Helsinki Sightseeing

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Tiny Tino

During my time in Helsinki I hadn’t done a great deal of sightseeing, because when I arrived Susanna had told me about a free walking tour of the city that runs every Sunday afternoon. I have to confess that I didn’t know a great deal about the city, and hadn’t done a lot of research either, so I wasn’t even sure what the major attractions of the city even were. I arrived in Helsinki on a Thursday, so I figured that I would be around until at least the end of the weekend, and that I could take the tour then and do some sightseeing with a knowledgable local.

As is turns out, the tour guide was from Tasmania. She’s been living in Helsinki for 11 years though, so she knew a great deal about the city and told us little stories about the city’s main attractions. The tour began in Senate Square right in front of Tuomiokirkko, a cathedral that is probably the most iconic and recognisable attraction in Helsinki. From there we moved to the lavishly adorned Uspenskin Katedraali, a Russian Orthodox cathedral. Now that I had moved out of Asia and well and truly into Europe, the host of temples that had formed the majority of tourist attractions were being replaced with churches and cathedrals such as these. We went inside to view the stunning interior, with paintings and alters and candles spread out through the entire building, but tread carefully so as not to disturb the large number of people who were there to pray and pay their religious respects.

The iconic Tuomiokirkko.

The Russian orthodox Uspenskin Katedraali.

Inside the orthodox cathedral.

Helsinki’s padlock bridge is far smaller than in Irkutsk, but there’s no shortage of padlocks.

We wandered through the city looking at a range of different things, from the government houses and monuments, to quirky hotels and interesting buildings. We also passed a bridge that was absolutely full of padlocks, just like the one in Irkutsk. I remember Jenna telling me there was a similar bridge in Paris, so I guess it must be quite a common European tradition. From there we moved to a market by the sea and had some lunch, where the tour guide warned us of the particularly vicious seagulls. After that we walked through a park and a graveyard that was commonly thought to be haunted, and finished with a building called the Chapel of Silence. It was a peculiar structure with a round shape and was made of wood, and served as a non-denominational space that could be used for all kinds of ceremonies, but what was so interesting about it was the acoustics. It was designed in a way so that it almost completely eliminated all outside noise – the silence inside the chapel was almost deafening. It was an eerie building, but at the same time extremely tranquil. The interior was beautiful, and I could imagine a small, elegant wedding ceremony taking place on the main elevated area.

One of the menacing seagulls.

This monument was a gift to Finland from Russia – and was cheekily placed in front of the Swedish embassy in Helsinki.

Despite the reputation for being haunted, Finnish people don’t waste a single moment of daylight, and this very central grassy area was full of living people soaking up the sun.

The Chapel of Silence.

***

After the sightseeing I met Susanna back at my hostel to say goodbye. After a rushed and hungover breakfast that morning, I had decided that I didn’t want to spend much longer in Helsinki. I’d met some nice locals, seen the way they lived, and by the afternoon I would have seen the city’s major sites too. I have to admit, after being told how long I would be staying in each location for the last three weeks, it was a bit of a shock to the system to have to make these definitive decisions right on the spot. I like to think I can be pretty spontaneous, but I can’t deny it was a little stressful. Especially when I was booking my place on the overnight ferry at 10:50am and I had to check out of the room at 11:00.

But that’s what I did. I found an extremely good fare, so I snatched the deal up and bought a last minute ticket to Stockholm. I still had no idea where I would be staying, and I didn’t know anyone in Stockholm, so it was a combination of excitement, adventure, and sheer terror. I’d had a lovely time in Helsinki, getting to know Susanna and experiencing the excitement of the beginning of their summer, but it was time to officially kick off my Eurotrip and see what the vast, multicultural continent had in store for me.

Saying goodbye to Susanna, and to Helsinki.

Down in the Park: Drinking in Helsinki

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Tiny Tino

The weekend I was in Helsinki turned out to be quite an eventful one for the usually quiet city. Susanna had warned me that on Saturday I would see a lot of people walking around wearing white, ceremonious caps, and a lot of teenagers drinking in the park. I had arrived in Finland at the end of the last week of school before the summer holidays began, and for the teenagers that were finishing high school, it was the day of their official graduation ceremonies. It was such a beautiful sunny day that I had decided to talk the 45 minute walk into the city instead of catching the train, and on the way I saw white caps on many of the teenagers I passed, laughing with their friends and fidgeting as their parents tried to get them to stand still for photos. However, the parks didn’t seem quite so full of young boozers, I had noticed as I myself laid in one of the city parks, soaking up some rays and using my new favourite human right to Skype some of my friends. That would all change later.

