Monday, July 16th: Train to St. Petersburg

There's something about sleeping on a train. The constant movement makes it very easy for me to sleep. This was not the case for everyone else. As we left the train, some of our Americans were noticebly ready for some R + R. Breakfast on the train was not like I remember on the train three years ago from Penza to Moscow. Today's breakfast was tea, a small package of cookies and a small wrapper of chocolate. It could be worse... We had pulled in 15 minutes late after hearing stories of derailments in the area. It must not have affected us. Took a van to the Moscow Hotel which catered to foreign tourists. So in less than 24 hours, we went from Murom, the town visited farthest east (a bit rustic in its accomodations), back to Vladimir (not bad for its accomodations), to St. Petersburg with all the accomodations that westerners expect in a modern hotel. The restaurant downstairs had a huge buffet filled with any kind of salad you can imagine, many kinds of meats and potatoes, fruit, drinks, and desserts! We toured the city by bus. The first stop was very sobering - the huge cemetary where thousands are buried unidentified in mass graves marked only by the year: 1942, 1943, 1944, the years of the Nazi siege that killed or starved on average a thousand Leningraders a day for 900 days. Yes, that would get you near a million people that perished in WW II just from the city of Leningrad!! Americans don't have the same perspective on WW II (The Great Patriotic War in Russia) as the Russians do. Nobody attacked the US mainland and killed 30 million of our people!! So everywhere, the Russian state acknowlegdes the sacifices made during WW II. It is why all weddings take a visit to a memorial or special site to pay their respects to those who served and gave their lives during the war against the fascist invaders.

We visited Pushkin Square, the Church of the Spilled Blood, a Russian Orthodox service as it was in session during worship. We ate dinner at the hotel, walked Nevsky Prospect (main drag), drank Nestea (Swiss Nestle Corporation has a huge investment in Russia), and to sleep with curtains closed to keep out the light of 'white nights' in St. Petersburg. Being the largest city above 60 degrees latitude, the sun never really fully sets in the summer months. So to get the most sleep possible, it is important to close those curtains. At midnight, you can still see quite a bit across the city. By 4:00 am, the sun is up and shining! Imagine this city in January - only a few quality hours of sunshine per day! Winter must be tough to live with. This may explain some of the reasons why Russians seem to people of extremes - dark, brutal winters and bright, beautiful summers!