Trip Review: St. Petersburg, Russia

In my ultimate quest of traveling as much as possible in my life, I always assumed I’d visit Russia *someday*. I certainly never thought it would be this year – until I found out that my cousin, Gillian, would be spending this semester studying abroad in St. Petersburg. Since I would already be in Madrid, which is quite a bit closer to SPB than the U.S., I figured now was the time.

Travel Considerations

What I didn’t count on was the visa process. I didn’t even know I’d need a visa until I started investigating trips to Russia, and it was going to be a lot more work than I planned. Add in the fact that I was an American, applying for a Russian visa, at the Russian consulate in Spain, and everything became somewhat more complicated. But in the end – after the consulate kept my passport for two weeks and I was nervous the entire time – they returned it to me with a shiny new visa for кэтрин робинсон. I was going to Russia, and I was pumped.

Imagine my delight when, four days before my trip, I came down with the worst cold I’d had in a really long time. Damn you, foreign germs. I missed the entire week of school, and I was nowhere near recovered when it was time for me to leave for my trip. Of course, there were no direct flights between Madrid and St. Petersburg, so I had a very long day of travel – Madrid to Munich, layover, Munich to St. Petersburg. Luckily, I was flying with Lufthansa for the first time. That was a blessing after so many RyanAir flights over the past few months. I had plenty of legroom, no stress over my carry-on bags, and a full meal on each leg of the flight.

The worst part was the descent into St. Petersburg. Since I was sick, my ears couldn’t handle the pressure and it was very, very painful for a while. And upon landing, I couldn’t hear anything. I was apprehensive enough about being let into the country; when I got to the immigration agents, I had to shout, “What?” at them after each question and hope that didn’t draw their suspicion. Once I made it through, I felt pretty overwhelmed until I remembered I have a process for times like these.

Arrival in Russia

I spent my first few hours in Russia feeling like I was in a silent movie. I had to navigate a bus and the metro to get downtown, where my hostel was. So that was pretty confusing, even if I’d been able to hear properly. I was hot, I was coughing, I was tired, and I was overstimulated. I just wanted to get to the hostel and stop traveling. But as soon as I stepped out of the metro station at невский проспект and laid eyes on Kazan Cathedral and the Church on Spilled Blood, my bad mood vanished. I was in freaking Russia.

I had a 10-minute walk to my hostel along the famous Nevsky Prospekt street. Someone dressed in a zebra costume started hugging me as I walked by, and after ensuring that my wallet and phone were secure, I let it happen. I needed a hug. (I’d spend the next few days seeing these costumed characters all around town.) Soon after, I arrived at No Rain No Pain hostel, which was small but comfortable and in a great location. And it only cost about $5 a night.

I met up with Gillian for our version of Thanksgiving dinner at a cozy café called Zoom. Pretty much every establishment I visited in St. Petersburg could be described as “cozy.” Maybe this was due to the fact that it was always about 30° outside and indoors felt warm by comparison. But it could also be because almost every restaurant – from cute little coffee shops to KFC and Pizza Hut – had string lights adorning its windows, giving the illusion of a toasty oasis waiting inside.

Back at the hostel, I had a room with 8 bunk bends to myself. I’m not sure how that happened, or why, because that’s never ever happened to me before, but I sure wasn’t complaining. Being sick, I didn’t sleep too well, so having my own room was definitely a luxury.

I spent the next day visiting the Kazan Cathedral, where I watched a Russian Orthodox wedding taking place, and touring the famed Hermitage Museum. Luckily, both of these were very close to my hostel – I can’t recommend No Rain No Pain Hostel enough for that reason. Later than night, Gillian and I met up again for drinks at Warszawa, one of her favorite bars. After spending several months living abroad, we both had so much to talk about.

The next day, to my amazement, the sky was blue! From what I’d gathered, St. Petersburg is a very rainy place, so I’d felt lucky just for the fact that it wasn’t raining. But a blue sky was beyond my wildest dreams. I knew I had to take advantage of the day, so I visited the Church on Spilled Blood and took a walk to St. Isaac Cathedral. At the kiosk to buy my ticket for entry and the climb to the top, I found one single ticket waiting inside the receptacle. Ayeeee.

That evening, I took a walk to one of those light-strung coffee shops for some hot chocolate and cheesecake while I worked on a blog post. St. Petersburg has such a strong coffee culture that I regretted being sick even more than I already did; I was trying to avoid caffeine. But similar to other places in northern Europe, coffee seems to be a national pastime.

Too soon, it was time for my (long) journey back to Madrid, this time via Swissair and a layover in Zurich. The metro and bus ride back to the airport were less intimidating this time. Shortly after arriving at the airport, it began snowing. Well played, Russia.

Stray observations about St. Petersburg:

• Everyone was really friendly. Not that I expected otherwise, but with how difficult it was to obtain the visa, you might think they’d be a little less welcoming to visitors. Not the case at all.
• Related: everyone I interacted with was pretty good at English. Better than most people in Spain 😉
• Most signs, etc. were in Russian without English translations.
• There was a lot of Communist propaganda and I started seeing it immediately.
• Lots of kids I saw walking down the street were wearing full snowsuits.
• St. Petersburg was way bigger than I thought it would be. As the plane got closer to landing, I couldn’t believe the amount of space the city took up. I felt like I saw a lot but I definitely stuck to one area.
• It’s polite to take off your shoes when entering a home, as evidenced by the slippers provided at the hostel. I hadn’t experienced this outside of Asia before.
• Keep an eye out – I’ll cover some of these topics in an upcoming post.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend a trip to St. Petersburg. Being an American, I feel like we’ve been told certain things about Russia that may make it seem less desirable to visit, but I felt nothing but welcomed and excited to be there.

 

Would you ever visit Russia? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

Originally Published on December 7, 2018.