Studying Abroad in Peter

I was lucky because I lived with a Russian family, but if you are there, try to meet locals--they may not seem friendly at first, but they really warm up and are extremely curious about Americans. The coolest thing for me was that I interacted and fell in love with a culture that my parents' generation grew up fearing. It's really quite incredible. Americans and Russians have many similiarities-both Russia and the US are large, vast countries, with a lot of power and influence. But there are many differences--they are just getting to know democracy, they are a country that went from tzarism to communism. Americans have never been under either rule. Very similiar, but very different places.

Quick Tips:

Most Russians do not know English, but it has started to be taught in the schools. Once I had a 12 year old translate something for me! Slightly embarassing that his English was better than my Russian. German is quite popular, if you know that. Read the St. Petersburg's Times--it's written in English and is a very good guide to the town. You can pick it up at a lot of fast food places (esp. McDonald's) and some Metro stations. Otherwise look read it online at link

Best Way To Get Around:

The Metro is very fast, but you will probably still have to walk quite a bit. Buses are ok, but you have to wait a long time to catch them. They get very crowded--sometimes I missed my stop because I could not get to the door.

Taxis will rip you off--it should not cost more than to get from one end of the town to the other. But as a foreigner, they will overcharge enormously. The "offical" taxis are black and look like taxis, otherwise stick your hand out and some private citizen will stop. They will charge less, and although I read this in guide books before I left, I thought it was ridiculuous. But I saw all my Russians friends do it, so I did too. And it worked.

Tsar Alexander II was murdered here while riding down the street. His son Alexander III commissioned the church be built in his memory. The alter was built right on the spot where Alex was killed, and in order to do that, the church looks slightly off balance and dislocated.

It was closed for 60 years during Communist times and used as a storage building of all things. Crazy. But it has been restored and looks really beautiful. Wish they had a tour in English, but everything was in Russian. But the art was absolutely beautiful.

Peterhof is frustrating, but fun. There are many seperate buildings, and for each one you have to buy a seperate ticket. It's frustrating because each building costs about $6 ($3.50 for students) to enter but the Russian price is about 5 to 10 cents. Sometimes my friends asked Russians to buy our tickets (which they always obliged to) and in exchange we bought them their tickets. Maybe not really kosher, but we saved a lot of money. Everything is very beautiful. Take a nap on the lawn, there's lots of space. It's a full day trip, so get an early start.

OPEN 10am-6pm MON & 10am-5pm WED-SUN

This is really great musuem. This is usually where tourists go AFTER the Hermitage, but I think they should go here first. Has an enormous amount of good Russian art. The section I wanted to see most was "closed for renovations" of course--it contained the Chagall/Malevich/Kandinsky collection. Three months later I heard it was still closed and for no known reason. Very frustrating. But the rest is still very worthy of seeing. Ilya Repin's work is displayed, who I had never heard of, but soon realized he is one of Russia's treasures. There are also 3 separate buildings which are spread across town. The Stroganov Palace, which is on Nevsky, was holding a terrific retrospective on Alexei Jawlensky.

Their English website is at:
http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/index.html

Definitely the weirdest place I ever went to on a school field trip and probably just the weirdest place I ever been to at all.

The first floor is really, really boring. Skip it. Don't waste your time. (well, maybe glance through it) It's mostly creepy looking manequins with arrowhead after arrowhead and millions of spears. It isn't set up very well, and although it could be interesting, it just wasn't. I would have walked out, but I was on a field trip, so I couldn't.

BUT the upstairs, that's the really interesting part. It's called the "Anatomical Rarities Exhibition" or better known as Peter's the Great's 'babies in jars' exhibition. Apparently Peter has an interest in anatomical disfigurations and rarities and he collected them in jars. There are all sorts of siamese twins, hands with 6 fingers, fetuses, on and on. Not for the light at heart.

This is where St. Petersburg was born. As the story goes...on 16 May 1703 Peter the Great tore up two pieces of sod, laid them in a cross and proclaimed, "The city will lie here." And so it did. In actual fact, Peter wasn't even there, but it makes for a good story.

This place takes a long time to get through--I think it'd take a good day to get through. The maps are really confusing and it's hard to find your way around.

The absolute coolest part was that Nicolas II's tomb is located there, but at the time I was there, it was "closed for renovations" (you'll hear that a lot in Russia). But I was told it would be open by August 2000. Many of the other Romanoff's have been laid to rest there.

I would recommend taking the Metro and maybe a bus. I took the Metro there and got really lost and wandered for quite some time, because it doesn't drop you off that close.