women clasping a single flower in one hand and a guy in the other. Apparently, it is something of a tradition in Russia to give your girl flowers on Friday night – it’s a token of your ardour and commitment. Sweet, don’t you think.

The journey back passed in much the same way as the journey there: periodic blasts of cold air from the ancient a/c system and sporadic shots of information fired at us by Maria. By the time we got to the hotel we were glad to see the back of her.

On our wish list for the afternoon was a tour of St Isaac’s Cathedral for Sue, R and R for Gail and me, then the three of us would try to find the fabled Beluga – basically, an up-market souvenir shop.

There must be something about the word beluga because, big as the shop was, it kept itself hidden from view. We asked directions several times, always in our best Rush-lish, but people shook their heads. Even the girls in a souvenir shop, which turned out to be fifty paces from Beluga, claimed never to have seen it... However, our travels were not in vain. Obeying our intuition we set off in a north-westerly direction and en-route discovered an antique shop – Tertiaspb. (I mention this because it is a treasure trove, should you ever come to St Petersburg.) We found old programmes dating back to Pavlova’s day and also some of the Ballet Russe. They were too much of an investment for our depleted rouble accounts but I was able to afford three little shot ‘glasses’ – hand-painted at the turn of the century.

And there, as we stepped out of Tertiaspb, on the near corner of the square, was Beluga.

You’re ahead of me, aren’t you. Yes, it was a big disappointment. Rows of babushka dolls, fake Faberge eggs and shelf upon shelf of amber. But at least Gail had her bone china cup and saucer – purchased from the not-Beluga-souvenir shop – and I had my shot glasses.

As we wandered back to the Petro Palace in the warm afternoon sun, we realized this would be the last time we’d walk along Nevsy Prospect; tomorrow we would be returning home. And it hit us like a sledgehammer. St Petersburg had truly smiled on us and caught our hearts and our imagination.

Dinner with Xander at Ocean. 

Until tomorrow.

The Hermitage

Before I wade into our visit to the Hermitage, I realize you must be wondering about the taxi situation - such a major part of our Moscow experience. Well, taxis, or rather the cost of cab rides, is not such a big issue here. Everything is half the price of Moscow - meals in restaurants, entry into museums, and taxis. Indeed, the reason why I haven't mentioned the t-word since we've been in St Petersburg is because the rides seem so cheap. However, we were still being 'done'. And this is how we found out.

On leaving the Mariinsky and Onegin, Dimitri organized a taxi back to the hotel. He informed us it would cost 250 roubles - about £6. As we were driving home our unusually chatty driver asked us if Dimitri was an old friend or we had just run into him outside the theatre... When it came time to pay I handed over a 500 rouble note, which our charming cabby immediately pocketed. Hmmm... My hand still extended for the change, he dipped into his little baggy and produced, very reluctantly, 250 roubles. You see, he was hoping he could charge us the usual tourist rate, which is, on average, double the real cost. Even in lovely St. Petersburg.

Another little gem I meant to mention in the previous blog was Valery Gergiev. We had been talking to Dimitri about the glorious music coming from the pit during Onegin,which provoked a comment about the west's love affair with the conductor, Gergiev. Dimitri shook his head, explaining that there were many equally great, if not greater, conductors in Russia, and we had had the priviledge of hearing one of them that night - Boris Gruzin. We had actually met Mr Gruzin in one of the intervals, and he was clearly flabbergasted to find three ballet dancers who were also opera enthusiasts. Usually the twain do not meet; artistes of the ballet and opera rarely appreciate each others virtues.

Our call next morning was for 11 o'clock by the concierge's desk. There we were to meet the rest of the group going to the Hermitage.

A little word here about tour guides. From the outset Sue had been trying to persuade us to invest in a guided tour but Gail and I were resistant: seeing untidy groups of people being led around museums by a bolshy, noisy person waving a stick, was not our idea of fun. But we relented for the Hermitage, and how grateful we were. Our guide, Ria, turned out to be funny, informative, efficient and not at all noisy and bolshy.

