{"id":5006,"date":"2016-09-07T10:44:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-07T17:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendlylocalguides.com\/blog\/?p=5006"},"modified":"2019-08-26T08:18:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T15:18:27","slug":"saint-petersburg-through-the-eyes-of-a-muscovite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendlylocalguides.com\/blog\/saint-petersburg-through-the-eyes-of-a-muscovite","title":{"rendered":"Saint Petersburg Through the Eyes of a Muscovite"},"content":{"rendered":"

They say Moscow and Saint Petersburg<\/a> are like divorced parents: of course you live with strict and dominant mother Moscow, but it\u2019s when you go to St Petersburg that you really feel like home. Our Moscow guide<\/a> Anya travels to St Petersburg and shares with us her impressions of\u00a0 Saint Petersburg Through the Eyes of a Muscovite.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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St Petersburg. Photo credit: Sergey Bogomyako<\/p><\/div>\n

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Typical St Petersburg<\/h2>\n

St Petersburg greeted us with cold and rainy weather.\u00a0 Once we dropped the bags in the apartment, we went for a stroll along Nevsky prospect \u2013 from Vosstaniya Square to the Admiralty, so that we would see all the main attractions during our first day in the city. \u00a0Every time I go to Saint Petersburg (or Leningrad, which is the Soviet name of the city still used by some elderly people; or simply Peter, as most Russians lovingly call it) I can\u2019t help admiring it: European architecture, clouds hanging low above the rooftops, glittering asphalt, reflecting the city after the rain. It seems that I\u2019m unable to fully accept and understand the simple fact that I\u2019m still in Russia \u2013 unless I see signs in Russian or somebody opens the mouth and I hear them speaking Russian.<\/p>\n

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Colorful St Petersburg<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sightseeing in St Petersburg<\/h2>\n

But dreams aside, we didn\u2019t expect the weather to be so cold and as a result got frozen quite quickly. To refuge we popped in the first caf\u00e9 on our way, which was a nice place called Stolle, which specializes on all kinds of pies. The quality of food, the interior, the prices \u2013 everything was excellent there. At that moment, drinking hot tea, staring at the window and finally getting warm I thought that was the most delicious tea I had ever had.<\/p>\n

Back on Nevsky Prospect we found out the rain had stopped so we continued our St Petersburg sightseeing<\/a>. The Anichkov Bridge, Kazan Cathedral, The Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood, Saint Isaac Cathedral, the Winter Palace, the Admiralty and finally, what I wanted to see most of all\u00a0 – the Neva River. I prefer dropping a coin into the water on the very first day, to make sure I do it at all.<\/p>\n

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Neva River<\/p><\/div>\n

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Trolleybus<\/h2>\n

On my way back home I took a trolley bus. In St Petersburg you can either use a fare card or pay the fare once you get on a bus\/trolley\/tramway, and I did the latter and was given the so-called \u201clucky ticket\u201d. The idea behind lucky tickets is quite simple: if you summarize the numbers of the ticket in groups of 3 and in the end you get 2 equal numbers \u2013 your ticket is lucky and you should keep it like a four-leaved clover.<\/p>\n

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Lucky ticket in trolleybus<\/p><\/div>\n

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Imperial St Petersburg<\/h2>\n

There are many reasons why St Petersburg is a unique city<\/a>. St Pete\u00a0is considered to be the cultural capital of Russia and there are a lot of things that prove this. To start with, it was the imperial city. After Peter the Great had transferred the capital to Saint Petersburg in 1712, all the tsars lived there for most part of the year. The Winter palace, which is now housing the Hermitage museum, was the residence of Russian monarchs from 1732 to 1917. After the revolution in February, 1917, Nicholas II abdicated and the royal Russian family was sent to Ekaterinburg, where all the members of the family were shot in July 1918. It was only in 1993 when the remains of the Romanovs were solemnly buried in Peter and Paul\u2019s cathedral.<\/p>\n

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Nicholas II, he last Tsar in Russia<\/p><\/div>\n

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Peter and Paul Cathedral, St Petersburg<\/p><\/div>\n

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St Isaac\u2019s Cathedral<\/h2>\n

Another thing to prove the cultural status of the city were the working hours of some places: a book store is open 24 hours while a grocery shop opens only at 11am. So If you\u2019re staying in an apartment, you\u2019d better think about breakfast in advance. Among cultural wonders the thing I liked best was St Isaac\u2019s Cathedral, named after the patron saint of Peter the Great, St Isaac of Dalmatia. During Soviet era the cathedral was closed down and the antireligious museum was opened there.\u00a0 During the siege of Leningrad museum exhibits were kept there and the dome of the cathedral was painted so that Nazi air forces couldn\u2019t find it. There is also an observation deck, the so-called colonnade of St Isaac, which offers a breathtaking panorama of the city.<\/p>\n

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St Isaac Cathedral<\/p><\/div>\n

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Modern Music in St Petersburg<\/h2>\n

Petersburg is not only considered the city of fine architecture, classical literature (Pushkin, Dostoevsky) but also the capital of modern rock music. There is something unique about bands from St Petersburg, as if they reflect rainy melancholy mood of the city. I played myself some songs while strolling along the Neva embankment and I strongly recommend listening to some songs to get the idea of what Russian modern music is like.<\/p>\n