Susanna’s brother was coming to stay with her on Saturday – she’d been able to let me stay there for a couple of nights, but I’d had to find somewhere else to stay after that. “I’m really sorry, but… well, I don’t even know how the two of us are going to manage, the space is small enough as it is.” Which I totally understood, and was still completely grateful – two nights free accommodation is better than zero. Yet I hadn’t been able to find a host on Couchsurfing – Susanna put it down to the fact that a lot of people in Helsinki live in small apartments like hers, and therefore don’t really have room to host people – so in the afternoon I checked into the city’s student accommodation, which becomes a hostel in the summer months. From there, Susanna and I went to dinner – it was the birthday of one of the girls in her group of Finnish friends, and she had invited me to come along and join the crowd. Always keen to meet the locals, I was quick to accept.

One of he beautiful sunny parks, before they were stormed by drunken high school graduates.

Dinner was at a Turkish restaurant, and I sat with Susanna and listened to a few of the conversations of some of her friends, and chatted to a few of them about my travels, where I’d come from and where I was going. At one point, in a break from all the other conversations, I had to lean over and quietly ask Susanna, “Are all of these people Finnish?”
“Yeah, they’re all from Finland,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure most of them know each other from a school or something where they all spoke English, so that’s why they mainly talk to each other in English, I think.”
But she had misunderstood my confusion. “Oh… No, I didn’t even think of that.” English is so widespread in Scandinavia you would have a very hard time finding anyone who didn’t speak it. “I mean, it’s just that a lot of them sound American.”
She had a good laugh at that. “Yeah, it happens a lot here. When they’re taught English by Americans, or American resources, then that’s how they learn to speak it, accent and all.” It was strange to see someone who could so easily pass as an American with a native English tongue to slip seamlessly into the long, low tones of the Nordic language. Finland actually has quite a complicated history with languages – Swedish and Finnish are both official languages, and there are small minorities of Finnish people whose mother tongue is actually Swedish. Politically, Finland’s history has been somewhat of a wrestling match for control and influence between Russia and Sweden, and there’s a whole range of other factors that basically mean all Finnish people seem to speak a minimum of three languages – the two official ones and English – with spikes Russian, Norwegian, Danish and German thrown in for good measure,

***

After dinner, we were to move onto the park to have some drinks. I was a little shocked when Susanna told me that – I hadn’t gotten drunk in a park since I was underage, and now for me drinking in a park refers to finishing the bourbon and Coke that I poured into a plastic bottle at pre-drinks while I’m walking through Hyde Park on the way to Oxford St. However, once I arrived I realised that it was quite a different environment. Well, I guess there were a lot of school kids getting drunk in celebration of the graduation, but we sat on the other side of the park, away from the throng of drinking youths. One of Susanna’s friends had some decent speakers for playing some music, and a few more produced towels or blankets from their bags to sit on, and we all sat around in the park having a little alcoholic picnic of beer, wine and cider. It was obvious that this was quite a popular and common thing to do in the summer months, making the absolute most of the outdoors and the sunshine after the months of long winter and seemingly endless darkness. It lasted for a a couple of hours through the evening sunshine and into the twilight. At one point the police arrived – while this kind of thing is commonplace during the summer months, at some point it became necessary to break up the crowd of teens as they grew too rowdy. Eventually the sprinklers came on, and we all and a bit of a chuckle as we watched them flee… until the sprinklers near us came on too, and we scattered, though only to relocate a few metres away, out of the reach of the water.

