This is a terribly delayed post. All of a sudden life got really busy once we weren't in one city for more than a few days and our internet connections were less reliable. However, I want to make sure I keep up the blog and share our adventures with our friends and family, so here's what happened when we left the European Union and ventured east to Russia!
When my parents were visiting, we took the St. Peter’s Line ship east to the port city of St. Petersburg. We planned this trip months ago and knew that we would get to Russia while we were in Finland so anticipation was high as we took our first overnight trip outside of Finland since arriving in January.
The St. Peter’s Line ferry is huge and carries hundreds of passengers between Stockholm, Tallinn, St. Petersburg and Russia each week. There were passengers of all nationalities, but few Finns as the general sentiment from most Finns we spoke to was that they were not interested in visiting Russia and giving Russia their money. Of course this is not true of all Finns, but I was surprised at how few of my Finnish friends had been to Russia as the countries are so close together. Interestingly, if you take a ferry cruise into Russia, you can stay in the country for 72 hours without a visa. Those that wish to take the much faster train into the country (or fly) must possess a visa. As we didn’t need more than three days (and in fact only stayed for 2) we opted for the ferry route.
The boat left Helsinki at around 6pm on Friday night and we slept the night on the ferry. Of course the rooms were very small, only 9 square meters with 2 sets of bunk beds, but we did nothing more than sleep in there. After dinner we went to the Columbus Bar/Lounge to attend a children’s program. At 8:00 a young lady dressed as Elsa from Frozen hurried on to the stage and encouraged all the kids to join her on stage. The entire 30 minute show was all in Russian, but my two girls got up on that stage and faked it like they knew exactly what was going on! It was pretty incredible to see my girls so comfortable up there, following along and taking cues from the other kids (who were all Russian), and totally fitting in. I guess after 5 months in Finland they truly know the meaning of “fake it till you make it.” Elsa danced around with them, blew bubbles, played limbo and then sent the kids off stage and back to their parents, tired and ready for bed.
After a semi-decent night's sleep (once the extremely loud party right next store broke up around 11), we were ready to hit the streets of St. Petersburg to see the sites. We didn’t really have a plan but knew we should head towards the Hermitage and St. Isaac’s Square so we grabbed a map and started walking. As we headed across the river from our hotel we noticed many Russian wedding couples taking pictures. Apparently it is a Russia tradition to take pictures in many different famous sites around the city on the wedding day. It must be true since we saw couples all over the place.
Our first stop was St. Isaac’s Cathedral. We actually didn’t make it inside the church, but did pay to climb all the way up to the top to get a bird’s eye view of St. Petersburg. It was SO windy up there that we didn’t want to spend much time there. We snapped a few photos and headed back down. The church was big and the view was nice, but we weren’t too impressed with the city yet.
As we continued to walk the wind continued to pick up and dark clouds came rolling in. We knew that rain was coming and had to make a plan to get inside. We had purchased tickets to get into the Hermitage and decided to use them on Saturday. We knew the museum was big and we wouldn’t be able to see everything, but figured we would spend a few hours inside to avoid the rain so we grabbed some quick cinnamon buns from a food truck, ate a quick lunch before the rain fell, and (after a long trek to find the “internet ticket” entrance) went into the Winter Palace.
The Hermitage was simply spectacular. Obviously there is so much to see and we barely touched the surface, but it was still incredible. The museum is like two museums in one as visitors get to see some of the royal palace rooms as well as all the incredible art work adorning the walls. There is art and sculpture from ancient times through modern pieces. We first walked through some rooms full of ancient Egyptian works and Tea was fascinated by the mummified body. It was quite cool to see how well preserved the body of this person was. Legend has it that this mummy was unwrapped as part of the process of figuring out what to do with Lenin’s body. Tea couldn't believe you could still see the white teeth of the person.
As we continued through the palace there were tons of other amazing works of art. The peacock clockwork is a famous piece with many moving parts. The parts only move a few times a year now as it is so old, but to see the video of how the whole thing works together was pretty cool. Of course the girls thought it was so awesome because it was all made of gold and had many animals on it. As we continued through the museum they also through the room with horses covered in armor was very cool. The girls were spent after two hours in the museum so we all headed back to get some rest - we had a big night ahead of us.
