Stockholm: Officially Winter

I woke up one day to see this view from my window.



Snow!
It's officially winter! I didn't expect it to be so early cos my Swede friends were telling me how in recent years, it always snow in December. Oh well, the blanket of snow covering Stockholm certainly brightens this otherwise gloomy and dark landscape(cos the sun sets at 3pm)

That signals the death of any possible use of my bicycle anymore. Well, so be it. It has outlasted its value. I bought it for 990SEK and used it for a few months. Considering that the 1 month's SL transport card costs 600SEK, getting the bicycle was definitely worth it. Not to mention the fact I can sell the still-new bicycle second-hand. Haha..



Christmas tree at KTH



When the snow comes, I felt a subtle difference in the mood of the people around me. Before that, the early sunset seemed to make the students & prof a bit glum & depressed. But with the arrival of the snow, everyone seemed to cheer up.

:)

Russia: St Petersburg (Russian folk dance)

After 2 days in Moscow, we went back to St Petersburg.



Artilleries outside the Artillery museum



The golden spire dome of St Paul's cathedral is the symbol of St Petersburg. St Peter and St Paul fortress was originally a military fortress and later became a prison for political dissidents eg son of Peter the Great and Trotsky.



At night we went to Menshikov's Palace to catch the Russian folk dance. It was totally awesome! It is a combination of a folk show, aerobic dance, circus and gymnastics!

I've uploaded some clips:
Instrumental
Dance
Twirl
Acrobatics



After the folk dance, the 3 Taiwanese and I went to a Chinese Restaurant. Amazingly, it was actually cheaper to eat there than at other eating outlets in Russia. We were all surprised cos we expected it to be much more expensive. Damn, should have eaten there for all the meals. The Taiwanese ordered food like mad and lamented how much they missed the food in Taiwan. Yeah, nothing beats a 清淡 bowl of soup dumplings and noodles in the cold winter of Russia.

Russia Conclusion:
St Petersburg has nicer architectures, a richer history while Moscow has shorter history and less places to visit. However, St Petersburg seems a lot less happening than the capital Moscow. Quote: "St Petersburg struggles to be a ghost capital that seems frozen in time". Compared to St Petersburg, Moscow is more metropolitan but that means it is less different from other European cities.

Moreover, St Petersburg buildings cannot be higher than the Hermitage(Winter Palace) which is abt 20m. It was only recently they lifted the height limit. As such, St Petersburg has no skyscrapers and its skyline is rather horizontal.

One thing I missed was the KGB Museum in Moscow which we would have needed to pre-arrange tours. This is interesting: "notable KGB operations"

It was hard to go around w/o understanding or speaking Russian. Most do not speak English nor understand it. And all the food is labelled in Cyrillic alphabets rather than English alphabets

Polluted air, like india, except the air is filled with industrial chemical smell!

Eating out in Russia is not cheap, contrary to my inital expectation. According to the St Petersburg Times papers, which I read when I was there, the explosion of oil exports out of Russia led to inflation of prices and some critics compared the sudden wealth to the Dutch disease

Russia: Moscow (Kremlin, Red Square)

Next morning we went for the Kremlin Tour

Kermlin="castle". It is the official residence & workplace of President Putin. Kremlin is the oldest part of the city and the heart of Russia. On these ancient grounds, Tsars were crowned and buried. The Kremlin was also the HQ of Soviet Union and currently, the highest administration of Russia is located there.



Russian soldiers going thru the Alexander Gate



Tomb of unknown soldier where an eternl flame burns in memory of the tremendous loss of lives of Russian soldiers in the Great Patriotic War(WW2)



Main Entrance to the Kremlin



The ever watchful police would blow whistles if U enter into forbidden zone. After all, President Putin works here. Behind the police is the Senate Building.



Cute little girl in front of Massive Tsar Cannon



The World's largest church bell



Cathedral of the Annunciation, the home church of the tsars



After the Kremlin tour, we went to join the queue to Lenin Mausoleum where Lenin has lain since his death. (strictly no cameras). But the queue was too long and the place which is only opened from 10am to 1pm closed b4 we could get in. Sigh...

Anyway, kilometre '0' lies below Lenin Mausoleum. (Kilometre '0' is the spot from which all distance from Moscow is measured)



I guessed this is like their wishing well. The people stand in the centre, wished for sth and threw coins behind them. Well, the 2 old woman at the back would quickly scoop the coins up and put into their pockets

Well the night view of Red Square is an absolute must-see in Moscow, so here they are.



