5-5-2013

We boarded the train around 11 PM. We had our cabins assigned and the plan was for the persons in the furthest cabin to board first, then those in the next cabin, and so on as the passageway was narrow and this way everyone would be able to get to his/her cabin. John and Mary boarded first; Marilyn and I were to be next. However, Mahin pushed her way in front of us pushed her two large pieces of luggage up on the car's platform. I reminded her that we were supposed to go in order, and she completely ignored me and continued. This, of course, did make it more of a challenge for everyone else in our car to get to his/her cabin.

The cabins were quire nice with two bench seats facing each other that folded out into beds with linens and a blanket, space for luggage storage under the beds, and a small table adjacent to the window. We each had a little travel kit with slippers, toothbrush, etc. The restroom was at our end of the car and was very clean. Once we were settled in, I decided to talk a walk up to the dining car about three cars up. Rick and Mary (retired AP reporter and yoga instructor living in Utah) were playing a card games. They invited me to join; shortly after my father walked in so we invited him to join also. This was one of the very few things I did on this trip with my father without Mahin. We played cards for about an hour and then back to our "bedrooms" for the night.

The train was remarkably quiet and I slept well. I changed into my pajamas, put in my ear plugs and put on my sleep mask (I don't typically use this, but it gets light very early and the curtains on the train would not keep out the light and I know the light tends to wake me up). I was not disturbed at all during the night by Marilyn. So I probably awoke around 7:30, took off the mask and saw Marilyn ,meditating. She is a Buddhist and when we later talked about her meditating, she told me does this 30-60 minutes a day, either all in the AM or in the AM and PM. I tried to be very quiet so as not to disturb her. Once she was done meditating and I was ready for the day, time for the "boxed" breakfast we had received. A train attendant came by to take coffee (supposedly instant) or tea orders; I ordered tea . Breakfast was " a juice box, a wrapped pastry , cheese, and, I think, a granola bar. We packed up and I had some time for the computer and to read.

This was the slow train which had a number of stops and took about 11+ hours for the trip. The express train is a four hour ride. We pulled into the Moskovsky Vokzai (station). St. Petersburg has four rail stations in the city serving inter-city or international routes. We had a bit of a walk, probably ¼ mile at least, to get through the station and then had to walk back on the sidewalk outside almost as far as we had come to meet our bus. The front of the station faces Vosstaniya Square (Uprising Square), amajor circular traffic hub of Saint Petersburg. Prior to the February Revolution, the square was known as Znamenskaya, after the church of the Sign, which was built there in 1794-1804 to a Neoclassical design by Fyodor Demertsov. The square was a scene of many revolutionary demonstrations and protests. After the Bolsheviks seized the city, they had the square renamed into the Uprising Square to commemorate these events. The church of the Sign was torn down in 1940 to make room for the surface station for the metro station which opened in 1955.

We stowed our luggage and boarded the restaurant and drove about 10 km to the Park Inn Pulkovskaya hotel. The hotel at the southern end of Moskovsky Prospekt, one of the city's major streets, that marks the southern entrance to St. Petersburg,and is near St.. Petersburg's Pulkovskaya airport. The hotel is very large with two wings connected by a ground floor walkway. While we ate lunch, the luggage was unloaded, then we turned in our passports, and got our room keys. After settling in, we had a bit of free time. Nancy from Colorado was not feeling feel probably due to the recurrence of a sinus infection and she had developed a pretty bad case of conjunctivitis. I was told there was a pharmacy near the supermarket across the street, so I set out to find it. The pharmacist gave me a bit of a hard time although the phrase book I had included words for antibiotics and conjunctivitis in Russian and it turned out she spoke English. I was able to get both medicines I wanted (Augmentin and Cipro eye drops) for the grand total of $15. I took them back to Nancy (and she did get better over the next few days).

We then regrouped to visit the World War II memorial, The Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad, in the center of Ploshchad Pobedy (Victory Square) in front of the hotel. On the distant side of the square is a very large Soviet/Stalin style concrete skyscraper. The monument was built in the early 1970s to commemorate the citizens and soldiers of Leningrad during the 900 day siege by the German Nazis. This would be the first of many war memorials we would see. The memorial has a tall obelisk which is on one side of a broken ring. One descends below street level to find 900 torches around the broken ring. There are engravings on the walls and back on steet level soldiers, sailors and civilians who did not surrender to the Nazis despite hunger, cold and constant bombardment. Underground there is an entrance to a large memorial hall with a very impressive and sobering exhibition addressing the siege and its impact on St. Petersburg. We learned that despite having very little food or fuel, the citizens maintained their dignity. Schools continued to operate and plays and concerts were held. We Americans, for the most part, do not appreciate the power of the direct impact of war.

As we were walking around outside the memorial at the end, I heard a yell from Mahin for Tatiana our tour guide. I looked up the stairs on the plaza and saw my father getting up. I ran up there to find that he had fallen and had chipped all his front teeth. Mahin was rude to me when I asked why she called Tatiana and not me. My father seemed otherwise ok;. I told him one of the distant relatives I had been in contact with and hoped to meet later in the trip is a dentist in St. Petersburg and I offered to contact him. My father did not want to do that, did not really let me assess his injuries, and went off with Mahin.

Back to the hotel and dinner there, then time to retire as we would depart the next day My father and Mahin chose to eat at separate table, so I had very little communication with him about how he was doing. .I learned later that the two of them r had taken off in a cab to go to a Russian folklore show. (since I am writing this after the fact, Michael, my son, and I did get to the show as well.) So much for father-daughter bonding on this trip.