As we looked out over the now nearly deserted park, I saw a few people walking around picking up cans and bottles. “For every can or bottle you return to the supermarket, you get about twenty euro cents,” Susanna explained to me. “So all throughout these nights of drinking in the park, you have bottle collectors who go around picking them all up so they can make some money out of it”. I thought that was nice – even though it came with a financial incentive, it meant that people were still looking after the environment and cleaning up the local parks. But I was mistaken – as the collectors moved away, standing on the sidelines of the park and waiting for us to be finished with our beer and cider cans, I noticed that there were still a bunch of other cans still left on the grass. “Yeah, not all of the cans come with a refund, so they don’t bother picking them up.” That was a little disheartening, to learn that care for the environment, or even a desire just to keep the city clean, was completely lacking – it was all about making a few quick bucks. When the time came for us to move on from the park and onto one of the bars, I stood up and threw my can as far as I could to the other side of the park, and watched all the can collectors scurry to be the first to snatch up what was essentially a twenty cent coin. At least that way they were working for the money.

***

After the park, our party moved through the small, cobbled streets of Helsinki to one of the popular bars called Corona Bar. It was a large, dimly lit hall full of snooker and billiard tables, which seemed to be the main focus and attraction of the venue. The chatter and banter between the patrons was almost louder than the music, and there was a really authentic feeling about it that was a combination of American roadhouse and alternative grunge bar. Beer and wine was relatively cheap, and Susanna and I played a game of pool against two of her Finnish friends. Despite the two of us insisting that we were terrible players, I remembered back to the tips and tricks that Sana had taught me on our Cambodian date night, and with a few extra pointers from some of her other friends, both Susanna and I managed to sink a few balls with shots that I would never have believed I was capable of and ended up winning the game, representing Australia and proving that sometimes skills really do get better with booze.

One kind of cool thing that happened was that nearly everyone in the bar commented on my shirt. Tom of Finland is an artist that creates a lot of hyper-masculine and erotic cartoons, most of which are very graphic and detailed. Back at my old place of work, we sold t-shirts and singlets with some of the less explicit designs – some of the cartoons and artworks go as far as to essentially be pornography. Whenever I wore my Tom of Finland shirt back at home, it would usually get a lot of comments from people laughing and loving the fact I was adorning a picture of a naked muscle man on my shirt. However, here no one seemed that amazed by the content of my shirt, save for the fact that it was Tom of Finland – as in, they were actually familiar with the work of Tom of Finland. I have to admit I got a little kick out of wearing the Tom of Finland shirt in Finland, but I didn’t realise that there was actually such a strong connection to the country in the name, or that so many people, including heterosexual males, would know anything about it. One of the guys even mentioned that Tom, the artist behind the artworks, used to live not too far from the park where we’d been drinking earlier. What I had intended to be an outfit with a slightly meta undertone had turned into a relevant cultural tribute.

Welcomed With Wasps

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Tiny Tino

My train arrived in Helsinki precisely on time at six o’clock, although the sun outside felt as though it should only be about three in the afternoon. I disembarked and made way to the end of the platform where I found Susanna waiting for me. Although we’d never actually met, I guess you could say Susanna was technically a family friend. Her mother is a close friend of one of my aunts, and when I had been telling her about my travel plans and mentioned that I was thinking of going through Scandinavia, she has suggested that I get into contact with her daughter Susanna. She’d Susanna might be able to offer me a place to stay or at the very least show me around Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. Susanna herself was from Canberra, living and working in Helsinki, so even though it was our first time meeting we seemed to have a bit of common ground, and we got on quite well.

Helsinki Station.

We got one of the local trains back to her apartment, which was only five or ten minutes away from the city, and as we walked from the station she explained the public transport system a little bit more, and told me which trains to back to the city. She also explained a few of the other little quirks about the Finnish systems and culture: the tickets were available on trains, but the people who sell them aren’t the people who check for them; beer is available in the supermarkets but only until 9pm, and everything else is sold at shops appropriately called ‘Alcos’; most people diligently obey road rules, including pedestrians – you won’t see any jaywalking from a local in Helsinki; access to free Internet is officially a human right in Finland, and there is free wifi basically everywhere. It was interesting how different things were from Russia – particularly the alcohol availability – when the geographical distance was so small, but that was one of the beautiful things I was soon to discover about Europe. You can travel a matter of hours between countries, or even just within cities, and there is such a rich and unique cultural diversity that just isn’t as prevalent or profound as it is in “multicultural Australia”.