Some people were snowball-fighting on the Red Square



GUM dept store



St Basil's Cathedral

Russia: Moscow (Ukraina Hotel, Metro)

We finally reached Moscow 2-3hours behind the scheduled time. Apparently we were stuck in a huge traffic jam thruout the night. There is this large convoy of container trucks sharing the roads with us and they were all moving slowly. Being late means we couldn't follow the schedule to stop at the McDonald's along the way for breakfast. So we were all hungry and tired from the overnight drive when we started the guided sightseeing tour of the city.



St Basil's Cathedral built by Ivan the terrible



Red Square

Yes, it's not red. But it is called Red Square cos the Russian word for beautiful can also mean red. The fence and the ever watchful Russian police stop anyone from walking onto the forbidden zone on the Red Square. People are only allowed to step onto the Red Square after a certain time.

The red building in the pic is the Historical museum which showcases Russian history



GUM dept store. The locals refer to it as the "exhibition of prices", joking that no one could actually buy anything on display



Lake outside Novodevichy Monastery where Tchaikovsky reportedly got his inspiration for "swan lake". Notice that some ducks are swimming in the lake while others are walking on the frozen parts.



Newly-weds dancing on Sparrow hill, one of the highest points in Moscow. There were quite a number of newly-weds taking pics here and most of them celebrated the occasion by dancing(russian folk dance style).



Russian wooden dolls. Got myself one that has 10 layers.



After the city sightseeing tour ended, we checked into the Ukraina Hotel (above) which is an awesome 5-star hotel.



Awesome view from my window



The White House containing the Russian govt



Moscow's metro stations are the "underground palaces". The magnificent halls are adorned with sculptures, mosaics, paintings and stained glass panels. But I felt this oppressive and tensed atmosphere bearing down on me. Look at the above pic. There may be many people but imagine that it's totally quiet except footsteps and the loud screeching of trains. No voices, no laughters. Just everyone minding their own business. And everyone looks coldly expressionless.

Anyway one word of caution: Going up the escalator from the train station means that u have exited the train station. When we reached this train station, we wanted to find out exactly what station this was(there were little signs around), so we went up this long escalator to see whether there was a name anywhere... The top of the escalator led out of the station so we had no choice but to pay again to get back into the train station.



Completely quiet in the train except the rumbling of the train & the screeching of brakes.



Cathedral of the Christ the Saviour. Behind it is a huge statue of Alexander II.

This Cathedral has quite an interesting history. Nicholas I originally built a cathedral here for Russian's victory over Napoleon. Stalin demolished it to erect a "Palace of the Soviets" which was to be the tallest building in the world. But the ground was too soft, so the project was abandoned and changed to an outdoor swimming pool. But the vapour from the heated water damaged the paintings in a nearby building so this cathedral was built back up again.



Old Arbat street

This pedestrain-walking Road was where we had a rather cheap(finally!) meal at Marche-style Mu-Mu

Russia: St Petersburg (Catherine's Palace)

Snowing!



We took the coaches to Catherine's Palace a short distance off St Petersburg. By the time we reached there, it was snowing quite heavily and we all needed to trudge gingerly thru the thick snow to get to the Palace from the buses.



Catherine's Palace and her splendour? Though it turned out to be as grand as I expected it to be for the Tsar of Russia

After the Catherine's Palace we had more free time to explore the rest of St Petersburg ourselves. Hsien & I immediately went to Yusupov Palace, the mansion of Yusupov family who conspred to kill Rasputin. In case u do not know, Rasputin, the mystic "Mad Monk" who wielded huge influence over the imperial family, was damn hard to be killed. He ate cyanide-laced pastries but didn't die. So the conspirators shot him in the liver. He fell to the floor, seemingly dead. So they carried him to the nearby Neva river to dispose of his body but he suddenly woke up again. So they shot him in the lung and his head and threw him into the ice water. Yet when the body was recovered, there was evidence that Rasputin struggled in the ice cold water.



Conned by the display board outside Yusupov Palace

So here we were in the Yusupov Palace, after being told by our sightseeing tour guide that this was the only place to find out more abt Rasputin. We finished touring the entire Palace b4 discoving that the exhibition abt Rasputin was only available some other day. Arrghh, 300roubles for nothing.



Rimsky-Korsakov who composed Flight of the Bumblebee

We then spent another 12-h overnight drive on the bus to Moscow



Anyway, I must point out that in Russia, almost all the vehicles are damn dirty. Must be due to the disgusting vehicles exhaust and polluted industrial air. At the end of the trip, our buses also turn out to be as diry as the van above in the pic. What abt my lungs?

