Operation Baltica

Phase I: Russia

Day 4: Sankt Petersburg

We got off the train late in the morning, a train definitely nicer and newer than KZ trains, and were welcomed with light snow. The weather in Moscow had been annoyingly rainy, and we were glad to have snow instead. We bought Story's ticket back to Moscow and and set off to find our hostel. Two metro stops and three blocks later, we found the Sabrina hostel, tucked away in a run-down courtyard four blocks from the Neva River. Right off the bat, St. Pete felt different than Moscow - smaller, friendlier, cozier, with a stronger sense of historical character and personality and not just a metropolis.

The hostel is great and we're the only ones here. We paid the hostel to register our visas, paying 15 bucks to avoid the hassle of finding the Migration Police and standing in lines. Instead, we set out to buy pelmeni - and lots of it. We made a feast of friend and boiled pelmeni covered with "spicy Brazilian" ketchup and then took a well-earned nap.

We got up an hour later feeling a bit more refreshed and hit the streets to find the Neva River. Story, with his love for Russian literature, especially Dostoevsky's novels which are all set in St. Pete, was super excited to see the places mentioned in the books. We came upon the St. Isaac Cathedral - huge, gray, granite with huge, gold domes. Behind the cathedral sits the Decemberists plaza and the river itself. In his first of several times, Story insisted on touching the famous waterway. Later we would both dunk our heads in the icy current, but that's later...

I really wanted to teach Bryan to give toasts both in Russian language and in the Russian style, so we bought a small bottle on our way home and made a meal of suhariki (croutons) and some food we found in the fridge. I taught him all there is to know and we drank the first bottle and had to run out to get another. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing one of my favorite Russian/Kazakh traditions with one of my best friends from home. We went to bed early, but not before sharing toasts, stories and laughs and planning our first full day in Sankt Petersburg.