Barry Pollack’s “Going Places”

St. Petersburg, Russia

St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great who made it

Russia’s capital city. I certainly think the title of king or czar is impressive

enough but there’s something extra special about being given that tag, “the

Great.” It certainly speaks better of a monarch’s legacy than, say, Czar

Ivan’s tag, “the Terrible.” Now, I am not a scholar of Russian history but,

having visited St. Petersburg, and ignoring any other accomplishments Peter

may have been renowned for, he certainly deserves the appellation “Great”

for creating a city with such character, culture, and beauty.

St. Petersburg evokes the grandeur of Paris with its 18th century

palaces and the charm of Venice with its canals. For 70 years under soviet

rule, the city floundered. Dismissed as a czarist capital, it was ignored and

ignobled by being renamed Leningrad. But for its 300th anniversary in 2003,

the city has been revitalized and refurbished to much of its former glory.

We arrived in the city aboard the Moscow-St. Petersburg express

train – a five hour trip from Moscow station. Our first class compartment

cost $60. It was comfortable and well appointed with a television, a table

set with snacks, bottled water, and hot water for tea and coffee. We shared

our space with a couple and two single women. One, Elvira, gave us a verbal

tour of her city enroute and on arriving graciously helped us negotiate for a

taxi before leaving on the metro to her own home.

We felt somewhat self-conscious pulling up in front of the elegant

Grand Hotel Europe (GHE) in our dented taxi, parking next to a Maserati.
But we soon shuffled off the embarrassment and got used to the GHE’s

delightful decadence.

The Grand Hotel Europe (tele +7 812 329 6000, e-mail

dos@ghe.spb.ru) is one of the most luxurious and expensive hotels in the

city. Its rates run from a bargain $240/night for a standard room in winter

to $350/night during the more temperate seasons - plus a 25% Russian

Federation Tax. The Grand Hotel Europe is a place that indeed lives up to its

name. Built in 1875, it was Russia’s first five-star hotel. It once hosted

Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky, and during my stay hosted Mariah Carey. It

was renovated in 1991, and while its Baroque facade is old and historic, inside

it is elegantly modern.

Our room was spacious, comfortable, and exquisitely decorated with

polished woods and a modern marbled bathroom. But you don’t want to spend

much time in your room at the GHE. You can breakfast in L’Europe

Restaurant surrounded by warm wood décor and art nouveau stained glass

while being serenaded by a world class harpist. Dinner was accompanied by a

violin-mandolin duo and a singer at their more intimate Caviar Bar. There, we

enjoyed chicken Kiev and beef Stroganoff – and a specialty sampling of

several Russian Vodkas and caviar. Each was poured separately with a little

gustatory commentary. St. Petersburg Russian Standard Vodka was without

a doubt the best. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to find it in local

liquor stores. After a tour of the town one evening, we headed back to the

GHE hoping to have coffee and dessert in the hotel’s cozy lounge and to

perhaps hobnob with Mariah. She wasn’t there. While the streets in St.

Petersburg seemed quite safe and the hotel’s security with its metal

detectors and seriously scrutinizing guards at its entrance were

professionally reassuring, we felt in greatest jeopardy that evening in the

GHE’s lounge. One of Russia’s multi-millionaire oligarchs was doing some

casual business at a table in the bar. In recent years there has been plenty

of press about Russian mafia-style shootings of politicians and nouveau riche

oligarchs. This gentleman had one-arm and evoked the same tensions I

imagine Richard Kimball had in seeking his one-armed nemesis in the Fugitive.

As my wife and I entered the bar wearing our long and warm black coats

from an evening on the town, the one armed man’s seven body guard’s all

looked suspiciously our way, loosening their black leather jackets, and, I

imagined, undoing the safeties on their Uzi’s, just in case we were assassins

on the prowl. I think that’s what I liked most about the glamour of the

Grand Hotel Europe. I was in Russia, the old “evil empire.” The ambiance and

clientele of the GHE seemed to let imagination run free.

The GHE is also well located in the heart of St. Petersburg. It’s right

on Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s premier boulevard for strolling and shopping

and within walking distance of most of the city’s famous sites – the

Hermitage, the Russian Museum, the Church on Spilled Blood, Kazan

Cathedral, and St. Isaacs.

The Hermitage was the czar’s official Winter Palace until the 1917

Revolution. Today it is one of the most famous museums in the world. It’s

worth spending an entire day there. When you enter the massive Baroque

palace, you climb a grand marble staircase passing opulent state rooms with

frescoed ceilings, gilded wall carvings, unique marble vases, chandeliers, and

furniture - and of course three stories of great art. Start on the third

floor with the Impressionists and work your way down to Rembrandt,

Rubens, and Breughel on the first. The museum’s English audio guide is
limited but most of the art has English captioned descriptions as well as

Russian. Admission is 360 rubles ($12), the audio guide 250 rubles. The art

and ambiance of the Hermitage are superb but I give low scores to the

museum’s restaurant and bathrooms.

Just across a small park next to the GHE is the Russian Museum

which houses one of the world’s greatest collections of Russian art – from

12th century Russian icons to modern abstract works by Chagall and

Kandinsky. There are wonderful portraits, landscapes, and giant canvases

portraying grand themes by great artists whom I never heard of before –

150 years of masterpieces probably under-appreciated and overlooked

because of East-West animus.

