What a city! We returned from Moscow at approximately 1:00am and by the time we reached our cabin, it was nearly 2:00. After only 4 hours sleep, we were off and running in Saint Petersburg, one of the most modern cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Center of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. St. Pete is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. Many foreign consulates, international corporations, banks, and businesses have offices here.
They tell us that in June 1991, economic conditions started to deteriorate as the country tried to adapt to major changes. For the first time since the 1940s, food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. In 1995 a northern section of the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro was cut off by underground flooding, creating a major obstacle to the city development for almost ten years. Neither of us recall reading that in the news. In 2006, residential building had intensified again; real-estate prices inflated greatly, which caused many new problems for the preservation of the historical part of the city. Although the central part of the city has a UNESCO designation (there are about 8,000 architectural monuments in Petersburg), the preservation of its historical and architectural environment became controversial. After 2005, the demolition of older buildings in the historical center was permitted.
The Neva River flows through much of the center of the city. It reminded us of Venice, though in our opinion, much nicer in its own way. The area of the city proper is about 234 square miles. The area of the entire metro area which contains 9 municipal towns and 21 municipal settlements is 556 square miles. It’s the second largest city in Russia. Earlier this year, the population was estimated at 5.3 million, or 4% of the total population of Russia.
Saint Petersburg…wow! The city is a major trade gateway, serving as the financial and industrial center of Russia, with specialization in oil and gas trade, shipbuilding yards, aerospace industry, technology, including radio, electronics, software, and computers. As well…machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment; mining; instrument manufacture; ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminum alloys); chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment; publishing and printing; food and catering; wholesale and retail; textile and apparel industries; and many other businesses. You name it! I could barely keep up with our travel guide. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic).
A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva River are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making it the main link between the Baltic Sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga-Baltic Waterway. Between tours, we jumped on a hydrofoil (first time) and ‘jetted’ around the large bay and harbor – quite an experience. We have some photos, but they don’t capture the true thrill. We left the dock like a normal watercraft, felt rumblings under our fannies (don’t go there) and before we knew it, the boat was partially airborne & burning through & over the water like a missile! Yes…I’m still a little kid at heart!
They say that in 2007, Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing $200M in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. Opel, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. I think Trump missed those memos. It’s also the location of a significant brewery and distillery industry…known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). I started doing business with the latter just prior to my retirement. It also has many local distilleries which produce a broad range of vodka brands. The oldest ones are LIVIZ (founded in 1897). We also learned that the city has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
Unlike in Moscow, in St. Pete the historic architecture of the city center, mostly consisting of Baroque and neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved…although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years.
The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes a dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the Neva River. Each noon, a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress…quite loud! The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is situated on the right bank nearby. The Spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilyevsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.
On the southern left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilyevsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.
The city is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as an area with 36 historical architectural complexes and around 4000 outstanding individual monuments of architecture, history and culture. New tourist programs and sightseeing tours have been developed for those wishing to see Saint Petersburg's cultural heritage, but plan several days. You can’t do it off a cruise ship in a day or two, which is all the time we had. It’s physically impossible. To be specific and according to our guide, the city has 221 museums, 2000 libraries, more than 80 theaters, 100 concert organizations, 45 galleries and exhibition halls, 62 cinemas and around 80 other cultural establishments. Every year the city hosts around 100 festivals and various competitions of art and culture, including more than 50 international ones. We barely scratched the surface. You need a good, solid couple of weeks to do the city justice.
The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. Neither of us has interest in that type of pursuit, so we bypassed the long lines and instead, shot some photos of the exterior. For art lovers and as many passengers told us, it’s a truly amazing experience not to be missed. If we had more time, we’d probably check it out but with a limited ship schedule, you really need to spend your time wisely to satisfy personal taste.
The metro area has an extensive city-funded network of public transport including buses, trams, trolleybuses, and several hundred routes served by what is known as marshrutkas. Metro stations are elaborately decorated with materials such as marble and bronze. We found them to be much better than Moscow, though we didn’t visit them all. I could be selling Moscow short, but the one rail station we experienced there was a hell-hole. Traffic jams are common in the city due to daily commuter traffic volumes, intercity traffic, and they say it gets much worse during the winter with snow. We were driving back from the train station well past midnight and both sides of the main arteries were packed with thousands of folks pouring out of nightclubs, sitting at dozens of sidewalk cafes, listening to talented street musicians…all having a good time. You’d think it was 7pm!
We had a fabulous day and would highly recommend a visit! We were returning to our ship around 4:30pm and the Russian version of our Blue Angels put on an air show over the harbor. Although there were 7 cruise liners in port, we DON’T believe it was for our benefit, as someone told us they were just practicing for an upcoming airshow. That said, they were awesome – flying just a few hundred feet above the ships at times! Or, maybe Putin was just trying to show off his superiority in the air! Either way, hat’s off to the Russian air team – very impressive!
As we leave Russia, I can only and very sincerely say, we can all get along despite our historical past and political differences. If common, everyday folks like us can figure it out, why can’t those who are much brighter & more influential?
Or…ARE ‘THEY’ truly the bright ones…or are WE…the common folks…you and I?
We all have red blood. We all pee the same color. We all have the same human desires of belonging, of acceptance, of love, and of peace.
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