Deciphering the ЦИТУ

"City"

 I started exploring Mother Russia with an SAS Field Program: Tour of St. Petersburg. SAS offers this type of program for most cities in order to be able to orient students to the different location (via walking tour, segway, bike, or bus). In addition, SAS has numerous Field Programs in each city, which any student/faculty/staff can sign up for. I’m planning on doing probably 1 SAS Field Program in each country (on average). This one was great, as I was able to see where a lot of the major sites of the city were in relation to where the MV Explorer was docked…especially since Russians use Cyrillic script, which is nearly impossible to decipher. Here’s the alphabet:

А Б В Г Д Е Ж S Z З И I К Л М Н О П G Р С Т ᴕ Oy Φ Χ Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ө Ѵ

The tour took us along the Neva River, around the city, with our final destination being the Winter Palace and the Hermitage Museum. The Winter Palace was the official palace of the Russian Monarchs from 1732-1917 (yeah…the Romanov’s lived there…including Anastasia). The Hermitage Museum is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world and was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great. It now has taken over the Palace Embankment, six buildings, including the Winter Palace. 

 The Winter Palace/The Hermitage Museum

The museum had a ton of items, but unfortunately, being on a tour, we flew through things much faster than I typically would (though I couldn’t read any of the notes about the pieces anyways, since it was in Cyrillic). There were also a few more issues that arose:

1) Before starting the tour, one of the participants got his card stuck in the ATM. After seeing this, I decided I didn’t need Russian Rubbles too badly and would wait for another location.

2) Our tour had headsets for everyone in our group. We tuned in to channel 3 to listen to Katia (our tour guide) as she led us around The Hermitage. She was great and extremely knowledgeable; however, there were a ton of other tours happening at the same time and apparently numerous groups were on channel 3 as well. I know this because in each room of the Hermitage, my headset would be about 30% Katia and 70% other tour guides (in various languages).

3) About 1 hour into the museum, we lost a student. I noticed her lagging behind in most rooms, taking pictures, and trying to read the information (to no avail), until finally I didn’t see her. I kept retracing our steps and was just about to give up when Lauren came around the corner and caught up with the group. She actually made some good decision when she was lost, which included trying to listen on her headset to Katia’s voice, which ultimately worked and led her back to the group (as the headset would work better the closer she came to us).

After the Hermitage, we stopped at the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (place where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated) and had lunch in the park right next to it. After finishing the meal, we went and explored the Kazan Cathedral, followed by an extremely expensive gift shop. Who would have guessed that a small piece of amber jewelry would cost over €100? Our tour completed, a bunch of the staff of SAS decided to get an authentic Russian meal at The Romanov’s (can’t get much more authentic than that). We even had live music, as the restaurant had an accordion player jamming out! After my meal, potato casserole with duck, which included taking one (and only one) Russian vodka shot, we headed out to a few pubs to cap off the night.

Accordion Player at The Romanov's

Side story…one of the things about St. Petersburg we kept reiterating to the students was that at 1:30am, all the bridges in the city go up. This allows all the water traffic to travel through the Neva River. The bridges are not lowered again until 5:30am. Thus, we explained to students, if you don’t want to stay up all night (or sleep on the street), make sure to get back across the bridges by 1:30am. 

Bridge Going Up Across the Neva River

Returning to my story…at about 12:45am, our group decides it’s about time to start heading back to the ship (don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of the bridge). Along the way (after getting a little lost and back on track), a few of us stop to purchase some wine (faculty/staff are allowed to bring on two 1-liter bottles of alcohol from each port). I grabbed two bottles of red wine and waited outside the store for the others to finish their purchases. However, out of our original 10, only 6 had waited. The others didn’t want to cut it close and kept heading towards the bridge. We continued and our smaller group was still a ways away from the bridge at about 1:15am (why not make it dramatic, right?), so half of the group start running with about 1 mile to go. Myself and two others keep our normal walking pace as we still (supposedly) had plenty of time to cross the bridge. As we neared the bridge and started walking along the river, we noticed lots of people on both sides of the river just waiting for a photo opportunity when the bridges go up. We reached the bridge at 1:21am and walked around two security guards who were just about to put a barricade on the street and sidewalk. As we passed over the breaking point in the bridge, we realized we made it and would be sleeping in our beds on the ship…Roman Victor! No joke…at 1:23am…20 seconds after we crossed and a full 7 minutes early, the bridge started going up. We were legitimately the last ones over the bridge that night…but we made it! 

