From Russia with love....

Pick of the day: Carriage 7 WC, St. Petersburg – Moscow train 056.

This seemed a popular place on the train. Our beds being the closest to the loo we noticed that they were occupied for almost the whole 9hr journey.

Style: Western sit/basin/dog bowl combo

Atmosphere: damp

Extras: The lack of a movable seat in this one was a hindrance to those wishing to sit. For those of us comfortable with standing the motion of the train didn’t help the already damp feel of the loo and compartment. The addition of the drain in the floor is a nice touch, almost admitting that “yes you are going to miss and no, we don’t mind”.

Russia. For me personally (ben), being a bit of a coward, the thought of crossing the Former Soviet Union was/is something I have been a bit apprehensive about. With that in mind we decided to make our Russian introduction as stress free as possible with a day time bus from Tallinn, forgoing our usual overnighter.

Our first Russian encounter seems to have set a trend with the border guard’s main line of interrogation revolving around why Vi didn’t speak Russian. They didn’t even bother with me after that. Retrospectively this may have been less of a ‘how dare you disrespect my country by coming here without speaking the language’ kind of question and more of a ‘you don’t speak Russian? You are totally screwed’ kind of statement. He was right. So far we have found Russia and the Russians to resemble a small (welsh?) mining town struggling with the shackles of its glorious past while moving forward. They know they need to embrace the rest of the world and for the most part can be the most friendly people, but an undercurrent of xenophobia is evident within certain sectors of society. Not unlike home I guess, just interesting to be on the receiving end.

Arriving at the bus station we made for the metro, jumping on the escalator down to the platform. We found out late St. Petersburg’s metro is the world’s deepest, which explained the feeling of descending into a mine and why people got their books out to read once getting on the escalator.

Ok so we said that EastSeven hostel in Berlin was nice, perhaps the best we had stayed in? In St. Petersburg we stayed at Soul Kitchen Junior, which is the highest rated hostel on hostelworld.com and deservedly so. If it hadn’t been for me being kept awake by the Dutch guy with his Russian conquest in the next bed this hostel would have been the best thing about St. Petersburg. Built in an old soviet communal apartment, walking in you are greeted with what I can only describe as a hipsters New York ‘loft’. A big kitchen and the most helpful staff possible made our first Russian city stay very pleasant.

The church of the spilled blood, with a frozen canal

After a quick sit down we decided to have a wander around the city and see what there was to see. We began with Nevsky Prospect which is just about the most famous street in Russia which is lined with huge beautiful buildings that are now mostly department stores intermingled with enormous statues of Catherine the Great (Empress of Russia back in the day). We discovered early on that Russian streets are a deathtrap for all pedestrians and most motorists. You don’t dare cross unless the little man goes green (as cars generally travel at some multiple of the actual speed limit and are so massive that you wouldn’t be seen unless you were 7ft tall or spattered across the windscreen) and even then take your life in your hands as the lights will only be red for cars travelling in one direction. We had dinner in a great place called Zoom with served up delicious potato pancakes and smoked salmon which was only slightly marred by the fact that there is no smoking ban in Russia so all food is bound to taste a little of cigarette ash.

Caviar crisps. Yep, they also do crab flavor.

The next day we mooched further down Nevsky Prospect and then popped along to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood (so called because Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded there, apparently). From the outside its impressive enough with those asymmetrical brightly enamelled or gilded onion shaped domes but the inside is truly something else. The interior is completely covered in extremely intricate mosaic from floor to ceiling and then there are alters carved in the most amazing details from pink rhodonite and jasper. Its easily the most impressive thing Ben and I have seen in a fair few years- on a par with the Taj Mahal, I would say.

Inside the spilled blood church. No painting here. All mosaic baby.

Since it was pancake day we went to the supermarket to get pancake supplies. Easier said than done when you don’t know the Russian for flour or milk (thankfully eggs are fairly self-evident). We were terrified of accidentally buying sour milk and bought cat brand milk in the end which  we were seriously hoping was not actual cat milk (by this point, anything was possible). Pancakes turned out well and for lack of other meal ideas were served for breakfast and dinner for the next two days.

