Aboard the Sapsan: From Moscow to St Petersburg - St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
Where I stayed
The Official State Hermitage Hotel
After a latish night, we appreciated the opportunity to have a relaxed breakfast and do nothing more than just pack our clothes for our early afternoon train journey to St Petersburg. We had loved our stay in Moscow. It was quite different from what we had expected; superficially more relaxed and much more urban and low rise than we had anticipated. And it was much more beautiful than we had imagined; not just the gorgeous sites in Red Square but all of what we saw on our brief glimpse of this unexpectedly seductive city. To top it all off and as mentioned many times so far, the people we met and who helped us were fabulous.
We were catching the Sapsan Fast Train to St Petersburg, a journey that we thought would be interesting and perhaps an adventure in itself; and a fine way to see some of the countryside outside of the two cities.
Our quiet morning also gave us some time to contemplate our precarious situation of not having visas for Armenia, our first destination after leaving Russia in three day's time.
It had been impossible for us to obtain our Armenian visas from Australia. We do not have an Armenian Embassy and we could not obtain our visas on-line because the Armenian Official website was permanently "down" with no suggestion of when it would be up and running again. Furthermore, our Australian telecommunications server seemed to dislike anything Armenian and we had considerable difficulty even sending emails to the country.
Armenia itself was not the problem. The government was relaxed about issuing visas to Australian citizens upon entry to the country. It was the Russian Aeroflot authorities who had sent us a snarly email telling us we would not be allowed to board our flight without having stamped visas in our passports. "No visa, no board" snapped the airline's unfriendly last minute email. Thank goodness Alan had the foresight (although by this late stage our time was running out) to contact Aeroflot despite assurances from our travel agents in Armenia and Georgia that it should all be fine. And they were quite correct in one sense - it should have been right. However....we have been caught out before and are very wary of anything to do with visas or lack of. And over our years of travel we had developed an exquisite sixth sense about "Things That Can Go Badly Wrong When You Travel".
It was our travel operators who ended up saving the day for us. Nino Vasadze, our agent from Concord Travel, Tbilisi, Georgia who had co-ordinated all our travels through the Caucasus, had urgently contacted her Armenian counterpart Meline from Silk Road Armenia. They were all surprised about the Aeroflot response but fortunately Meline was able to confirm that there was an Armenian Consulate in St Petersburg where we could obtain our visas prior to our departure to Yerevan two days later. It was open for just one hour at 3.00 pm for visa issue - but only Thursdays and Fridays. And by some miracle our schedule in St Petersburg meant that we would be there on those particular days.
It was however, a very small window of opportunity and it was still nerve wracking. The consequences of not having our Armenian visas were dire. We would be totally stranded in St Petersburg without Armenian or Russian visas (note: our Russian visas expired the very day after we were due to depart. Despite our requests, Russian Consulate in Australia would not issue us with visas for more than the seven days we were in the country - and even then it took so long that we only received our stamped passports by mail the week before we flew out of Australia. Goodness knows what would happen if you were sick or missed a connection - or more to the point as we were to later find out - if your departing flight was cancelled).
We had heard that Russian government authorities detain anyone without a valid visa. OMG - the gulags were in sight!
Our concern was the bleeding obvious "How do we find the St Petersburg Armenian Consulate?" It was within walking distance from our hotel but our navigational experience the day before did not give us much optimism. Again, our travel guide came to our assistance. Svetlana simply told us to ask St Pete's Private Tours if they could assist us. And they most certainly did help us out, with manager Anna Linnikova allowing our guide Nadya to extend her tour with us and personally escort us to the Consulate. And as it happened, thank goodness she did.
We caught a taxi from our hotel with no problems at all to the Leningradsky Station, Moscow. It makes it a lot easier when you know that the station is named after the destination.