 Catherine, Lauren, Alison, and Megan celebrating getting over the bridge in time!

The next day was used to explore St. Petersburg without the help of an SAS Field Program. Carla, Nathan, and I started at the Temple of Assumption, a cathedral which was right next to where our ship was docked. Next we walked the river and saw the Peter the Great statue. Peter the Great earned his name in Russia, as he had many successful wars, which expanded the empire and made Russia a major European power. In addition, he led a cultural revolution, one that replaced traditionalist systems with modern, European-oriented systems. He traveled extensively across Europe and you can see the ideas he brought back (especially regarding architecture) across the entire city.

  

The Bronze Horsemen - Monument to Peter the Grea

We decided to return to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood and actually go inside. It was a beautiful interior, with mosaics covering every area of the inside of the church, depicting different scenes from the bible. We wandered over to the Peter & Paul Fortress, which was constructed under Peter the Great’s reign, and served as a garrison as well as a prison for many years. We hung around outside the Peter and Paul Cathedral and met up with Carlos (another RD) and Megan (Outreach Coordinator) before getting dinner. Nathan was on duty and Carlos and Megan headed to an evening program, so Carla and I finished our night at a quaint little café drinking tea, eating cheesecake, and trying to decipher the Cyrillic language. It appears as though being in a Greek Life organization would have helped me in Russia, as many letters in Cyrillic come from the Greek alphabet. Figuring things out was difficult…here’s some examples: “H” = “N”, И = I, Γ = G, Π = P, Ρ = R, Ж = Z, etc.

 The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

Day 3 (August 31st) took me on an SAS Field Program to the Fountains and Garden of Peterhof’s Grand Palace (1 of 5 palace get-aways). We started the program with a trip through the Palace (which I didn’t expect). Though, if you’ve ever been in any palace before, they all kind of look the same. The only major difference was that the G20 Summit was happening in St. Petersburg on September 6th and they were using the Grand Palace for much of it. We passed a number of rooms where tables and microphones had been set up and there appeared to be a number of helicopters (security?) flying around the grounds while we were there. The Fountains and Gardens of this palace are often compared with Versailles as they sit on 1500 acres. With a view of the city of St. Petersburg across the Baltic Sea, this was quite the summer home.

Peterhof's Grand Palace

Upon returning to the dock, I jumped on with a group going out to a fancy Russian restaurant. Eating out in St. Petersburg (and possibly abroad all over) is an experience. The meals last 3+ hours and no one appears to be in a rush to get anyone out. The group of 10 probably spent 13000 rubles (equivalent to $300 USD)…unfortunately, the restaurant only took cash, so we had to scramble to make sure we had enough. After going to two places for drinks, everyone decided to call it a night at about 2am (this time on the correct side of the bridge…figured that out after night one!). As it was my last night in St. Petersburg, I wanted to walk the city at night (in a safe and responsible manner of course), so I decided to walk up and down the river, hoping to get some nice pictures:

 

St. Isaac's Cathedral

Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange (Peter took this style from...the Greeks?)

 

Peter & Paul Fortress (with the Cathedral towering over everything) 

On every embarkation day, the RDs need to be back on the ship 3 hours prior to “ship time,” so I needed to be back on the ship by 1500. Thus, I spent the late morning and early afternoon walking around a section of St. Petersburg, close to the ship, I hadn’t gone before. I purchased a few souvenirs, grabbed a bite to eat at an open market, bought a few snacks for the ship, and just enjoyed the views from the Neva River. Embarkation went smoothly as all 575 students were back on the ship with 8 minutes to spare!

However, I must add the Russian people were just not friendly and seemed to be in a constant state of depression. I will say that saying “Spasibo” (thank you) and “imeyut khoroshiy den” (have a nice day) went a long way with many of them. Overall I really enjoyed my time in St. Petersburg (though Moscow would have been neat to see as well). There is so much history in this city/country and I had plenty to do to fill up my 4 days. In addition, the city felt smaller (and I’m assuming this will be how the entire voyage is) because I kept running into people (students, faculty, staff) that I knew from the ship all over the city.

With everyone aboard, the MV Explorer said “Dobry Den” (good day) to Russia and was off to Hamburg, Germany!


"Change is not always growth, but growth is often rooted in change. "