Russia here we come

St. Petersburg, Russia



We're finally off! Sorry for the delay in writing our news, we're trying to catch up!
We didn't exactly have a smooth start from London. After Fedoua and Ben kindly dropped us off at Gatwick, we were in the check-in line for Pulkovo Airlines. The guy in front of us told the check-in clerk that he had a gun in his luggage! That's it, we thought, we hadn't even left yet and trouble had started. Turns out he was actually joking and didn't realise how serious it was (must have been from some remote Siberian town where 911 didn't reach the news!) The police were called but we managed to check-in easily. We did see him on the plane so maybe the cops did get the joke!

St. Petersburg has suprised us with how European it is. It's only 300 years old but has many grand palaces and buildings and not as dull and stern as we would have expected from a Russian City.
We started with a walking tour of the city with a Russian guide (Olga) which was excellent to get our bearings.

We visited one of the biggest museums in the world, the Hermitage. It's very well done as it has beautiful state rooms with gold and luxury everywhere but we were more amazed by their collection of the best painters in the world with an excellent collection of Matisse, Renoir, Gauguin, Picasso, Monet and many others in such a fantastic setting. We were in heaven!

Then as you do in Russia, we headed off to the ballet. Maria's childhood dream!
We saw Giselle in the most beautiful theatre, chandeliers et al. Live orchestra and such beautiful dancing and scenery. Maria had tears of joy from the excitement.
Our last day in "Piter" (as the locals call it) was at Peterhof, the summer palace of the Tsars. A Russian version of Versailles which we found in a better state, recently painted for the 300 anniversary of the city, golden statues and amazing fountains everywhere. We'll post some photos.

For the single guys, this is the place to go. (Maria is typing this in case I get carried away!)
We have never seen so many girls in the same place so beautiful, trendy and stylish. They put any other girls in Western Europe to shame and apparently the style stays during winter when you can see furs and stilettos in the snow.
We have found that Capitalism has made a suprisingly big impression with all major brand names available and it seems ironic that after having no outside influence for 70 years of communism how Russia has turned into such a replica of many other Western European / American places in some aspects of their lifestyles.
Russia so far is not as Russian as we expected.

We're enjoying the live history lesson and there's so much more to learn about this rich historic country. We tend to write it off as a ex-communist state but there's been so much more happening before the Soviets made their mark.

We feel a little rushed however and feel sad that we haven't had enough time to really meet locals and get answers to our many questions.

Hope you are all well.

Lots of love,
Coucou, si vous avez besoin d'aide pour traduire, faites moi savoir! Gros bisous a tous!
Julian and Maria