Europe 2019 Part 2: From Russia With Love

It was the night before we were to leave for Europe and I received this email from Elnur, my friend in Russia:

“I have a bad news! Snow attacking us again, city full of snow, very abnormal weather. “

He included some photos he had taken.

Oh crap. I was planning to travel light, just one carry-on sized suitcase and a carry-on shoulder bag. I live in a very temperate area and it rarely gets cold. I didn’t have much of anything warm to wear, really. And now with snow on the ground, would tennis shoes be enough to keep my feet warm and dry and enable me to get about? I had brought a pair of hiking boots along, just in case. But I had been hoping to leave them behind in San Leandro before our trip started as they took up so much room. But with news like this, I had no choice but to bring them along.

I kept track of the weather in St Petersburg the rest of that night and the next day. When we arrived in London, I was again glued to my phone, checking the weather there. I was only taking the shoulder bag with me on my jaunt to Russia, so I was planning on only taking one pair of shoes with me. It would either be my tennis shoes or the hiking boots…and I could just see myself stomping around in some former czar’s palace in my big, heavy hiking boots. Not!

Even though I had brought the boots to Europe, the weather forecast didn’t look too bad. The morning I was to leave for Russia, I checked live camera feeds of St Petersburg. Most of the snow was gone. I decided to risk it and just wear my sneakers.

I slipped away from the apartment early in the morning and, after about an hour’s journey in the London tube system, I arrived at Heathrow Airport.

I waited for the announcement of which gate I’d be departing from. Finally, the departure board showed my flight leaving from gate 10. I made my way to the gate and found that the gate was actually on the ground floor instead of the main floor the other planes departed from. No problem. I went down in an elevator but then the doors opened onto several gate 10s (10A, 10B, 10C, etc.). I hastily walked down along the many gates until I found my gate. I had my ticket checked and was sent down a walkway to a doorway and then…I suddenly found myself outside. The passengers were being herded onto a bus. Okay…

Once on board the bus, we headed out into airport and we were zigging around these planes and zagging around buildings far off on the perimeter of the airport. Where the heck were we going? I had booked my flight on British Airways, because it was the most affordable and it was an airline I had heard of. I know we were going to the former stark, no-frills, utilitarian Soviet Union, but were we busing it all of the way to Russia?

Eventually we pulled up to a plane very far away from the terminal. There was something that reminded me of a tube in a hamster cage leading up to the door of the plane. After the rest of the traveling hamsters (gerbils? lemmings?) made their way into the plane, I made my way up and in as well.

The flight was definitely no frills. We didn’t even get a complimentary snack or beverage (but there were plenty of snacks or beverages available for purchase). I, of course, had my requisite Bloody Mary and Xanax.

After a long, s-l-o-w, 3-hour flight over the North Sea, the Scandinavian countries, and the Baltic Sea, we landed at the St Petersburg airport. My stars! I was in Russia. What the heck was I doing there? And what the heck was I in store for?

The passengers and I followed this long walkway to a large room where several lines were forming. It was the Russian immigration area and it had a very Cold War-era feel to it.

As I waited in line for the non-Russian citizen and non-EU line, I watched how people were allowed into various cubicles at the front of the lines by various red and green lights. When the guy ahead of me got the green light to approach, I was given the red. I watched him in the cubicle in front of the widowed desk with a small opening in it. He passed his passport and other papers through. Whatever the clerk was doing to process him seemed to take longer than I thought it should. But before I knew it, the light inside the cubicle and the one in front of me went green. He gathered his things and disappeared down some mysterious gray corridor as I made my way to the cubicle.

I slipped my passport through the slot. You really couldn’t see the person on the other side of the glass and I had no idea what they were doing. After a short period of time, my passport re-appeared in the slot. I grabbed it. There was now a slip of paper in it.

The red light next to me went off and the green light to progress lit up.  I walked into this narrow corridor that immediately turned to the left. I felt like a rat in a maze. The corridor turned right and emptied out into another large, gray room. This, apparently, was the Russian customs area. There was one small x-ray machine and a couple of stern-looking officials, but the few people ahead of my and myself were waved through.

Through the door of the customs room, was another dark hallway…but it got brighter and nicer as I walked along. There was actually a sign (that was really an advertisement) welcoming us to St. Petersburg.

The hall led to a stairway and once down that, I was standing in a modern airport with a Starbucks (!) and a McDonalds (!!).

Outside, I realized I was on my own. I wouldn’t be meeting my friend until the evening. I pulled out my phone and got myself an Uber (well, the Russian version, anyway. Yandex Taxi.) and headed into the city’s center.

St Petersburg is big, really big. It has a population of 5.28 million people and covers more than 555 square miles. I took a long while to reach the City Center.

