St. Petersburg or Bust

Date Night movie poster

As a child of the 80s, I just did something I never thought I would do -- I visited the former USSR.

I was brought up on Red Dawn, Yakov Smirnoff, and Rocky IV. Since then, I've been to the Berlin Wall. Life is crazy.

Asmus and I were supposed to visit St. Petersburg October 2009. We waited and waited to make arrangements and the price shot up. Instead we went to Copenhagen, which rocks.

For Christmas, Asmus' mother gave us an envelope of money to pay for the trip. Those euros paid for the flight for both of us and the hotel room.

If you read the previous post, you know that I have been busy. I was determined to learn some Tourist Russian. Asmus said he was going to but I knew he wouldn't. I got too busy and didn't either. I learned some of the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Cyrillic alphabet is interesting. Some Arabic letters look like Cyrillic characters and sound like them but then some Arabic letters look like Cyrillic characters and sound different.

a=a
k=k
m=m
o=o
t=t
e=e

b=v
p=r
c=s
h=n
y=u

But then there are all these other characters that look sorta like some things from Hebrew and others that look like things from Greek.You can probably translate the restaurant names below.





The Cold War is over but there seem to be some lingering malice from Russia toward Americans. Russia requires visas for all foreign visitors. Instead of getting a visa for a certain length of time, like 30 days, you get a visa for one specific date to another. I was in charge of visa applications for me and the German. His application was one page. The Russian Federation wanted to know his name, address and favorite color. My application was two pages long. They wanted to know my mother's maiden name, the city where my parents were born, my job, how I am paying for the trip, and the name of my husband. Asmus's application cost 35 euros. Mine cost 100. I didn't let their evilness keep me away.

The oddest thing -- I felt so welcome in St. Petersburg. Unlike in Germany, no one stared at me. In Hamburg and Kiel, people, mostly children, stare at me. There are people of various hues walking the street but I am exotic. About two months ago, I was looking through my pocket for the key to the apartment in Hamburg. An old lady (It is always an old lady here.) asked me if I lived in my apartment. She then asked my name and when I moved to the apartment. I answered her question and then asked her name. Then she walked away. No welcome. No "nice to meet you". There are few Black people in St. Petersburg, so I was ready to be an oddity. Fortunately, Russians are too concerned with their own lives that they do not care about anyone else. That is fine with me.

The other weird thing is that there were foods and restaurants in Russia that are not found in Germany. You may have noticed the Sbarro sign in the image above. I am not a fan of the pathetic attempt at pizza but it is nice to see something familiar. I had pecan pie. Pecan pie!!! A friend, Shurea, mailed me pecans from California, so that I can make a pie (Which I did. Delicious!), because pecanuss is rare in Germany. Plus, pie is not common in Germany. So I was amazed to have pecan pie in the former home of communism. When departing, we passed a T.G.I Friday's. Don't got that in Germany. I love TGIF's Cobb Salad. I had just eaten, so I passed up the chance to have that delicacy until I return to the United States in October. The best part is when I introduced myself people repeated my name the same way that I said it. I tell a German my name and they never come close to saying it the same way. It is the little things that make life worth living.

More about St. Petersburg to come.