When we arrived at her place, Susanna gave me a quick tour of the building, showing me the laundry room where I could do a much needed load on washing, and the sauna where she had a weekly reservation every Friday evening. She gave me a detailed briefing, to the point where I could essentially be left to my own devices, though it was only at that point that I realised that was exactly what she was doing. She clarified by saying that she had work the following day, a Friday, and then an all day hens party on Saturday, and that she was going to leave me the keys to her place and stay with a friend for a few days. I was a little shocked, and again felt a surge of gratitude towards someone who I hardly knew, yet was going out of her way so far as to give me her apartment for the next two nights. It was a small studio, so realistically it would have been a bit of a squeeze for the two of us, but she assured me that it was no problem for her. She’d mentioned a few times that she had done a bit of travelling herself, so I suppose she knew how much a few free nights of accommodation can mean to a budget backpacker. Furthermore, it would be nice to have my own room and some private space for the first time in weeks.

***

As I was unpacking my things, and Susanna was preparing to leave, I noticed a bug flying around in the kitchen. I moved a little closer to take a look… and then bolted to the other side of the apartment. It was a wasp.
“Ahh, Susanna? Is it normal to have a wasp in the apartment?”
“What? A wasp?” She’d been in the bathroom gathering some of her things, but now she stuck her head out into the main room. “Err, no. No, that’s not normal.” We watched the wasp buzz around, hoping it would fly out the window again. Instead, it circled around and flew to the top of the windowpane – where its nest was hanging from the curtain railing.
“Oh my God! Is that a wasps nest?” It was only the size of a golf ball, but there was no denying what it was it after we watched the wasp climb through the hole at the bottom. “It’s definitely new. They must have come in and made it today, because that was not there this morning.” Her reaction was a combination of disbelief and concern – but I had to drop a bombshell that could potentially add panic to the mix.
“Ah, just before anything else happens, I should probably mention that I’m allergic to wasp stings.”
“Shit, really? Like anaphylactic allergic?”
“Um, I don’t really know. I haven’t been stung in years, but I don’t have an epi-pen or anything.”

After a little while of deciding what we were going to do, the wasp emerged from the nest, and I had a mini panic attack and ran to the bathroom to hide in terror. But by some chance the wasp decided to fly out the window, and Susanna quickly jumped the close them all as soon as it left. We’d previously been deliberating whether or not we could knock it out the window with the broom, but we weren’t sure how many wasps were inside and were too concerned that it might miss, which would be even more of a disaster. We’d even googled “How to get rid of wasps nests” and watched some pretty unhelpful YouTube videos that only inspired more fear. But now, as we slammed the windows shut, the nest seemed lifeless. But it wasn’t a risk we were willing to take, and Susanna had no equipment suitable for removing wasp nests. We made a quick trip to the supermarket to see if we could find some kind of pesticide or bug spray that might help, and on the way back we ran into some of her neighbours who were working in the communal garden.

“The wasps mostly live in the trees around here, like the ones just outside the apartment,” Susanna had reasoned, “so maybe some of them will have experience with getting rid of one.” She conveyed the problem to one of the older women, using a combination of English and Finnish, and it was almost a little amusing to watch the expressions on their faces change as the tale was told and retold in Finnish. Eventually one of the men offered to come up and have a look at the nest for us. When we got there, he simply plucked the small nest from the curtain railing and put it in a plastic bag. There mustn’t have been any more wasps inside, because that was the end of it – we thanked the man and he took the bag with the nest out with him. Later, I would find a wasp angrily buzzing at the closed window, so I made a point of opening none of them for the rest of the evening.

***

After that initial moment of excitement, I spent the rest of my evening – and in fact most of my time in Helsinki – just relaxing. I spent a bit of time in my evenings at Susanna’s sending requests and emails on Couchsurfing – Susanna was only able to offer me a place to stay for two nights, and I also didn’t have any contacts for the next few cities I would be visiting. I also used the sauna during the time when Susanna had her weekly reservation – she wasn’t going to be around and said that I was more than welcome to use it. Saunas are hugely popular in Finnish culture, and my experiences in Russia had reignited my love for their intense steamy heat. However, in Finland it’s customary to always be naked when inside the sauna, and is actually considered quite rude, and in some cases unhygienic, to wear swimwear whilst in a sauna. I don’t really have a problem with nudity in the first place, but since I had the sauna to myself I didn’t see any reason as to why I shouldn’t go naked.