Perhaps the most famous picture postcard image of St. Petersburg is

the Church on Spilled Blood. Built on the site where Czar Alexander II was

assassinated in 1881, the ornate multi-onion-domed church has an intricate

collection of design features. It is mesmerizingly beautiful and seems to

change as the light of day changes. I couldn’t help going back several times

to gaze at it. Catty-corner from the Church on Spilled Blood is an open air

market selling everything that tourists consider worth buying in Russia

except Vodka and caviar. There are the traditional enameled dolls within

dolls, soviet memorabilia from posters to medals to uniforms, and the work

of some excellent local artists.

At several junctions where the canals cross Nevsky Prospekt or other

well-trafficked areas, vendors hawk canal boat tours that give you a unique

view of the city. Cruising the canals, the city’s 18th and 19th architecture

appears almost uniformly three stories and, except for the most famous

palaces, mansions, and landmarks, was decidedly run down. Despite the
anniversary rebuilding, a lot of work is left to be done. English tours can be

booked through your hotel in advance, but the hour long tour we took on a

sudden impulse was in Russian only. Nevertheless, we could easily interpret

the name dropping - Gorky lived here, Pushkin there, Tchaikovsky here,

Rachmoninov there.

There are several grand cathedrals in St. Petersburg. St. Isaac’s is

the third largest cathedral in the world. It is no longer a place of worship.

The Soviets turned it into a museum of atheism and today it’s an art

museum. If you can stand the challenge of walking up nearly 300 steps, you

can enjoy panoramic views of the city from the colonnade encircling the base

of the church’s great dome.

Kazan Cathedral, built in 1811, was modeled after Bernini’s St. Peter’s

in Rome with a colonnade of Corinthian columns extending in an arc from its

domed central cathedral. It is a smaller and blackened version of the

Vatican’s great church – darkened perhaps by the fires of war and the

pollution of a bustling city.

Kazan is on Nevsky Prospekt and there’s an internet café just across

the street. I found that with a nine hour time zone difference from

California, it was difficult to find the perfect time to call home. Calls to the

U.S. from hotels in Russia can cost as much as $8/minute. So, it was always

easier and far cheaper to leave e-mail messages. But even phone calls at

internet cafes were very reasonable.

I saw a ballet in Moscow at the famous Bolshoi. I didn’t attend one in

St. Petersburg. But their city ballet company is no less famous. The

Mariinskiy Theatre is the home of the Kirov ballet company. Pavlova,

Nijinsky, Nureyev all performed there.

 Most of St. Petersburg great sights are on the south bank of the

Neva River – hotels, palaces, commercial centers. On the north bank lies the

Peter and Paul Fortress on its own island. It was there in 1703 that Peter

began building his capital. Peter and Paul Cathedral is in the center of the

fortress. The church is the burial place of the Romanoff czars – from Peter

the Great to Nicholas II, the last czar, murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1917.

Satiated with great churches, we took a taxi one morning to St.

Petersburg’s Choral Synagogue. The Arabesque style temple is the second

largest synagogue in Europe and one of the most architecturally dramatic.

While there are several thousand Jewish families living in St. Petersburg,

only about 100 are involved in synagogue life. After seventy years of soviet

rule, most Russians, Jews and Christians alike, remain secular. We were

directed to enter the synagogue from the side by a security guard and were

met by an English speaking administrator who enthusiastically offered us a

personal tour. In the arched entry, he demonstrated the temple’s whispering

wall. Facing into a corner of the wall, two people standing at distant opposite

ends of the entry hall can whisper into the wall and hear the person on the

other side clearly whispering back – a modest way for Orthodox Jewish

young romantic couples to interact.

From the synagogue, we walked to Yusupov Palace. This great yellow

mansion is most famous as the place where the Russian “holy man” and mystic

Rasputin was lured to a party and murdered. The 250 ruble entry price also

includes a marvelous audio guide that takes you on a self-guided tour from

room to room with informative commentary interspersed with snippets of

baroque music. Despite the fact that this was the home of a prince rather

than a czar, the interiors were remarkable. There is the grand Italian
marble staircase with the derigueur immense crystal chandelier. There are

red rooms, blue rooms, Asian rooms, and an impressive Moroccan room. But

most remarkable was the palace’s intimate 200-seat gilded private theatre

with two tiers of balcony seating.

While there is plenty to see in the city, any visit to St. Petersburg

would be incomplete without visiting at least one of the great imperial

palaces on its outskirts – Tsarskoe Selo, Pavlovsk, or Peterhof.

We toured Peterhof. After a 40 minute bus ride from St. Petersburg,

our guide brought us to the gates of Peterhof. Built by Peter the Great as

his Summer Palace, he intended Peterhof to rival Versailles. Besides the

usual opulence of marble and bronze, frescoes and oils in the imperial suites,

Peterhof’s grandeur lies in its gardens, great fountains, and statuary. Peter

the Great had a sense of humor. He put several trick or odd fountains

around the grounds - fountains that spring to life when you step on a

particular stepping stone, fountains made of trees, fountains in a gazebo.

But most impressive is a cascade of fountains and water jets and dozens of

gilded bronze statues that descend from the palace to the seawall on the

Gulf of Finland. From there, we boarded a ferry for the return trip back to

the city which ends, seemingly coming full circle, at a dock at the foot of the

Hermitage, the czar’s Winter Palace.

It was fall when we visited St. Petersburg. And though I saw a lot of

the great city, I was not satiated. Like Paris, which I have visited several

times, St. Petersburg deserves another visit.

Perhaps when I return I’ll do those things I missed doing on my first

tour. I could go ice fishing on the Gulf of Finland, ride in a traditional

Russian troika like Dr. Zhivago, get serenaded by balalaikas, dance with
Cossacks, and drink tea from a Russian samovar. Or, maybe I’ll just pretend

to be a 21st century czar, dining, strolling, and admiring all the great

attractions this great city has to offer.