The plan had included a visit to St Petersburg ever since Karen found out it wasn’t easy…..
But all up the coast from Denmark through Sweden and Estonia to Helsinki, various sailors we met shared their stories of all the ways it could all go horribly wrong.
So we wimped out and bought train tickets for the Allegro Express, and set out from Helsinki, for three days as tourists.
Vladimir Ivankiv had been our liaison, helping us get visas and arranging for us to clear customs on the boat into Kronstadt, just outside the city. Now he very kindly arranged a lovely new apartment for our stay, in an old building right in the centre.
Vladimir is a bit of a legend to all sailors visiting Russia, and seems to devote his time to easing the path through bureaucracy, sorting out disasters, and offering tour guide advice and services too. He is a real gentlemen.
While we were there he was helping a boat that had run out of time, visas and crew, and had made two aborted attempts to leave in bad weather, even being turned back by the Russian Coast Guard. We were glad we took the train!
It is impossible to describe St Petersburg adequately. It is a city where every building seems beautiful and full of history.
Of course the Hermitage lived up to its reputation for both extravagance and a fabulous art collection.
Vladimir found us tickets for La Bohème at the Mariinsky Theatre on our last night, which was a real treat.
Our favourite place was the General Staff Building in the Hermitage area, which had just opened a major renovation to house a collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art which had belonged to two collectors and their families – Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, both textile industrialists.
They collected all the great impressionist artists’ works at a time when they were considered outrageous – perhaps like Charles Saatchi collected Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst among other ‘Young British Artists’ when they were cheap to buy!
So here there are whole rooms of collections for Picasso, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Matisse, Gauguin, Sisley and many many others to rival those in London, Paris, or Chicago. And they were all the property of two men.
Until the revolution in 1917, when they became the property of the people, and later under Stalin, were locked away. Schukin fled to Paris, Morozov stayed as a curator of his works in what was once his mansion for a time, but then he too left for the West.
We came back on our final morning to see them all again!
And did we mention that it rained? Thankfully we had packed our full sailing foulies, and stayed reasonably dry, most of the time.
I didn’t just like this blog. I loved it! And want to go back. Though Mum and I did have a few days on a much bigger ship (but only 100 passengers) and we could walk to the city from where we were centrally moored (well, I could!) Good decision about the train. And the weather you had ensured that you didn’t try out any of the canal boats where we came a cropper… museums and art galleries galore ..so glad you made the most of it all. and soon you will have company again..looking forward to next blog too. Rxx
St Petersburg is such a lovely city and you seem to have got the most out of it. I really envy you the stay in what sounds like a wonderful apartment.