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On the Road: Stokke to Saint Petersburg
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
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As with my last big train journey, it kicked off in a deflating manner, when we ended up on the bus of all things, due to Norwegian Rails’ inability to keep trains running.
Arriving in Stokke, we were greeted by Knut, a fellow Chinese student, who we half-expected to be wearing a bunad (traditional Norwegian outfit), given the picturesque surroundings. He failed to deliver.
After a night of wild excess - drinking tea and playing scrabble - we set off as the day broke, after desperately trying to use a shower that was far more complicated than need be. The fields were covered in morning mist, and there were precious few other commuters on the roads. Stokke looked like someone had just removed the cling film; unspoiled to the point of being too new. As an entirely unfitting but equally poignant counterpoint, the car stereo was blaring out Dr. Dre’s seminal work “The Chronic”, giving us a look into a gritty (fantasy) world of hoes, gats and drive-bys.
Stokke didn’t quite have the shizzle that would’ve made the game sizzle.
Our thankfully brief stay at Kastrup airport near Copenhagen saw our inaugural on-the-road aeropress. Aricha #28, a lovely Ethiopian naturally processed coffee, was our first brew. It was a bit overextracted (19g), so the dosage needs tweaking. I can’t remember getting any strange looks making it, and strangely, the water was free. At an airport! I’m fairly certain the employee who gave it to me didn’t quite expect me to whip out the Golden Phallos Hand GrinderTM and Aeropress.
Arriving in St Petersburg, we filled in yet another form to document our stay in the warm embrace of Mother Russia. We were met at the airport by Robert, a relative of Michael’s. He drove us from the airport and back to their apartment in central St Petersburg. And what an abode. I was stunned when I walked in. It had a certain baroque air to it, and I think palatial best describes it. Their bathroom is the size of a small apartment, with gilded faucets sculpted in the shape of swans; the woodwork on the floors is amazingly detailed and obviously crafted by hand. His wife, Inga, and son Michael were generous hosts. I understand there to be a cultural importance put on these things; We were never left wanting for anything, and Robert volunteered to drive us into town in the mornings. Unfortunately, my complete inability to speak Russian put a severe limitation on how much communication I could take part in, to put it mildly. We were served lovely food, including pork and rice wrapped in cabbage, smoked mackerell, as well as some sort of ravioli with sourcream and pepper.
Our first day in St Petersburg was spent doing some light sightseeing. Monday is, for some reason, the International Day of Closed Museums, but we got a look at two very different but equally impressive churches. One was classicist in the extreme, with colonnades on both sides and a strong symmetry; the stone used (limestone?) had faded and become stained by pollution in a way that gave it an interesting post-apocalyptic flair. 
The other church looked like a gingerbread house, in the “typical” Russian fashion. Aside from a few tourist groups individually decked out with headphones and audio guides (what fun…?) we couldn’t see any obvious groups of tourists. The weather was much like Oslo: hot in the sun, slightly chilly in the shade.
High school students in St Petersburg (and maybe Russia as a whole?) celebrate graduating by dressing up in their finest, putting on colourful sashes (as determined internally in each class; think Miss Universe sashes) and walking around outside drinking champagne. We saw gaggles of them all over, and the proceedings were a lot more dignified than the Norwegian counterpart, russefeiringen, where students put on jump suits for a month before their final exams and, in broad strokes, act like idiots until the 17th of May.
A vital part of celebrating in St Petersburg seems to be renting a Hummer limousine. I didn’t know quite what to make of it at first, but after seeing my 20th stretch Hummer limo, it started becoming commonplace (which in itself is both bizarre and frightening). I saw one couple taking their wedding photos leaning on the hood of a hot metallic pink Hummer limo, as well as high school students arriving to their public park of choice in one (a more “discreet” white one, but still).
Odd observation #2: Though I in no way guarantee the representability, it seemed to me like roughly 70% of all women between the ages of 15 and 50 wore high heels. I suppose it’s a cultural thing. In general, women seemed far more conscious of their appearance than men.
Day two started off with a plan of going to the Hermitage museum. By the time we got there, there was a queue outside the length of a soccer field. We decided to forgo culture for a bit, and seek out Nevskij, the main street, to find a wi-fi zone. On our way, we went by a “Coffee House” (.ru) a coffee chain serving espresso based drinks and gaudy iced coffees. We tried an espresso; it tasted mostly of rancid oils and rubber, and came priced at 75 rubles, which is roughly 15kr, the same price as a good espresso in Oslo. Satisfied? Not so much.