After our ordeal with the stern and overly officious staff on our arrival at Sheremetyevo Airport, we were pleasantly surprised that the rail staff was efficient and the security on the trains was relatively relaxed. Furthermore, the signage at the railway was in both Russian and English making it very straightforward as to where to locate our platform and train carriage position. We had booked seats in the Business Car (Car No. 2) and were looking forward to a comfortable and interesting four hour journey through the 800 kilometers of countryside to St Petersburg. When we boarded our train, it all looked very plush.
The train left on the dot of 1.30 pm and very quickly we were speeding out of Moscow and on to the fringes of the city. I was surprised when we flew in to Moscow just how much forest surrounded the city - and indeed as part of the original city planning, it is surrounded by an extensive timbered area, known as the Green Belt. Some light industrial sites were apparent but mostly it was intercepted by large thickets of dense forest. Prunus and peach trees flowered profusely, interspersed with birch, elders, beech and conifers.
Within an hour of our journey, our lunch was served. Alan opted for a beer to accompany our meal while I thought vodka with tomato juice would be more appropriate. To my surprise, the vodka came as two small but very adequately sized bottles. Poor Alan was allowed only one beer. It goes to show you should drink what the locals do - and I noticed that most of the passengers around us had opted for vodka. Our three course meals were very good and like the serving of the vodka, very substantial.
As we zoomed through the countryside from Moscow at speeds over 200 kilometers per hour, the landscape was mostly rural, dotted with small isolated villages and occasional logging settlements. The doll house farm dwellings were mainly constructed from wood, and all were capped with very steeply pitched roofs, obviously for voiding heavy snowfalls. From what we could see from the train, it all looked like small scale fruit and vegetable farming with very few livestock.
Further north toward St Petersburg spring was a lot later in coming. The countryside, although very green, still looked cold. Deciduous trees had only just started to bud and only a few trees had begun to flower. From what we could see, individual farm plots looked no more than a few acres and most contained plastic greenhouses. Monotonous silver birch forests clad the mostly flat, and generally nondescript landscape until we reached St Petersburg.
To our surprise we found the seats on the Sapsan to be particularly hard and after fours hours travel, we were quite uncomfortable. We were not able to find any seat adjustment and so, like the rest of the passengers in our carriage, sat bolt upright for the duration of our trip. The journey was pleasant enough - but perhaps not quite as interesting or comfortable as we had expected. Despite our mild disappointment however, we still consider it is a better option to flying. The less than four hours train journey would more than compensate for the time and inconvenience spent in Moscow traffic and the hours waiting around at the airport.
Arriving at St Petersburg as foreign tourists, we were dead targets for touting taxi drivers. A large, friendly young man who spoke excellent English zoomed in on us and to our surprise readily agreed on a reasonable price for our fare to our hotel. Alan had undertaken a lot of homework on transport and taxi charges, and for all our destinations we were well equipped with typed documents containing a variety of translated phrases. To date, it had paid off and was certainly worth all the effort. I cannot imagine how we once fared in the remotest parts of the world before the days of Google Translate! Fortunately, on this occasion we did not need any translation and our pleasant and reliable taxi man took us to our hotel in no time.
For our three night stay in St Petersburg, we had decided to treat ourselves to what we had read was one of the best, if not the best, hotels in the city - The Official State Hermitage Museum Hotel.
Contrary to our first assumption however, the hotel is not part of the famous Hermitage Museum. It does however have a regular free shuttle service and is conveniently located near the St Petersburg Metro - and it is only some 3 kilometers from the city centre.
The five star Official State Hermitage Museum Hotel is truly magnificent and every bit as opulent and splendid as the photographs we had seen on its website before our booking.
The website states: "The main goal of the concept was to create a link between the Hotel and the Museum, providing Guests with an opportunity not only to see the magnificence of the residence of Russian Emperors and Tsars but also plunge into this magical ambiance and live through it.....".
It was true, it certainly was like living in a palace. The hotel was superbly appointed, our room was beautifully furnished and very comfortable, and throughout our stay, we found the staff friendly and their service exceptional.
And better still, there was a 24 hour supermarket (24 Yaca) right across the road!