March 20, 2001 (Day 13)

March 20, 2001 (Day 13): Train 35PP, Helsinki to St. Petersburg, Russia – 7am

Despite the early hour, we are awake and on our way. The sun was rising as we pulled out of the station bathing the icy Helsinki with touches of pink. Our carriage to St. Petersburg is a faded pastel car with teal seats and lavender pillows. Outside, clouds seem to have frozen and fallen from the sky. Our train dashes through birch and pine forests rising from a blanket of snow. Against this white and black canvas, the brick red barns and mustard-yellow homes are a remarkable contrast.

Health: OK. Morale: good.

Most of my concerns about the border crossing and Russian customs forms diminished thanks to our helpful train staff. The form contains questions asking if you are carrying any drugs or information media. I asked the conductor about aspirin, is that a drug we have to declare? “No,” he replied, “just answer ‘No’ to the question.” OK, just one more question: ‘information media,’ does that mean… “No,” he said with finality, “just answer ‘No’ to all of the questions. You don’t want to say ‘yes’ to any of them. Trust me.”

Noted.

Anna met a woman at the hostel this morning who rode the tram with us to the station. She is from Oregon and has been in Finland studying since October. It was encouraging to hear she has been to St. Petersburg and said it is great; very easy to get around. We are equipped with city maps, but maps only tell part of the story. On a map, all the sidewalks are level and all the streets are free of motor traffic. The real world is not always so easy.

9am

Border crossing procedures are underway. Our final stop in Finland was at about 8.40 at Kouvola. Finnish immigration came through to stamp passports. Following them were ladies with a currency exchange cart. I handed them our Finnish money and they supplied rubles without batting an eye. When I gave them a $100 bill, they examined it with a magnifying glass, held it up to the light, did everything but irradiate or bite it. Then they gave me more rubles.

We are racing across the intervening distance to the Russian border. The restaurant car is closed and the toilets are locked until we pass Vyborg. We are advised to keep our passports with us when we move about. With the restaurants and toilets locked, there is no real place to go.

10.30am Helsinki time / 11.30am St. Petersburg time – Vyborg, Russia

Another day, another time zone.

The train just started moving again. Finnish customs completed their sweep of the cars and disembarked at Vainikkala, last stop in Finland. The train then crept cautiously over the border. There were a few stray towers on the Finnish side, overlooking derelict houses that had the misfortune of being built too close to what was to become an international border. Here and there, a border guard patrolled on skis. A small gully or stream with matching fences on each bank evidenced the border. Passing through a gap in the four-foot high wire barriers found us in Russia. The train stopped and the Russian immigration team boarded. Passport Control entered the car and went person to person collecting all the passports and visas and disappeared with them. Then Customs entered with an inspector at each end of the car and began matching people with their baggage. The officer in front of us was very thorough and found a number of food items – meat products by the look of them – in the luggage of the Russian couple to our left. The couple then had to complete another customs form. I read in the Economist that one of the outbreaks of hoof and mouth (in the 1970s, I think) was traced to frozen lamb brought in from Argentina. It is no surprise how carefully they are checking considering how resilient this disease seems to be.

We weren’t of particular interest to the inspection team. The officers gave us a look, gestured at our bags above, and seemed content with an acknowledging nod. We were spared the expected inconvenience of having to open our luggage, something I feel we will be doing quite a bit on this trip.

My attempt to be helpful to the officer re-distributing the passports did not speed up the process. Gesturing to the only blue-colored documents in his hand seemed to make him more intent on trying to match us up with every other document in the pile. When he paired us with our papers he cocked his head and shrugged with a smile as if to indicate that he now understood what I had meant. Note to self: don’t be helpful.

St. Petersburg

The ride into St. Petersburg revealed a number of dwellings that appeared to remain standing only in the absence of a strong wind. Sorrier still was the indication that they were inhabited. These buildings were salted in with simple concrete structures, frequently mustard-hued, with missing windows and bald stripes of peeled paint.

The uninspiring Finlandsky train station where we arrived has seen better days. This was the same train station where Lenin arrived when he came to St. Petersburg from Finland. A statue in front of the station marks these occasions. Unlike Lenin, we were not disguised as Lutheran pastors to avoid detection – at least I wasn’t. I need to check if Anna was. The second time, Lenin arrived in the disguise of a railway fireman. I doubt we would pass as that either.

The frosty air is flavored with the aroma of exhaust. Pavement is cracked and uneven – a bane to wheeled luggage. Two blocks from the station, en route to our hotel, a tram was broken down in a crater in the road, halting traffic in three directions. Bangkok rules in place when crossing streets – attentive behavior and nimble movements prevented us from becoming the hood ornament on a taxi.

Our hotel, the aptly-named St. Petersburg, is fine. We have a wonderful view over the Neva River including the cruiser Aurora. Our room is accented with wood the color of tarmac and wallpaper shaded progressively beige. The building is undergoing a major renovation. Suffice to say we are not benefiting from the new improvements. The upgraded wing reeks of new carpeting; the doors have new electronic key locks. The hotel was constructed using the Early Colossal motif with huge stairways, foyers, restaurants. With relatively few guests in such a massive expanse makes the place feel empty.

We fought the urge to remain cooped up in the warmth of our hotel and ventured out into the city. Our journey took us through a park where the eternal flame for the heroes of the Revolution was being used as a bonfire for vagrants to keep warm between shots of alcohol. Then past the Church of the Resurrection to our first view of the Hermitage. Our friend, Jessie, who lived and worked in St. Petersburg, identified the entrance we should approach to get the most dramatic view, at least the first time. She was right. While a stunning site, it did not detract from the wintry chill that has followed us from Helsinki. Fortunately, Jessie also had recommended a nearby place to eat so we got out of the weather to fortify ourselves.

Fed and slightly warmer – there was a draft in the restaurant so Anna was not able to fully defrost – we made our way to the Moskovsky train station to get our tickets to Moscow. The station was at the other end of Nevsky Prospekt from where we were. The initial plan was to take the bus or tram but, at 5.30pm, a lot of other people had the same idea – all of the transports that passed were so full the doors barely closed. So we walked. About two miles. In the cold. My beloved wife was not particularly happy with me by the time we arrived.

As Fogg says, “The unforeseen does not exist.” Anticipating difficulty due to communication issues, I photocopied a page from an out-of-print Rick Steves travel guide which dealt with obtaining rail tickets in Russia. We used this page like a menu to ‘order’ our tickets. It worked remarkably well – or so it seems so far. I guess the proof will be when it comes time to board the train. There are a couple overnight trains between St. Petersburg and Moscow. We were not able to get tickets on the nicer of the trains, the Red Arrow, but we will have a private cabin. I suppose we will find out first-hand if the rumors of the sleeping gas bandits are true.

Leaving the station, I treated Anna to a posh, warm restaurant for dinner – Pizza Hut, continuing a long-running joke in our travels. Afterwards, we took the metro back to the hotel. St. Petersburg has some of the deepest metro lines in the world. Also, in my opinion, some of the fastest escalators to eject passengers towards the exit. Anna timed our ascent at over 2.5 minutes. An enterprising young man on the stair next to us took the opportunity to shine his shoes.

Excerpts from Anna’s journal included.

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