There are many rivers and canals that cross through the city, mostly the Neva River and its tributaries that empty into the Baltic Sea. For this, it is often referred to as the Venice of Russia. (A tour guide later told me she thinks it is more like the Amsterdam of Russia…and that description fits better to me as well.) When I arrived, the rivers and canals were all frozen.

My hotel was nice and was in a great location. It was only a short walk from the Hermitage and other attractions, right off of the main drag through town. Luckily it was also very close to the restaurant my friend had picked to meet at for dinner, Cha Cha. it wasn’t the cheapest hotel in town, but certainly not the most expensive either. I wanted to feel safe and be within walking distance of things. The only drawback to the room was the beds. I had requested a King/Queen-sized bed (which was an option), but ended up with two twin beds. That could be my fault though, as I made a reservation for one night…then went back and added a second night…then added a third.

Since I arrived in the afternoon, by the time I got to hotel and got settled in, it was really too late to go anywhere and too early to head out to dinner. I had alerted Elnur that I had arrived. We set a time to meet for dinner and I decided to kill time by exploring the area.

One of the things I really wanted to see in St Petersburg was the Church on the Spilled Blood, which was somewhere near the hotel, just down the block from the restaurant. The church is gorgeous and has those Russian ‘onions’ you expect to see on the (stereotypical) tops of their buildings.

After walking around a bit, I took a seat in front of the restaurant, waiting for Elnur to arrive. He told me to wait inside. I was shy about going in, not speaking the language. So I waited outside on a bench, next to the frozen canal. I was rather embarrassed about my appearance. I had nothing really warm to wear, certainly nothing dressier than casual clothes. I had on a long sleeved shirt (untucked), over unflattering jeans and the tennis shoes. I also had on my black nylon coat (which gets very hot).

Elnur arrived and I was immediately at ease with him. I was afraid that it would be awkward, but we had been communicating for months. He felt like someone I had already known. He is a great guy, very personable. Elnur had been especially interesting to me over the months because, I think, he is Russian. Russia has been so vilified by our media for so long. Even though the Iron Curtain came down long before he was born (He was at the tail end of his 28th year at the time. He’s now newly 29), a lifetime of Russia portrayed to us through the Soviet Era-lens (in James Bond movies, news reports, etc.) had really colored my view on what Russia and its people are like. Elnur was none of what I expected when I first “met” him months ago. My curiosity about him and his world only intensified as the months went by.

Elnur is technically a “penpal”. He practices using his English with me, and he really does a great job with it. He works nights in an office. He only gets two days off a week, so instead of trying to switch his sleep schedule during those two days, he stays on his night schedule all week long and sleeps by day. Because of this, my visits with him would be confined to evenings and the rest of the day I’d be on my own…

Cha Cha was a nice place. I liked its vibe. I had let Elnur pick the place as our dinner was also going to act as an early birthday celebration for him. The restaurant serves Georgian food, which is popular in Russia and Elnur’s favorite.

Elnur’s father had checked out of the picture very early on in his life. It had been just he and his mother since then. They hadn’t had much money, so they never celebrated things like birthdays or Christmas. Elnur’s birthday is two days after mine. It was still a couple of weeks away at that point, but I deemed the night his birthday by proxy. In addition to picking the restaurant, I also had a few gifts for him.

Dinner was good and not too weird. For an appetizer, we had these chicken and spinach balls with nuts in them. For entrees, I wanted this cheese in a bread bowl thing called a Tsomgamotsili. Elnur had sent me a video showing it to me. It was relatively “safe” (things like calves lungs were on the menu, and I was not about to go there). Elnur opted for one, too. I felt bad. I know he loves Georgian food and I wanted him to have anything on the menu he wanted for dinner (even the calves lungs if that was his favorite). But he had opted for the Tsomgamotsili like me. I hope he wasn’t just being polite.

The Tsomgamotsili arrived. The cheese wasn’t as molten as it should have been, but I filmed Elnur mixing his, which you can watch in the video below (You can also hear Elnur’s great English skills when he speaks.):

I tried to get a birthday cake of sorts brought out to the table. They had a small cake-like dessert they brought out with “Happy birthday” (I think. I HOPE!) written on the plate. There were no candles available. Oh well. Happy early birthday, Elnur!

After dinner, we walked around a bit. He pointed out some sights nearby and showed me his car. It is something I had never heard of as we do not have them in the US; an Opel Astra.

We took a few photos and then…it was time to say goodnight. He had things to do and I was still a jet-lagged mess. Even though  I knew I’d be seeing him the following evening, it was kind of sad saying goodnight to my friend. After months of chatting with him and months of planning to arrange to meet him, the time together had come to a close far too quickly.

After he drove off into the night, I walked my tired self back to my hotel, crawled into bed and slept. Thank goodness. I didn’t know it then, but the next day would be the busiest of the whole trip.

Stay tuned.

CHEERS!

 

Ready for more of my experiences in Russia? Click HERE to find out what happened next.