The next day we decided to spend the day at the Hermitage. Really the Hermitage (also known as the Tsar’s winter palace) needs more than just one day but we were short on time and did a super quick tour. It’s essentially the old imperial apartments, preserved in their original splendour and a load of other rooms which consist of a sort of museum-cum-art gallery. The imperial apartments were certainly impressive- as Ben said ‘I’m not surprised the peasants were pissed off if they saw their royal family living like this’. The winter palace makes Buckingham Palace look like some sort of quaint country cottage. Every room has intricately carved and inlaid wooden floor, every wall has gilt or silk paper, there are marble columns everywhere, multiple crystal chandeliers in every room and even the door handles are carved, gilded and inlaid with precious stones. The art collection is impressive to say the least. Not just one or two by famous artists but a couple of rooms (ie 10-15 paintings) of Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, and just about every famous artist from the last couple of centuries you are to think of.

A room in the Hermitage. The most ornate museum in the world.

One of many stair cases.

As there was a couple of upcoming birthdays (you know who you are) we decided to brave the central post office to attempt to post some presents home. Big fail. To get near a clerk you need a ticket obtained from the touch-screen machine which is entirely in Russian. Having bypassed this via a security guard we were given 6 copies of the same form and told to fill them all out identically. Having achieved hand cramp the form was actually looked at, laughed at, passed around the office and then the vodka I had attempted to post removed from the box with a firm ‘nyet’. The box was finally posted but we are yet to discover if the contents have been ‘nyet’ed without our knowledge.

On our last day in ‘Peter’ we decided to go to the Peter and Paul fortress which is across the river of ice on a sort of peninsula all of its own. It’s an outdoor excursion and was bloody freezing that day so we didn’t really spend that long having a look round, sorry to say. However as we took a little tour round the battlements we found a little outdoor swimming pool carved out of the ice and, to our horror, three middle aged men came wandering along, stripped off and went for a butt-naked swim (having used a stick to scoop the ice away from the steps first of course). Russian people are mental!

The local swimming pool. This bloke is about to get his willy out.

Looking across the frozen river with the Peter and Paul fortress on the right, Hermitage off to the left.

We took an overnight train from St Petersburg, having got the hostel to book our tickets. First task, convert our E-ticket to a paper ticket. Not being able to decipher the machines we went to the counter, where the irritable woman was once again pissed off that we didn’t speak Russian.

The train ride passed largely without incident and we arrived in Moscow in time for morning rush hour. Seeing as we were staying a short walk from Red square, in the district of Kitay Gorod, we spent the morning napping, before heading out for a wander and the collection of our other train tickets.

Britains first embassy in Moscow, c.middle ages

Moscow was a big change from the very European feeling St. Petersburg. Suddenly things felt more like the Asian cities we have been to with the driving shifting more in that direction too. What initially appear to be 10 lane roads are actually a single very wide lane where anything goes! Day 2 in Moscow and we hit Red Square, a wander round the Kremlin and St Basils Cathedral. You’ll pay a foreign tourist price for most exhibits/sights in Russia which is not something I am against in principal, but without even a translation of information inside you get decidedly less than the locals from the visit. This once again reinforced the idea that Russia doesn’t like outsiders! Red square is indeed massive and red, although the effect is spoiled slightly by the enormous ice rink set up in the middle of it. Lenin’s embalmed body is apparently normally on show there but it seems when we popped by he was being re-pickled or whatever so we lost out. St Basil’s Cathedral is actually called something entirely different in Russian but being british we somehow converted ‘Vasily’ to ‘Basil’. Its pretty cool from the outside and inside is a warren of little rooms with saintly paintings and carving all kept at a balmy -2C. Pretty interesting nevertheless. Our day in red square was topped off with a MacDonald’s from the Red Square outlet out of desperation for calories that didn’t cost the earth. This as expected of the international standard ‘restaurant’ was crap, but we loved the irony of it.

The team in red square

The walls of the Kremlin

The following day was taken up with a return to the Kremlin to see the state collection in the Armoury followed by a visit to the Pushkin collection of Russian art and European sculpture, capping off what has been a significant number of museums and galleries in the last few weeks. The armoury does contain armour but more impressively also the imperial crown jewels from times long ago and heavily decorated religious artefacts. They have bibles decorated with emeralds and rubies as big as your eyeball. They also have several thrones- one made entirely of carved ivory and another decorated with 4000 diamonds. They seem pretty blasé about the whole thing. That night was an attempt at cooking dauphinoise potatoes (given that potatoes were the cheapest and best quality vegetable we could find), which proved tricky when we were told back at the hostel at instead of milk and cream we had purchased soured milk and soured cream! Not the best meal.