During the day I ventured out into the city to do some exploring. I walked through some shops and ate at a few places, and it was quite startling to see how expensive things were. I’d been warned that Scandinavia in particular was quite expensive, but it was a culture shock that had progressively escalated, all the way from South-East Asia and right across the Trans-Siberian. Susanna had advised me of a lounas culture, a custom in which many places offer buffet style lunch menus that are about a third of the price of similar meals when ordered during the evening. Finding cheap places to eat at night could also be difficult, so Susanna encouraged me to make lunch the main meal of the day. I managed to find a few nice places though, and after all the rushing around with the Trans-Siberian tour, in the end I found one of the nicest things to do was lay in the park and enjoy the seemingly endless hours of sunshine. Even some of the locals agreed that it was one of the best things I could be doing, obviously smitten by their summer weather in the same way that the Russians were.

I was more than happy to sit back, soak up the sun, and access my human right to free wifi in the park. I had an email from my parents, who were also taking a short holiday through Europe, saying that the weather in Spain was cold and rainy. It seemed a little ironic, but I couldn’t suppress the sense of smugness that I felt when I replied to inform them that I was currently sunbathing, in Finland of all places.

The Kindness of Strangers

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Tiny Tino

The first day of the rest of my adventure started with a hangover, of course. After dinner our tour group had hung around in the common room for a little while, exchanging emails and contact details and saying some final goodbyes, but most people had early transport booked for the morning and wanted to get a good night sleep. I, on the other hand, had absolutely no plans. So while the rest of my companions trailed off to bed, I found myself in the kitchen, where some of the other hostel guests – and few of the staff – were all drinking champagne and vodka, and celebrating the city’s birthday. I was welcomed into the fold with drunken, open arms, and while I don’t really recall any of their names, they were a lovely bunch of people. Then again, anyone who is handing out free champagne and vodka is a lovely person in my book.

So after everyone had left in the morning, I found myself sitting on my bed wondering what to do with the rest of my time in St Petersburg. The only person left was Don, who was also staying here for a few more days, but he had risen early to head to the Hermitage. I wandered out into the kitchen and bumped into Maria. She had ended up staying longer after having an accident on her first night here – her and Don had gone to see the a Russian ballet, and afterwards she had slipped on one of the wet steps outside the theatre and hit her head, giving her a concussion. She’d gone to the hospital and in the end everything was alright, but she had decided to stay stick around for a little longer and take some time to fully recover.

Over breakfast, I had a chat with her and another Australian girl named Beck, who was staying at the hostel too. Maria was meeting up with one of her friends that afternoon, and was going to be driving out to a place called Peterhof. I’d never heard of the place, let alone what was out there, so Maria explained that it was the site of an old Russian palace, and was actually in the next town over from St Petersburg near the Baltic Sea, and the grounds were full of beautiful fountains. When I confessed I had no plans for the day, Maria said that her friend would have room in her car if I wanted to join them. I’d grown to really like Maria – she came off as a little quirky, probably because she had more of a sense of humour than most Russians I’d met, but I kind of enjoyed that. She also loved to travel, so I always found we had a few common interests to chat about. Vlad had seemed like a nice guy, and had been a huge help in getting everyone to their transport out of St Petersburg, but despite all his efficiency I never really got to talk to him very much or get to know him like I had with Kostya, Oko or Snow.

So that afternoon Maria and I met with her friend Natalia, and we set off to the palace at Peterhof. The two women hadn’t seen each other in years since they’d met while holidaying in Thailand, so I let them catch up and chatter away in Russian while I sat in the back, alternating between catching up on my blog and sleeping off more of my hangover. It took about two hours to get there, so when we arrived I was actually feeling quite refreshed. We spent the afternoon walking around the garden and admiring the fountains. Natalia didn’t speak very much English, so Maria played translator as she explained some of the fountains and the buildings in the grounds. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon, and for the first time there wasn’t a real itinerary we had to follow, or a group to consult.

In front of the main fountain in the Peterhof Palace grounds.

The impressive and slightly homoerotic fountain – the Russians sure love their gold.

Standing next to the Baltic Sea – of the Gulf of Finland, depending on who you ask, apparently.

Another of the fountains in the grounds.