Russia: St Petersburg (Main sights)

View from our hotel window next morning. Notice the many factory chimneys doing their bit for environmental pollution.

After a marvellous buffet breakfast at the hotel, we departed for the city sightseeing tour.

St Petersburg
-formerly known as Petrograd or Leningrad
-founded by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703 as a "window to Europe"
-capital of Russia till 1918
-in WW2, surrounded & beseiged by Germans for 21 mths, 800k out of 3m pp died
-now 2nd largest city in Russia
-city of 300 bridges
-"Venice of the North"



The Bronze Horseman, a monument to Tsar Peter the Great, the founder of St Petersburg. The statue represents Peter 'showing' the way for Russia, while his horse steps on a snake, which represents his enemies and his harsh reforms

I bought the Russian hat(SHAPKA-USHANKA) from a (illegal?) street peddler. Its ear flaps certainly helps to protect your head from the freezing cold. And it's quite a common headwear in Russia, not just a tourist must-get item or a thing of the past.



Resurrection cathedral, probably one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Russia, was built on the place where Tsar Alexander II was assainated by terrorists. It resembles the St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.



St Issac's Cathedral
Mercury was used to gild its golden dome and the toxic mercury vapours killed some workers.



View from top of St Issac Cathedral
I must comment that at most road junctions, there is no separate traffic signal for pedestrains. One just have to wait for the Green light for the cars when attempting to cross. Attempting to jaywalk most streets will be suicide cos the cars speed down the slippery roads.

And I didn't see a single motorcycle thruout my stay in Russia



A monument to Nicholas I, which is the only equestrian staute in the world with merely 2 support pts(the rear feet of the horse)



The Palace Square is dominated by the unique Alexander granite Column, which is the largest Granite monolith in the world. Apparently the Column is so nicely set that no attachment to the base is needed, ie balanced and supported by its own weight



Hsien(from Taiwan) and Cecilia(from Hongkong)
Behind us is the Hermitage(in the former Winter Palace), 2nd largest art gallery in the world. We were told that if we spent 1/2 min looking at each item, we would take 9 yrs to finish the whole museum. The best part is it's free for students



Nevsky Prospekt, their 'Orchard Road'



Kazan Cathedral, modelled on St Peter's in Rome

Russia: St Petersburg (Arrival)

Finally, going to Russia! I had been looking forward to this since coming to Sweden & after Texiang told me abt his bagpacking adventure in Russia. So here I was, on this Russia road trip organized by a Finnish travel agency. There were 120 particpants in all, mostly exchange students studying in various parts of Sweden.

It cost 60€ for me to get a Russia visa. Yes, everyone needs to get a visa to just enter the country. The visa prices vary noticeably with nationalities. And you can easily gauge the relationship b/w Russia and that country according to the visa prices eg Visa for Americans cost 75€ but only 10€ for Polish

We took Viking Line overnight to Turku, Finland and from there we took a 14-hours drive to St Petersburg.



It was a drowsy, long bus ride whereby all of us drifted hazily in & out of sleep. Fortunately, there were a number of stops along the way. At one of the stops, 2 strangers got up the bus offering to trade Russian roubles for euros with the exchange rates written on his palm.



At another, parked vans opened up to sell liquor and cigarettes. Apparently, these were all illegal but who cares, especially when they offer very decent rates.

At first sight, Russia doesn't seem that much different from other European countries. There were big ads displayed, including Coca-cola. But all the words were Russian Cyrillic alphabets eg. laterally inverted N and R. Upon arrival in St Petersburg, one thing that hits u immediately upon getting off the bus is how foul the air smell. It's not a problem pertaining to only St Petersburg but to all major Russian cities. Thick smoke from heavy industries, exhausts from automobiles and blatant disregard for the environment has made the air so foul-smelling that the air pollution is "ten times the accepted safety levels".



After dumping our luggage at Hotel Sovetskaya, we(Josef, Cecilia, Hsien, Rashid and I) then explored St Petersburg on foot. A mixture of rain and light snow fell from the sky. Josef our Swedish bus group leader commented that the buildings look really nice. I replied that they probably looked nicer at night than in the day cos it seems that the Russians sure know how to use lighting effect to enhance the appearance of the facade of the buildings.



Around 2am, We managed to catch the raising of bridge across the Neva river(main river in city). At the last moments there were still cars trying to zoom across the bridge but were turned away by the Russian police.