Nigel: We took a flight from Berlin to St Petersburg which was probably one of the worst flights we have ever taken. The actual flight was ok it was more the condition of the interior, the food they gave and the staff that worked there. We flew with a company called Areoflot which is one of the national carriers of Russia and at the time of booking we were unaware that they partnered Man Utd. We are sure the airline is good but we didn't have that good of an experience on this flight. When we eventually arrived, we had to go through customs, which was daunting for myself but ok for Alison. The customs official spoke very little English and she was asking me if I had just come from Ukraine.... errr I don't think so!! She also thought my visa was fake and started scraping at it. All this and I hadn't even entered the country. For St Petersburg you can actually enter the city for 72 hours without a visa but as we were travelling through Russia, we had to get one any way. St Petersburg was founded by Peter the great and was originally swampland. For a period of time it was the capital of Russia during its long history and it is known as the Venice of Russia. Although we had never actually been to Venice, with all the canals passing through the city, you can understand why. To get from the airport into the city you can either take a taxi direct or take a bus to the nearest subway station and get the underground from there. We went for the second option. After navigating our way around the underground, we somehow (with a bit of planning and a bit of luck) managed to get to our hostel. Another fact about St Petersburg is that due to its northerly latitude it stays light for nearly 18 hours during the summer and dark during the winter. It was fortunate then that the room t!titled "nice bright room" and had thin cream blinds instead of curtains. This was combined with the fact that we had no aircon (the city was going through a heat wave), the walls were paper thin and the neighbours were not the quietest of people.

During our time in St Petersburg, we visited some amazing places and the building design and architecture throughout the city was spectacular. One of the places we visited was the State Hermitage Museum which is located in the centre of St Petersburg. The building dates back to the 18th century and is famous for not only the items it has on display but the fact that it has over 1,000 rooms over 3 floors. The guide book says to leave a a whole day to visit the museum but in our usual style we managed to see it within 4 hours. To be fair we saw the items we wanted to see and although all the the other items were impressive, there is only so many times you can look at a painting. One of the paintings which we did see was the world famous Leonardo da Vinci "Madonna & Child". Hopefully the pictures will do the place more justice.
Amongst the other buildings we saw, was a place called the "Church of the saviour on spilled blood". The church is known as the church that took 24 years to build and 27 years to restore. From the outside it sums up the style of buildings when you think of Russia. When you go inside you can see why it took 27 years to restore. Throughout the whole building the walls and ceilings are covered in mosaic details of Jesus and the church. The detail that has gone into the pictures was incredible.

Other places we visited and were also impressive was the Russian Museum, Kazan Cathedral, and St Issacs cathedral.

Alison: It was with much apprehension that we wandered out of St Petersburg airport into the crowded and red hot concourse. Russia tends to have a reputation for quite hard people and obviously with everything that is going on with the Ukraine at the moment, we were unsure what to expect. It didn't help that my light reading of the Lonely Planet on the flight from Berlin also revealed that it is common for tourist to be stopped by the police and 'fined' for made up reasons which is a way of getting a bribe to give you the opportunity to sort the problem out on the spot as opposed to going to the station and being formally booked. The best thing to do is to try to blend in and to look confident but this is very difficult to do with a giant rucksack on your back and whilst trying to figure out the cyrillic signs!

The first few days in St Petersburg were a bit of a culture shock. We could communicate very little with anyone and most people that we did talk to didn't smile at all and either their tone of voice sounded like they were irritated with us or they were blatantly barking something in Russian at us! To begin with I just couldn't understand them at all because they seemed so cold and aggressive in their manner and I felt offended/annoyed by anyone I had to talk to. I couldn't get my head around it so I did a bit of reading on Russian culture to try to understand their behaviour and hopefully realise that it isn't personal and I don't need to feel offended. My findings were that Russian people are very friendly to people they know but are not friendly to strangers. When I meet a stranger who I need to have some sort of interaction with e.g.shop assistant or hotel receptionist, the first thing that I would naturally do is smile. Smiling is such an important thing to me as it shows me someone is friendly and approachable. Russians do not smile at strangers. To them smiling at a stranger is a very weird thing to do and they also think it is very hypocritical. Apparently Russians are very direct and pride themselves on their straight talking honesty. Smiling at a stranger to them is a fake thing to do and I read that this way of thinking was introduced as part of the propaganda against the USA during the Soviet times. Americans were made out to be sly and untrustworthy hiding behind their big fake smiles. It has been very difficult to reduce my smiles! I feel like I have a passport photo face when I speak to people...scary for them! I can kind of understand them thinking its a bit weird smiling at complete strangers. If someone walked up to me smiling, I would smile back and not think much of it but if they took it one step further and walked up to me laughing......weirdo!
As the days went on in St Petersburg, we started to mellow a bit and become more understanding of the Russian ways. We have still been giving the police a wide berth but now when the old ladies shout at us for doing something wrong (they shout at everyone in the tourist attractions for minor offences), we no longer feel annoyed but give them a little smile......passive aggression ;-)