More fountains – I didn’t take note of any of their names, but they were all very beautiful.

It was a beautiful afternoon in an even more beautiful place.

After we left the gardens, Maria said that Natalia had invited us to her home for dinner. I didn’t have plans of my own, so I accepted the offer and headed back to St Petersburg with them. At Natalia’s flat I was introduced to her son, a boy of fifteen named Arseny, who looked deceptively older than he was, much like the boys from Blue Oyster. He was learning English at school, and after chatting for a little while Maria suggested that maybe Arseny could show me around St Petersburg the next day. It was an opportunity for him to practice his English by hanging out with me, and I was always keen to be shown around cities by the locals who lived there. So we had dinner together – I chuckled to myself and thought of Marti when I noticed lots of dill in the meal – and made plans for Arseny to meet me at my hostel in the city the following day.

But before I left, Natalia had enquired as to how old I was. When I told her I was twenty one, there was a look of excitement in her eyes, and she went over to the fridge to pull out a bottle of clear liquid. Maria translated and explained that it was some kind of local, homemade alcoholic spirit, and poured me a shot of it. I downed it in a gulp – it tasted like vodka except much stronger. My face must have given me away, because Natalia gave a small giggle and said “Forty-five.”
“She means this alcohol is forty-five percent,” Maria explained with a smile. “Very strong.”
Indeed it was – I was beginning to learn that the Russians give us Australians a hard run for our money when it comes to drinking.

***

So I spent the next day sightseeing in St Petersburg, under the guidance of Arseny. We planned to start late – I had (correctly) preempted another boozy night and a consequential painful vodka hangover – but it was a gorgeous and sunny afternoon as we set off up Nevsky Prospekt. We walked along the street, and Arseny explained bits and pieces of history about the area and the city, to an extent that I found quite impressive for a fifteen-year-old boy. I don’t think that, at his age, I would have been able to take a tourist around Sydney and take them to all the popular tourist spots and explain the history behind them, as well as the city in general. We passed the four horsemen on the Anichkov Bridge that crosses over one of the canals, and walked through the city to St Isaacs Cathedral. There was a viewing platform around the domed roof of the church, providing a 360 degree panoramic views of the city, so Arseny and I climbed up the 200 odds steps in the stone spiral staircase to reach the top. From there he pointed out some of the other recognisable features in the city, but then he blurted out, “The view of St Petersburg from the air is not really as nice. I think maybe it is better seen from the street, or by boat.” I was a little taken aback by the brutal honesty – and wondered why he’d waited until after we’d climbed to the top to tell me this – but looking around, I could really see what he meant. There was no iconic cityscape like you might find in London or Paris, and there wasn’t the concrete jungle of skyscrapers that made places like Bangkok slightly enchanting in their own futuristic way when seen from above. From the top of the cathedral, St Petersburg looked like a jumble of buildings with the occasional landmark emerging from the seeming monotony. It really takes a stroll through the streets to truly admire the magical beauty of St Petersburg, and a few times I found myself wandering through the alleys during the perpetual dusk, admiring the older buildings and classic architecture in the smaller streets.

St Isaacs Cathedral.

View from St Isaacs Cathedral.

The very stop of the stairs in the cathedral.

One of the four horsemen on the bridge.

The park Arseny and I walked through on our way home.

Arseny suggested going on a boat tour, but I had to confess that I’d already passed up the chance to do it once, and that I was so hungover I’d probably fall asleep if I sat on a boat for an hour. Instead we just decided to wander back to the hostel and stop at a small café for some lunch along the way, as well as passing the Church on the Blood of the Spilled Saviour so that I could get a picture. It was a beautiful sunny day, unlike the day that we had first arrived in St Petersburg, but ever since then we had been enjoying this glorious sunshine. There’s something about summer here in the northern hemisphere that just gets people very excited. Their winters are longer and colder, so when the warm weather hits they come out of some kind of hibernation and start to actually enjoy life again. We passed through a park on our way home, where I saw an efficient procession of workers all fixing up a stone and metal fence. “It happens every summer,” Arseny told me me. “Everything gets old and worn in the winter, so every summer things are restored, and improved.” Australian’s really do love their summers, with the beaches and the barbecues and the sun-tanned skin, but for the first time I began to think that while we love them, we don’t really appreciate them for what they are. And I could feel that from just seeing the European summer – stay for the winter, and I don’t think I would ever take the Australian sunshine for granted again.