As soon as we made plans to go to Russia back in February, we made sure to find a way to see Swan Lake. My mom and I purchased tickets for us and the girls to see the ballet at The Hermitage Theater (as it wasn’t playing that night at either of the other two famous theaters). This experience will easily be one of my favorite memories with my children. The Hermitage Theater is very small and intimate and only seats about 200 people. It is open seating so we arrived by 7:15 for the 8:00 show so we could get great seats. We were able to sit in the front row of the benches and were no more than 10 feet from the violin players in the orchestra and no more than 25 feet from the dancers on stage. The production was magnificent! We pointed out to the girls that they were the ONLY children in the entire theater and that they had to act like real grownups for the show and they did a spectacular job and really rose to the occasion. They were enraptured by the entire performance and I was amazed at how well they understood what was going on when we asked them questions during the 2 intermissions. I am hopeful that this will be one of their favorite memories from our time in Europe - it is certainly one of mine!
We had most of the day on Sunday to spend in St. Petersburg and had a few things on our list. My dad did some research online and found out that The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is often ranked the number one site to see in St. Petersburg so we figured we had to check it out. The church was built on the site where Alexander II was killed by a suicide bomber. Oh my goodness!! This church was so incredible and absolutely takes the #1 site award from our family. The outside of the church is beautiful and is much more eastern in design with its onion domes and bright colors - but that is just the beginning. Inside the entire church is covered in beautiful art depicting different stories from the Bible. As you look closer you then realize that there is not a single painting in the entire church - it is all mosaics! Hundreds of mosaics cover every inch of the walls throughout the church and they are all beautiful. If you ever find yourself in St. Petersburg you simply must go to this church.
We left the church and were prepared to do some haggling along the waterfront to buy some traditional Russian nesting dolls as souvenirs. And haggle we did! It was so much fun to bargain and make offers and counteroffers to get what we wanted. We ended up with lots of dolls to bring back and still probably didn’t get the best price...but it was fun and we got what we wanted.
It looked like rain again and I was eager to get back to the Hermitage to see the exhibit on Impressionism so we headed to a different part of the museum. Though the artwork is part of the permanent collection of the museum it was being displayed in a different building as part of a special exhibit for the time being. I love impressionist art and it was so much fun to walk through the museum and teach Tea about impressionism. I was blown away when Talia said that this art had no pictures of Jesus. We have been visiting so many churches and the day before we saw all art that was pre-impressionism so there were many religious images in the art we had been seeing. I thought it was a pretty astute comment for a five year old. Tea learned how to classify art as a still life, landscape, or portrait. She can also tell the difference between realism and impressionism. Not bad for a seven year old. I pointed out some of the major pieces of work and how I could tell they were done by certain artists - Gaughain's Tahitian women, Seurat's dots, Degas's dancers, Monet's water lilies, Picasso's cubism, Renoir's dark eyes. She's picking it up and enjoyed the impressionist art with me.
We were pretty tired by 2:00 in the afternoon and wanted to make sure we made it back to our ship on time and knew it would take a while to get through customs so we headed back. We got in a cab with a pretty crazy driver who tried to over charge us and may or may not have threatened our lives...but we safely made it to the dock and eventually got on board. The girls had another amazing night dancing around with pirates, again all in Russian, and this time for an hour and a half!
We woke up the next morning and were very happy to put our feet back on Finnish ground. While the trip was incredible in so many ways, I'm not sure that Russia is one of my top destinations. We were so used to the kindness of the Finns and the trust and honesty in society it was a little unsettling to be somewhere much less safe and gentle. It was great to share the trip with my parents but I'm pretty sure they are a little wiped out from the "adventures" and "opportunities" I seize that then involve them stepping out of their comfort zones. They were troopersand the girls are a strong draw to get them to go along with my crazy plans.
We wrapped up our trip with them a few days later and they are now safely back in the US. Our next stop...Sweden!