At the concierge's desk we discovered our gang of three had morphed into a six with the addition of a pair of Israeli grandparents and their thirteen-year-old grandson. We felt a pang of sympathy for the young man who was clearly as pleased to be doing a tour of an ancient building as he would be about the prospect of a double-maths lesson. Actually, I think he'd rather be doing the maths. We only managed to garner the name Cassif, which meant we spent four hours with this charming family not knowing whether they were Mr, Mrs and Master Cassif or Cassif was the Christian name of the grandfather. (Forename would probably be more appropriate - I've become accustomed to this term through filling out so many immigration forms.) So, we were either being very rude or over polite. We'll never know.

Anyway, the Hermitage and a short history lesson.






The Hermitage, or to give it its full title, The State Hermitage Museum, is spread over five palaces set in magnificent style on the banks of the River Neva. The Old Hermitage, originally the Winter Palace, was built in 1754 and became the home of Russian Emperors, including Catherine the Great, right through to Tsar Nicholas II - the last Tsar. The Small Hermitage was built ten years ten years later in 1764, although the use of the word small has to be understood in the context of a building the size and scale of the Palace of Versailles. You start to see why revolution was inevitable. Such obscene wealth has a limited appeal to the common man.

The Hermitage is not just a fabulous collection of art and artefacts; the palaces have to be seen and awed at for themselves. Room upon room of glittering chandeliers, velvet-covered walls embroidered with silver thread, slabs of malachite, jasper and lapis-lazulite, even a peacock clock made entirely of gold whose feathers splay out when the hour is struck. (This event happens once a month now.) We took a separate tour of The Gold Room with another guide who may have been around at the time of the revolution, such was her knowledge of the period and her age. I have run out of superlatives and hyperbole, I'm afraid. You'll just have to go see it all for yourselves.

Much to our amusement and enlightenment, Cassif turned out to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Russian history, so much so that he occasionally took over the tour. "Russia is a very young country. Migrating tartars populated the land just over a thousand years ago."  Our guide, Ria, was gracious in the extreme and continually thanked him for his input but I wondered if her nails were secretly digging into her palm. (If you ever find your way to this blog, Cassif, know that we appreciated you.)

I can't leave the Hermitage without mentioning the paintings: its collections are among the greatest in the world - especially those of the Dutch and Flemish masters - and having spent some time arguing about which collection we should be sure to visit the three of us ended up seeing our personal favourites - Caravaggio for Gail, Monet for Sue and Rembrandt for me.

We spent a little over four hours in the museum and not wishing to break the pattern of the trip, Gail and I set off in the direction of the hotel while Sue and Lonely Planet headed for the sights. Crossing the road in front of the Astoria, who should we run into - no, not Jill and Norman - but Galina. She walked back to the Petro Palace with us, pressing us to come back to St Petersburg in the late spring when the white nights allow you to walk around this beautiful city as if it were four in the afternoon. "And the blossoms..."

Our evening was to be spent with Xander, and one of his favourite restaurants - Terassa. This restaurant benefits from a panoramic view of the city but it also has seriously good food. Sue and I went for aubergine parmigiani while Gail and Xander had a spicy beef stir-fry.

St Petersburg is experiencing something of an Indian Summer and we walked back to the hotel along Nevsy Prospect in balmy temperatures. It seemed as though all of the city was out enjoying summer's last hurrah. Passing an entrance to the underground rail, Gail asked Xander if it would be worth taking a peek since Moscow's metro stations are practically works of art. "Absolutely not!" he replied, "Going into the metro here is like descending into an underground missile silo...". The only minus to the city I can report at this stage. As you can probably tell, we are in love with St. Petersburg; we are in love with Dimitri and Galina and Xander.

Night-night.

Vaganova, Onegin and strange noises off

Our day started exactly as it had on Wednesday, except Gail did not wake up with a pink eye and breakfast passed without incident. Toaster still maddeningly slow though.

We took a taxi to the Vaganova Academy and arrived on the dot of 10.45. The school, which is the feed for the Mariinsky Ballet Company, is almost completely renovated and, with its off-white walls, marble floors, alabaster balusters and coffee-coloured drapes, has an creamy calm about it. In the foyer we met up with Jill and Norman again who were full of the Sleeping Beauty performance they had seen the night before. The ballet took four hours from start to finish ,which surprised us. We couldn't figure out how they got another hour out of a set Tchaikovsky piece...

We were due to see the graduating class - the girls who would be finishing school next July, and hopefully entering the company. The Mariinsky takes on average twenty-two dancers each year but not every year produces a great crop of dancers - in 2009 all eleven boys in the grdauate class failed to get in.. The academy is subsidized by the government, not a single student pays fees; entry to the school is achieved purely on talent.