***

I was glad that I’d decided to stay a few extra days in St Petersburg before heading off for the rest of my Eurotrip. I saw some nice sights, but it was also good for me to ease back into solo travelling while still having people like Maria around to give me some ideas and create a bit of direction. Moreover, I was also a little surprised at, but definitely grateful for, how nice some people can be to other people they’ve never even met, particularly travellers. It would be easy to write myself off as a jaded cynic after everything that happened with Charlie in Beijing, but my days in St Petersburg had restored a little bit of my faith in the kindness of strangers. Maria invited me along to Peterhof so I could see a part of Russia I otherwise never would have, Natalia invited me into her home and even cooked me a meal, and Arseny took almost an entire day out of his schedule to show me around the city and play personal tour guide. With the exception of a little practice speaking English with Arseny, each of them expected nothing in return. They were just a genuine bunch of lovely people who wanted me to feel welcome in Russia.

And they did. I boarded my train to Finland the following afternoon satisfied that I had seen some beautiful parts of Russia, pleased that I’d met and befriended some lovely people, and with a little more confidence in my abilities to continue this journey on my own. Though truth be told, I don’t think I’ll ever be alone. The world is full of these kind strangers, and sometimes a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet.

Hello Moscow: Seeing Red Square

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Tiny Tino

The shower at the hostel in Moscow was amazing. It didn’t even have a shower head – there was just hot water pouring out of a pipe. But it was hot water and it was washing my body and oh my God it was amazing. It was that kind of dirty where you can physically feel it washing away, but as soon as you’re clean and dry, you just want to have another shower just to make sure you’re completely clean. Or perhaps that was just me rediscovering the meticulousness of my personal hygiene. It also felt good to be on solid ground. There were places to go, things to see, drinkable tap water, and did I mention showers? It was also a change to be in a big city like Moscow. After we’d freshened up, I headed into the streets with Tim, Tracy and Jenna to find some breakfast. It was a drizzly overcast morning, but I soaked in the surroundings of the concrete jungle. As much as I loved the great outdoors and the rural getaway that had been Mongolia and Siberia, I have to confess that I’m still a big city boy at heart. Places like Bangkok and Saigon had found ways to win me over, with the busy streets and the nightlife and the diversity of people, and even the sleek and somewhat sterile Singapore was nice when it wasn’t charging an arm and a leg for a few beers. Beijing might be the only exception, with its pollution just being too intense – though I also harbour a few bitter memories – but generally I love exploring new cities. With a population of around 10 million, Moscow was big, and I was definitely excited to see what it had in store for us.

City centre of Moscow.

***

After breakfast we returned to the hostel to meet our guide. Maria was an attractive woman, tall and thin with long blonde hair and sharp, defined features – almost every stereotype I had expected from a Russian woman. We did a round of introductions, then wasted no time in setting out into the city to see some of the major attractions. Along the way, I was advised by the rest of the group that there were three must see attractions in Moscow – Red Square, the Kremlin, and the State Armoury. It was lucky that we had three full days in Moscow, because due to a serious lack of planning it took that many days for me to see them all. To get from the hostel to the city was only a few stops on the Moscow Metro, but even that proved to be a little bit of a thrill. And that’s not because of my weird obsession with efficient subway systems, although the Moscow Metro is insanely efficient – one time we missed a train, and there was literally another one coming out of the tunnel just as we lost sight of the one we missed. It was actually a thirty second wait for the next train – needless to say, I was impressed. But all the excitement happened before we’d even reached the platform. For the metro, all you have to do is buy a standard ticket that lets you travel anywhere within the system. All you have to do is swipe the card and walk in. Now, at the train stations back home there are barriers that open to let you through when you swipe your ticket. To be fair, some of the stations at Moscow have this too. However, the station we were at didn’t seem to have barriers, just metal gates which you walk through after swiping your ticket. I swiped mine, saw a little green arrow, and proceeded through, then turned around to wait for Kaylah. She swiped her ticket, went to walk through and then suddenly BAM! These old, rickety metal arms came flying out of the gates to crash together directly in front of Kaylah. I don’t deal well with sudden shocks and jolts like that, so I’m pretty sure I let out a scream. Kaylah herself was standing there, dumbfounded. “Oh my God,” I said as I ran back towards the barrier. “Oh my God! Are you alright?” We looked down at the metal arms clamped together in front of her waist. “Jesus, a second later and you wouldn’t ever be having children!” She was startled but otherwise fine, and laughed it off in her typical style. “It’s all good, it’s all good.” One of the station attendants came over to help us. Turns out Kaylah’s ticket just hadn’t swiped properly, and so hadn’t allowed her to go through, but her movement forward had set off he barriers to rather aggressively stop her from proceeding. Which makes perfect sense, but still, it was as freaky as Hell to watch, and for the rest of my time in Moscow I tentatively slipped through the gates at the metro, so as not to awake those angry metal arms.

