Day 4 St Petersburg
Today I'm going to Peterhof. The weather is a bit better this morning as well so I made a good decision to put it off for a day.
So to get to Peterhof I jump on the metro to the Avotov station then cross the road and get a minibus to a stop outside the gates. The minibus things in Russia are interesting. There's no ticket machines or anything. You just jump on and hand the driver some cash and he digs around in his money bag for change. The drivers are often talking on their mobile phones and have mates in the front seat with them. Seems totally dodgy but they are present on google maps so they must be legit.
Anyway - I got to Peterhof without any issues. The thing Peterhof is mostly famous for is the bunch of gold fountains out the back of the main house. I found out that I was 4 days late for the fountains! They turned them off at the end of the day on Monday! If I'd come out here directly after I arrived in St P (which I was totally unprepared for) I would have seen them! Ah well. Lack of planning strikes again!
Make my way into the upper garden and there are a ton of fountains with the water turned off which makes them look at a bit weird. It's interesting to see the way the piping to the fountain is structured though. I'm sure it will be useful in my career as a plumber.
Since they have turned the fountains off the entry to the lower garden is free which is nice. Saves me a whole $16! I shouldn't scoff. That's enough money for some poor backpacker to eat for a week or two if they need to. For me that'll pay for a few beers later.
The golden fountains are pretty spectacular against the backdrop of the palace so I will look forward to coming back here one day during summer when the place is looking its best. There's a pretty hefty wind coming from the north so I'm glad I wore my heavier jacket instead of the hoodie today.
So I spend most of the morning just wandering around the lower garden. There are a bunch of portals around so I capture all of those. And I used up about 50 excess Jarvis by flipping some low level blue portals so I could get some unique captures :D Knew those things were going to be useful for something.
The park is filled with small museums and stuff but I didn't see any that were open. None of the fountains around the place were going and they had started building wooden boxes around all the statues for the winter. No wonder they were not charging entry to the place.
Despite all that it was still a beautiful place to wander around. It's right on the gulf of Finland so there's water along the entire back of the property. And the property is a mix of manicured gardens, orchards and forest.
I will definitely be back during spring or summer one day.
After I'd got bored of walking around I went up to tour the interior of the manor house. I had to wear booties again but I really can't complain this time ... my shoes were covered in mud from walking around the park. It's a museum that is basically dedicated to the very well maintained interiors of the manor house. Each room is a different style and each is absolutely beautiful without crossing the line into gaudy (in my opinion). The styles range from lavish gold everywhere to soft pastels and plaster finishings to the dark wood study of Peter the Great.
No photos allowed unfortunately.
Head back to the hostel after that before going out for a few beers at a small bar nearby. It's from the Jaws brewing company in Yekaterinburg and it's a pretty cool little bar. They've got a great selection of beer and an English speaking bartender which is great.
A Russian guy overheard me talking to the bartender and started chatting to me. He works in the sales department at the St Petersburg branch of BIC stationary (you know ... pens) and they were having an end of financial year celebration. There were only 5 of them and the team ended up inviting me to their party with this guy acting as translator. It was fun! I don't remember much of what we talked about but we showed some photos of home, talked a bit about my trip and we somehow got onto politics and I told them about the stupid gay marriage vote in Australia (just make it legal already!).
These Russians did not like the idea of homosexuality. I was kind of surprised at how blunt they were about it. I mean I've seen news articles about how gay people are treated in Russia but I figured it was just the older soviet generation unable to move on and that the common person just wouldn't really give a shit. Particularly in a city like St Petersburg which is more cutting edge than the rest of Russia. And these people were in their early 20s. How wrong I was. Disappointing.
I hung out with them for a while until they said they had to go for work in the morning so I took the hint, finished my drink and went back to the hostel to crash.
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