There was a relatively small number of students in the class, which the teacher, Madame Vassilieva, explained was due to illness. We also thought this might be a covert way of informing us that one or two of her star pupils were absent. And, much as I hate to say this, we didn't think much of the girls we saw. There were two beautiful dancers, one from Korea and another from Russia. The latter was small, however, so she will have to reach the standard of a soloist to be taken into the company. There is a current vogue for tall dancers.

Warming up.

The dancer on the far right was our pick for the future.






Class over, we said our good-byes to Jill and Norman, having exchanged promises to keep in touch. We then went our separate ways. The three of us meandered towards Nevsky Prospect and decided the Singer building with its top floor cafe might fit the bill for lunch.

St Petersburg has some lovely buildings constructed in the Art Deco period, of which the Singer is one. It now houses a large bookshop, on the lines of Barnes and Noble and Waterstones. We chose a table by the window, which turned out to be a huge mistake since the afternoon sun was streaming in turning us to toast. Not too long into our ham-and-cheese who should enter the cafe but Jill and Norman. I tell you, it's serendipity on sticks!

Since we were out on the town that night we decided a pit-stop at the hotel was called for, and the now familiar routine of smalls-washing, showers and, for me, playing catchup on my work.

Not wanting to risk another risotto failure at Teatro, we decided to try the hotel pektopah (that's Russian for restaurant, by the way, only I've probably got the spelling wrong). It turned out to be a wise choice, although we did have some fun deciphering the dishes on the menu. How would you feel about mush potatoes with your Stroganov or some caulyflower with your pike patties, and to finish a blackcurrent sambuk with wiped cream. Lurvly...

We arrived back at the Mariinsky just before curtain up at 7 pm. The performance we were about to watch was Eugene Onegin. I had seen the opera on several occasions and was smitten with Robert Carston's production at the Met in New York, which had Renee Flemming (Tatiana) and Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Onegin) in the lead roles. I was hoping it might be the same production but it was instead a very traditional one. Lovely though. The seats in the auditorium are actual chairs, so you can move them around, should you have a blot on your landscape in the row in front of you. (That's always happening to me, or is this small people's paranoia?) But this is the only benefit because they are kind of uncomfortable during a long act.

I have to say there is something very special about hearing Tchaikovsky played by Russian musicians in the city in which he lived and composed, and in the theatre in which Sleeping Beauty, Onegin and the rest would have been premiered. The playing was simply sublime.

Emerging from the stalls, we ran into Dimitri who was waiting to take us back stage. Several flights of stone steps later we were back in the company canteen - three Earl Grey teas, one with cold milk, please - and met his equally warm and generous wife, Galina. When the bell went for the next act, the three of us shot up, and were smartly waved back down again. "In the Mariinsky, there is no hurry..." The interval lasted almost fifty minutes. Now we understood why Beauty had taken four hours.

This laid-back attitude to intervals is symptomatic of the difference between Moscow and St Petersburg. In Moscow, everything is big, pressurized, fast and impersonal; in St Petersburg, people take time to smell the roses. Or is that the vodka...

Onegin was magical. Tatiana ( Viktoria Yastrebova) was just how you imagine her, limpid of eye, slim and dark - basically, exquisite with a voice to match; Onegin ( Vladimir Moroz) was picture-perfect too - he could have my hand in the Cotillon any time. If I do have a niggle it is about Yastrebova's performance. It was interpretation by numbers: on beat 4, take six steps to the chair; on beat 6, pick up handkerchief; beat 7, look depressed, dab cheeks with hanky.

Act 2 contained a surprise. As Onegin and Lensky prepared to duel it out a shot was heard in the wings. Now, we might all have thought it was part of the plot except Onegin and Lensky did a double-take, with the result that the audience began to titter.

During the second interval - yet another fifty minutes - we went backstage again, and this time we were allowed in the wings to watch the ballroom scene being set up. As you can see, we have some lovely photographs to remember it all by.

When we got back to the hotel we had a little too much adrenalin flowing through our systems to sleep so a nightcap seemed in order. The cocktail menu was very adventurous. We decided to pass on the Tequila Sunraze and the Blood Mary and ordered three Chilean Cab Sav's. Maybe we should have tried the Tequila Sunraze...

Night-night.