St Basils/Vasily's Cathedral

In truth we were not at all enamoured with Moscow in the way that we were with St Petersburg. We had met a number of lovely, friendly people in Moscow despite a couple of fairly antisocial dorm-mates. One Belarusian who it seems had come on holiday to Russia to play games 14hrs a day on the communal computer a foot away from our bed (weird), and a Russian who decided that the best time to pop the lights on and do his ironing was midnight. Our final day in the capital was spent venturing out on the metro to a souvenir market, which was deathly quiet, thus proving winter is not tourist season! Couple of bargains achieved tho.

Vi loving mudda russia

An evening train to Nizhny Novgorod later that day brought us to the start of our 4 day stint in Russia’s third most populated city. That has been an ‘interesting’ stay and will probably get an entry all of its own…….

A dog has the right to be a dog (part 2)

Ok so no bog to log just part deux of Eastern Europe. Sorry team.

Getting the view in from the castle over Vilnius (its not a great view so instead have one of us!)

Leaving Warsaw for another overnight ‘Ryan air’ esque journey was not one we relished, however, we were pleasantly surprised by this one. The coach proved roomy and the drivers actually seemed to give a shit. Not to mention each seat had a tv set with English films and Wifi. The modern world eh!

Arriving in Vilnius we passed out for a short while before heading out for a mooch around town. The next day we headed up to the castle for some awesome views across the city, after this it was a wander to the district of Uzupio. This is an artist’s haven which has decided to declare itself a state in it’s own right, issuing passports (or stamping yours), electing a president and writing their own constitution which included: point 12. A dog has the right to be a dog and point 13. A cat is not obliged to love its owner but must help in times of need. The final sight for the day was the ex KGB HQ. We have seen a lot of museums over past couple of weeks and you would expect overtime to become desensitised to the effects of war and genocide. However the padded cells, torture cells and execution chamber were still truly terrifying! Bullet holes in the wall of the execution chamber were particularly sobering. All I can say is thank god we didn’t go to see Auschwitz as we might have actually lost the plot by now. However, it has been a revelation to see WW2 from a variety of perspectives all subtly different.

Vi doing the snow jig

The constitution of Uzupio

That night we feasted at what would be a local gastro-pub, with fantastic beer and deep fried garlic bread and ‘dairylea’ type dip. Awesome. The menu choices included roast elk or beaver stew. Ben and I chickened out and went for the relatively safe rabbit stew and meat stuffed potato cakes. However at £20 for 2 mains, starter, 2 beer and 2 glasses of wine you can’t really go wrong!

Deep fried garlic bread and cheese dip. The weight is falling off us.

The next day we decided to escape from the city and head to a picturesque little town in the countryside called Trakai. It’s clearly a spot where city dwellers come in the summer to sun themselves on the shores of the lake and have a little play in the boats you can rent out. In the winter the lake is frozen and dominated by men who have the balls to walk out across the ice, drill a hole in it, drop a line in the hole and sit there for hours, waiting to freeze to death (or catch a fish, whichever comes first).

Ben tried to run away from the cutest little dachshund dog that was barking at him (apparently it had murder in it’s eyes) and we found another castle to go round. This one had been rebuilt in redbrick (??commie influence??) but was still pretty cool to look around, especially since Trakai had once apparently been a big centre for commerce before it sank into being a swampy little backwater.

Frozen lake.

When the soviets refurb something, they do it in red brick!

Its getting chilly now...

Yet another overnight bus journey which was probably the worst yet. This was entirely down to two Estonian women two rows behind us who were extremely pissed and spent half the night chatting drunkenly at maximum volume, the other half screaming for someone to give them some water (neat vodka not doing the trick any more, it seems) and then quite a long time vomiting loudly into a bag.

We cheated the Tallinn metro system out of a few euro (no idea how to pay) and then collapsed onto the sofa at the hostel for a much needed half hour snooze- interestingly this was about 10 mins after we downed a can of red bull each to avoid this very thing.