***

This photo was taken the next day on a short trip back to Red Square – showing off my shiny red gum boots in front of the State History Museum

The first attraction we visited was Red Square, which in itself was more of a collection of sights. We took photos in front of the State History Museum, and then visited the Lenin Mausoleum. I know what a mausoleum is, but what we found inside still took me by surprise – a glass coffin with the preserved body of the Soviet leader lying there for the world to see, looking rather peaceful. Kaylah and I had been walking along with linked arms to stay a little warmer in the cold, overcast weather, but I felt her grip tighten tenfold around my arm when we walked into the room and saw the body lying there. It was a chilling experience, but we slowly and respectfully shuffled around the room and out the other side. From there it was onto St Basil’s Cathedral, a place that I’ll confess I didn’t know by name, but instantly recognised from photographs. The colourful tops on the towers were a typically Russian style of architecture, and I thought it made the building a little more fun and interesting than some of the other ones – though I’m not sure if anyone ever built a cathedral with ‘fun’ being the primary objective. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful building, both exterior and interior. Inside and upstairs, there was a male a capella vocal quartet singing what sounded like Russian church hymns. Their voices were beautiful, and their musical singing added a whole new level of awe to the atmosphere inside the cathedral. Even though any spiritual or religious convictions I might harbour lie far from Christianity or Russian Orthodoxy, it was simply enchanting to explore the stone walls and corridors while they echoed with the rich tenor and rumbling baritone voices. I took a few photos, but as I lined up my camera, before I’d taken a single picture, I knew that no image would ever capture this experience in a way that would do it justice.

St Basil’s Cathedral.

Inside the chambers of St. Basil’s.

***

After we’d finished in Red Square and had some lunch, Maria took us down to buy tickets for the Kremlin. The deal with both the Kremlin and the State Armoury is that they only allow a certain amount of people inside, during scheduled periods of visiting, to prevent the places from growing too crowded at any one time. This happens every day. Except on Thursdays, when the Kremlin is closed. It was a Thursday. Yep. That was a little awkward for Maria. “I guess we will have to come back tomorrow… What else would you like to do?” Tim and Alyson wanted to go shopping, so we left them to their own devices, while – short of our own ideas of what to see in the city – Maria took us to a part of the city where we could ride up the Moscow River and see some of the cities major and minor attractions from the water. Even though the weather was a little cold, it was an easy way to spend the afternoon. So easy, in fact, that I may have been guilty of taking a few power naps between photographs. We’d been up since 4am, after all.

Statue of Peter the Great on Moscow River.

Moscow cityscape as seen from the river.

The Kremlin from afar.

That night we took it pretty easy. I had dinner at a small little pizza place around the corner with Tim, Tracy, Alyson and Jenna. The food was nice, but the one thing that struck me was that all over the restaurant, people were lighting up cigarettes and puffing away like chimneys. I have so many friends back home who smoke that the smell of second hand smoke doesn’t really bother me too much, but I think it was just more the fact they were allowed to smoke inside that surprised me. Although I really shouldn’t have been surprised – I’d been warned by almost everybody that smoking inside clubs was a really common thing all over Europe. I hadn’t expected that rule to apply to restaurants, but there you go. Rather than complain, I just tried to accept it and get used to it – if it really is as common as everyone says, then I was going to be seeing a lot more of it in the next few months.

Tiny Tino's Travels

Just a boy trying to find his place in the world

Tag Archives: Europe