After a few hours, we returned to the Hermitage, seeing the outside queue reduced to a managable 15 metres. Unfortunately, it seemed there was another soccer field length continuation of the queue snaking itself through the entrance hall and central courtyard. That meant that the queue we thought was too long the first time was, in fact, twice as long as we suspected, and would’ve entailed about 2 hours’ worth of waiting. Fully exposed to a somewhat sweltering sun.
That wasn’t going to happen, so we decided to head towards another museum: Peter the Great’s “Kunstkamera”, the first Russian museum. It was mostly ethnographic and anthropological, with exhibitions from what were the Far Corners of the World. Peter the Great apparently had an interest in all things, and fostered exploration of other cultures and their advances. 
The museum’s main draw was a room filled with somewhat grotesque specimens of fetal defects and animal abnormalities. Peter collected these by offering a reward, and wanted to educate the public behind the reasons some babies were born with defects (his reasons were flawed, but infinitely more reasonable than the prevailing wisdom concerning these things at the time). Two-headed calfs, enormous heads, two heads, no head, a single head - all these things were stuffed into jars filled with a liquid preservative. An oddly fascinating one was pentuplets (or whatever 5-at-a-time are called) clustered by their umbilical cords around the placenta in a kaleidoscopic pattern. On the lighter side of things, we did get to see an Inuit rain proof parka made exclusively from whale entrails.
After that joyride of strange, we decided to head towards a restaurant with Georgian cuisine that came recommended from Kristian, a friend who has lived in the city.
Kafé Tbilisi was staffed by people wearing folkloric costumes, which made me apprehensive at first. Michael’s eyes lit up as soon as he started reading the menu. The food was very good. As an appetizer, we were given a small glass of green tea jelly, with lemon rind and tarragon. Great little nibble.
We started off with two dishes: a mix of nuts and “stuff”, wrapped in aubergine, with pickled wine leaves(?) wrapped around yellow peppers. Both worked beautifully. The other dish was a mix of spinach, mint leaves and coriander, chopped and mashed together into small balls, served with pomegranate seeds and salad. They reminded me of an Indian condiment which name escapes me presently, but with less vinegary tang. I loved it.
We had some fried cheese with grapes, and following that, the main course. More cheese, but this time on bread: Khachapori from Adjara, with a raw egg yolk in the middle. It looked like Georgian comfort food. Michael was beside himself with joyous nostalgia, and it really was quite good, if a little unexciting. We finished off with Basturma, thinly cut slices of spicy Armenian cured sausage, which tasted just like what it was. To wash it all down, we had a German wheat beer called Andechsx’? A very well balanced beer with a slightly spicy aroma. Allergies preclude a more detailed description.
For dessert, I opted for the lemon sherbet, which turned out to be a bit egg whitey and lacking in acidity. It was served with a nigh-on flourescent mango sauce that didn’t really taste of mango. Michael’s plate of assorted Georgian goodies looked better.
All in all, it came to 4000 rubles, roughly 400,- Norwegian per head.
Our aim for day three was to show up outside the Hermitage a bit early to beat the queue. That didn’t work out particularly well, and we ended up standing outside for a good three hours before we got in, doing nothing except working on a sunburn [Mission Accomplished]. Luckily, people were capitalizing on this lot of people with nothing to do, so ice cream, soda, water and beer was easily available.
The museum itself had that hallmark Russian opulence we’ve all come to love. Gilded, intricate and extravagant wherever possible. Emphasis on gilded. Russia being of the orthodox persuasion really shone through with the heavy focus on “Madonna and Child”-motifs in its collections. However, they did have one of my favourite impressionist paintings, Viscount Lepic and His Daughters, by Degas, as well as an accompanying selection of other impressionists.
As in the Louvre, people crowded around small paintings by a certain Leonardo (he of The Code), which is both funny and irritating. Michael and I shadowed a group of Chinese tourists to listen to their Russian Chinese-speaking guide, who was really good. However, after three hours of standing and waiting and two hours of walking around, we were utterly knackered. So we walked back to the apartment, an hours’ walk away.
Our train to Moscow left at a shade past nine in the evening. We were in a platzkartny, a sleeping cart with around 50 sleepers. It looked like it had been slept in before, to put it mildly. We couldn’t see any other foreigners in there, and everyone were just going about their business. Our provodnik (carriage conductor) was selling beer on the sly, for half the price of the restaurant cart. The tickets came to 1000 rubles per head, around 200,- Norwegian.
As it was our first time on a train in Russia, we felt obligated to brew some on-the-road coffee. We tried the Amor de Dios, this time with 17 grams - I think; the rumbling of the train was throwing my scale off, but we came close. A bit underdosed, but we’re getting there.
This was far too long. If you’re reading this, you read that, so I won’t keep you any longer.