We had less than 24 hours in Tallinn but made the most of it as much as possible since it was a Sunday and the whole place was a foot deep in snow. We had a lovely potter around the old city walls and crept down various little cobbles street and into little cobbled courtyards. The whole place has a very medieval feel about it which is compounded by the shops and restaurants taking advantage of this and having people dress up in medieval garb and offer you grog or challenge you to mint your own penny with a piece of tin and a massive sledgehammer. Nearly had a culinary mishap early on as we popped into a café for breakfast. I ordered a croissant and then a pain au chocolat and as an afterthought just checked that it was actually filled with chocolate to be told it was actually a pain-au-cabbage. My croissant was cheese filled too. Grim.

Tallins, Orthodox Church

The overcast view across Tallinns old town.

Lots of little streets in the old town.

Best part of the day was when we were taking a tour of the walls and found some kids had sorted themselves a sweet slope for sledging down so we decided to strip off the down and join them in bumsliding down and getting facefulls of snow in the process. Awesome fun! Think we ruined the kids day though as they swiftly disappeared.

Bum slide!

Ruined some Europeans/americans at table football in the evening, watched a horror film and then off to bed before the bus to St Petersberg the following morning….

A dog has the right to be a dog: Part 1

The Vomitorium

Pick of the day: Pod Wallen, Krakow

Ok so it’s not technically a toilet, but you have to give us this one! A basin with hose attached. The sign explains all you need to know.

Style: Basin

Atmosphere: Oppressive. Eat more, drink more.

Extras: Hose, Full view of urinals. Interestingly this feature was only available to gents. Sorry ladies.

So, this could be a bit of long one sorry. In a nut shell since last, Bussed overnight Berlin – Krakow (1 night), short train hop to Warsaw (2 nights), overnight bus to Vilnius (2 nights), overnight bus to Tallinn (1 night). Currently in St. Petersburg and its fantastic, but that is another post.

The bus from Berlin to Krakow was out first overnighter on the road, the best description for it would have to imagine flying long haul with Ryan Air. We ended up being kicked of the bus at 6am in a church car park in the middle of the polish countryside. After wandering around pointing at our ticket which said Warsaw we were taken under the wing of the least aggressive/most friendly lady there who shepherded us onto the right connection when it came. Turned up in Krakow exhausted and confused and having found the hostel spent some serious time dribbling into our tea on the sofa.

Arches around Krakows old market square

Krakow shopping centre, an exhibition celebrating the Polish winter FA of Gasherbrum IV

My what a big Schnitzel you have!

Krakow is the old royal capital of Poland and it shows with a beautiful walled old town complete with a castle, winding cobbled streets and carriages with pairs of horses waiting to whisk you off. We would show you but Ben had a brain fart and deleted all the photos of the city that he took with his camera, so just take our word for it. The castle had spectacularly Polish bureaucracy when it came to trying to have a look round. Turns out we turned up on a day when it happened to be free to go round the castle. But as we tried to go in we got stopped by a lady who told us we still needed tickets. Eventually found the ticket office to be told that we had found the wrong ticket office. Found the correct ticket office but no one was there. Turns out they had run out of free tickets to give out. No castle.

‘Pod’ in Polish essentially means pub (as far as we can make out) and we did manage to find an amazing one with the aforementioned vomitorium. Beer is cheaper than water and at 6zloty (£1) for a litre you can’t really go wrong. Ben ordered schnitzel and got one bigger than his own head. I ordered some dumplings which were supposed to be a starter and got a dozen banito sized cheese and potato concoctions. Oh yeah, apparently a giant gherkin and large portion of sauerkraut counts as a beer snack over there.

Lastly for Krakow- they officially have the best hot chocolate we have ever had. Just cupfuls of melted chocolate which you loosen up with fresh whipped cream and then eat with a spoon.

Quick and uneventful train ride over to Warsaw where we checked into the ‘Oki Doki’ hostel for a couple of nights. Had the creepiest room I have stayed in to date. All of the rooms are named and themed. Some people got ‘fashion’ or ‘football’ rooms. We got ‘the room of 1001 hands’. There are hundreds of handprints up the walls, ceiling, lampshade, bedspread, curtains…everywhere. Check in was particularly hilarious as the dude at the desk clearly thought Ben was Jewish and pointed out museums and places to go where Ben could investigate his ‘heritage’.

