It’s been a busy couple of days! New Year’s Eve was a blast. I spent it dancing all night at a tiny but absolutely packed club that required a secret password to get in, which we managed to get by just asking other people walking up to the club. After finally collapsing into my bed in the hotel room around 0600h, I slept until the mid-afternoon, unfortunately missing out on an excursion that Nick went on exploring a section of Tartu that we hadn’t been to before- a section of the city still built out of wooden houses. I was glad to get the sleep however, though when I woke up I was definitely ready for food, so after showering and getting ready I went in search of an open restaurant. I found a really awesome Asian place called “Hot Pot” near campus that offered an incredibly vast menu of Indian, Chinese, Thai, and more; and then amazed the servers by ordering and then eating what was essentially two large dinners for myself and then eating all of it. I mean, I hadn’t eaten in about 24 hours (not counting alcohol consumed) and had burned who knows how many calories in the roughly six hours of dancing and four hours of walking I had done in that time. I’ve had trouble with my card being accepted in Estonia, so when it didn’t work at the restaurant I just left my phone as collateral while I wandered off to an ATM to withdraw cash to pay the bill with, which thankfully was no problem and the restaurant was also cool about it. Afterwards I returned back to the hotel in time to go out for drinks and dessert with my professor Dr. Greb, Nick, Kyle Rasmussen, and our incredible Tartu program director Margot and her awesome boyfriend. We had a lot of really fantastic conversations with them- talking with Margot about life in Estonia has been one of my absolute favorite things about this trip so far.
After a bit of bar hopping with them, we made our goodbyes to them and returned to the hotel around 0100h to pack. Nick and I efficiently did so, and at 0200h we were in the lobby, and then directly onto our bus which would take us across the border and into Russia! The bus was fairly comfortable being another luxury bus (like the one we took from Tallinn to Tartu- unlike the one we took from Oslo to Stockholm) and I got at least a couple hours of sleep on the ride.
Eventually we had to get off the bus to go through Russian border control, which the rest of the students were clearly anxious about given their uncontrolled nervous joking and laughing. Frankly, I found it quite annoying. Their jokes weren’t funny in the first place, and secondly were a really bad idea. It seems to me that many of the students fail to be aware of their surroundings; there were (obviously) many, many Russians aboard the same bus as us; and even if not all of them understand English perfectly (and I’d confidently bet that a great many of them understood English well enough) it still doesn’t take a genius to realize that these jokes were totally insensitive stereotypes about the nation that was about to graciously host us, especially given the current international tensions. It’s interesting- in the past I’ve somewhat resented the idea that Americans are seen as bad travelers because I couldn’t imagine behaving in any other manner than politely whenever I travel- even domestically. But sadly, I’ve seen for myself in a couple instances with some classmates why the stereotype of the dumb, loud, rude Americans might exist. There’s been some of that. I don’t mean to criticize my classmates too hard- mostly they’ve been great, but there have been at least a couple of them that have consistently shown their ass on this trip, and a couple more who have had some bad moments. But I shouldn’t throw stones- I’ve probably had some bad moments too but can’t see them easily due to egocentric bias.
In any case, border control was not a difficult process, or even a particularly interesting one. In fact, my description is simply: efficient but repetitive, as we had to present our passports some three or four different times. When we finally arrived to Saint Petersburg the sun was starting to come up, revealing snow both on the ground and in the air! We were definitely excited to start seeing snow in some significant amounts. We changed buses to our tour bus, where our tour guide Svetlana took us directly to have a meal at a restaurant that may have been called “The Belorussian” but I can’t remember for certain. It was interesting for its décor- all commemorating the defeat of Napoleon when he made his invasion into Russia- but frankly the food and service at that restaurant were startlingly bad. The snow was a nice first impression of St. Petersburg, but the restaurant was a particularly bad second impression.
I think we were all feeling a bit skeptical about what our stay here would be like; especially as it began to dawn on many of the students that Russia would not be anywhere near as English-language friendly as Estonia had been, and most of the students had little Russian skills and those who had been bragging that they did were now facing the reality that they had far less than they had previously advertised. Fortunately however, Saint Petersburg was determined to give us a third impression that would impress us again. We went to Erarta, which is Saint Petersburg’s museum of contemporary Russian art, and it was truly awesome! We had a fantastic tour guide, a young man who was apparently a genuine fan of the arts and knew his art history extremely well. He did an excellent job of providing context as we visited quite a few of the museum’s many different exhibits; and helping us understand how to interpret and interact with the art. Almost all of the art seemed truly thoughtful and considered compared to some other modern art galleries I’ve visited, and some of it was extremely provocative and critical of Russian culture and government (particularly the Soviet government). Out of all the exhibits that I wandered through though, I particularly loved the exhibit they had of Nikolai Chiryatev’s work- incredible light and dark contrast in realistic oil paintings of mundane St. Petersburg streets at night.
After our time in the museum concluded, we finally went to our hotel, the Hotel Dostoevsky (so named because of the author’s propensity to spend time in this neighborhood) and checked into our rooms. We were assigned new roommates, and so I’m rooming with Diego Avila, whom I didn’t know previous to the trip, but has really impressed me as a cool guy. It turned out that I got less sleep on the bus than I thought I had, and so while he and most of the others apparently went out for dinner, drinks, and a great time; I crashed in the hotel room and slept for about 10+ hours until the next morning.
I woke up feeling refreshed however, and after breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant I got my things together for the day’s events. First up was a bus tour of the city, notably including an opportunity to walk both around and inside of Saint Nicholas the Miracle Worker’s church. It’s amazing sky blue color and absolutely jaw dropping to look at, both on the outside and on the inside. I may be wrong, but I’m vaguely under the impression that the patron saint of this church is the same as the Saint Nicholas of Santa Clause lore- but I could definitely be wrong about that. In any case, being a Nicholas myself (my name is Nicholas S. Colin Campbell, for those who didn’t know my full name) I have a certain natural inclination to like this miracle worker guy, whoever he is. What I do know about him for certain is that he’s a patron saint of sailors, and St. Petersburg being a “city of two anchors” for its seaport and riverport, this church is sometimes known as “the naval church” of the city- and all religious rites involving naval affairs are conducted at this site- for example the funeral for the Russian submariners who sank a few years back.
After visiting the naval church, we visited another interesting naval site: the Aurora, an impressive gunboat commissioned by the last czar of Russia- Nicholas II- but continuing in service all the way through WWII. It’s most famous however for “firing the first shot of the Russian revolution” in the form of a blank cannon cartridge being the signal to revolutionaries in the city to attack and arrest the provisional government then seated. We had a tiny, elderly Russian woman there as our guide, who gave a truly impressive tour of the ship. She was a little girl during the siege of Leningrad (residents typically refer to the city by the title it had during the era they are making reference to) and clearly felt a great deal of pride in the ship and its crew. She spoke with such passion and patriotism for the men of the Aurora (in both its Czarist and Soviet service) that it was infectious, and it was interesting to me to realize that this might be what it’s like for foreigners who come and visit the USS Constitution or the Gettysburg battlegrounds. I also particularly enjoyed the military history and nautical history elements of the ship, as those are both particular interests of mine. I’ve found that ever since my own military service, I’ve found it much easier to understand the significance of various military and armament terminology, and to imagine myself in the shoes of the poor souls who had to swab the decks and stand long hours on post.
We then had a quick lunch in a café that was MUCH better than the lunch we had at The Belorussian. I got a cold calzone sort of thing with potatoes, cheese, and mushrooms that was pretty good, as well as a café latte- Peterburgians don’t seem to much fans of drinking water, but there’s always a wide variety of other things to drink with meals.
Finally it was on to the main event of our whole trip to Saint Petersburg: The Hermitage and Winter Palace. Words will utterly fail to describe this place. Such incredible opulence, elegance, wealth, and craftsmanship in every nook and cranny, in every direction, for two million square meters. Yes, two MILLION square meters. The architecture astounds at every turn; the walls, ceilings, floors, moldings, furniture, doors, windows, chandeliers, and everything else you can think of are mind bogglingly ornate; and then there’s the “actual art collection” which is one of the largest and most respected art collections in the entire world. Sculptures, tapestries, mosaics, frescos, paintings, jewelry, costumes, dioramas, and more- much, MUCH more! We spent several hours there, and I may have glanced at as much as 15% of the museum? If I’m lucky? The pictures that my friends and I have collectively posted to Facebook cannot be considered to represent anything more than %1 of the museum- if they can even be said to represent the art and museum at all, as it is nowhere near an exaggeration to say that pictures do not give the same impression of any of the things I’ve mentioned as seeing it in person. It’s like the Grand Canyon… I had seen pictures of it all my life, but actually seeing it with my own eyes was a totally different, and vastly more impressive experience. The same with The Hermitage.
Myself and a few others stuck around the museum until closing time, and then walked back through the surprisingly throng-filled St. Petersburg streets to the hotel. Myself, Nick, and Nicky got some Italian food next door while we decompressed the intense sightseeing of the day, while Nick and I also planned more of our logistics- mainly planning to plan certain specific details the next day, come hell or high water. Afterwards, we returned to the hotel, and I spent some time fighting with the wi-fi to catch up on social media before giving up and working on this journal. It’s now 0100h on January 4th, so I should get some sleep, but I’ll try to get this posted to the blog first. Hope all is well for all of you back at home in the States- I’m doing great out here! :-)