The room of 1001 hands. Creepy

Warsaw (or Varsava to pronounce it as we kept being told to) is a bit of a bizarre town to wander round. There is an old town and a new town as there is in pretty much any capital city in Eastern Europe but since the entire city was basically razed to the ground in WW2 the old town is a historical reconstruction. Also, since it was built by the soviets it is a reconstruction of what the old town was like in the 17^th and 18^th centuries (not pre war as that is too ‘decadent’ and ‘capitalist’) but with any religious iconography strategically missing (interesting choice in a country where 80% of the population are practicing Catholics). 

The Russians also ‘gifted’ the cultural palace to the city of warsaw which is an enormous grey monstrosity dominating the skyline and nicknamed by locals ‘Stalin’s penis’.

We got taken on a tour of Warsaw by a local girl who explained that a)the old town is a reconstruction populated by old people b)for some reason the other side of the river is almost entirely populated by Russians and Vietnamese c)vodka drinking rules. We were given vodka and polish bread smeared with pork lard and topped with gherkin as part of our tour.

You might randomly see us on youtube doing a bit part for an advert for Oki Doki hostel. They made us do it. Also we felt a bit guilty as we had managed to get 3 free meals out of the hostel that day (yes, we are that cheap).

The old town. Newer than the new town!

Stalins somewhat imposing member in Warsaw

On a final, if slightly more serious note, if you ever happen to be in Warsaw definitely try to go to the Warsaw uprising museum. It’s all about the ghettoization of the Jews during the war (hundreds of thousands died from Warsaw alone) and then about how in 1944, shortly before the end of the war the remaining population of Warsaw took up arms and started using guerrilla warfare tactics against the Germans which lasted about a month before they were decimated to the last man all while the Soviets watched from the edge of the city. The Allies also failed to do anything other than drop a few airdrops of food and arms, most of which ended up in German hands.

On that cheerful note we shall sign off- part 2: Lithuania and Estonia to come shortly.........

Brat Brat!

EastSeven hostel, Berlin

Pick of the day: EastSeven hostel, Berlin

There will be plenty of time for long drops and squat loos over the next few months, for now we enjoyed this one.

Style: Western Sit

Atmosphere: Relaxed. Happily read for hours. Clean enough to go bare foot!

Extras: The addition of a urinal is a nice touch. Room for two, or perhaps you want to attempt the challenge of using both at once?

So we had been thinking that it would be best not to update this too regularly with boring shit, but well… we are.

Currently in Berlin (East apparently) after a hectic few days in Brussels, Amsterdam and the train, and it has to be said, it is a relief to be here. By far the nicest city so far (hostel especially, EastSeven, recommend if you’re in the city) and one with a powerful and emotive history. It’s the 80^th anniversary of Hitler coming to power and there is plenty in the city reflecting back on this at the moment. 1933, a time of economic strife, hardening of peoples views and the rise of fringe political groups. Sound familiar?

The old Museum. A little sun makes the world of difference.

The Brandenburg gate. World's most ornate tollbooth?

Chocolate bear.

Prior to our arrival here we first hit Brussels, which in fairness is dull. Gothic architecture inhabited by waffle shop, lace shop, chocolate shop, lace shop, chocolate shop, waffle shop…. You get the gist.

Sprouts...in Brussels... Who'd have thought it!

Amsterdam on the flip side was almost the polar opposite. Hookers and weed, and plenty of boys on tour enjoying both. The hostel was a sixties throw back where a tobacco fix will see you standing in the cold, but feel free to hot box the shit out of everything else if weed is your tipple, which is fine. We are on a budget…

We are starting to feel our age and it seems we made this trip just in time as Vi is nearly too old to stay in a few of our booked hostels! But surely no one appreciates being woken up by a stoner with the munchies and the need for a chat?

It's a sign!

An overnight train finally saw us in Berlin at 4am.  

Vi at the start of the train ride. Our first nights free accommodation!

So onwards and eastwards. We are leaving the cleanest, most comfortable hostel either of us has stayed in and that’s despite some truly irritating and rude roommates, next stop Krakow, expect an update from Warsaw perhaps.