St. Petersburg, Russia
Shore Excursion and Port Information

José Sá

Definitively the highlight of this itinerary. The city is rather new as it dates from the eighteen century and was built on the delta of the Neiva River. It is majestic and grandiose, and I think in knocks out Rome as far as exuberance of architecture is at stake. The JS was docked on the port of the city, the place is big, noisy and ugly, and rather far from the city centre. It was also the place chosen to refuel the JS. I think that Royal Caribbean my have cut some deal with the local authorities to get advantageous prices for it.

There were no transfer buses to nowhere around the city. If you want to go on your own for a visit it would have been necessary to arrange for a visa in advance and transportation on your own also. Passengers on the tours had a special visa that was granted just for the purpose of the tour.

I took three tours: the city sightseeing, the folkloric dancing show and the river cruise canal with visit to Peter and Paul Fortress.

On the first tour our guide was Catherina. The pour girl hardly had enough time to breathe while we drove across the city, as whatever road we went buy there were dozens of points of interest that she would call our attention to and add a small description. Here again, coming from various places around the bus, lots of wows, yeahs and yeps. There were only two stops for photos and whenever this happened there were street vendors trying to seduce you with postcards, matriuska dolls or whatever they think might interest tourists.

Quite frankly I have a hard time trying to understand some passengers much more concerned trying to find souvenirs than admiring the city. On the last stop of this tour, right in front of the majestic church of the Spilled Blood, there was a sort a flee market. I spotted a couple that as soon as they left the bus headed directly to the flee market, not even taking a picture of the church. As far as I ran remember it was a 30 minute stop and I ended the visit to the church with time to spare before the bus was due to leave. So I went for a very short stroll around the flee market where I found a woman trying to speak its limited English with a couple. She would do barely more than put one word after another in a desperate attempt to build a phrase while helping her with wide gesticulation. The couple I had seen getting out of the bus and heading directly to the flee market, were her interlocutors, and responded to that schematic English with a Morse code sequence of grimaces. I am sure they found some ground of understanding since the woman managed to add one more packet to the hands of the couple.

The second tour was also very interesting. It was a show of folkloric dances. Our tour guide Irina, did nothing more than to salute us and welcome us to St. Petersburg (again, at list for me) while we drove to the theatre located near the most lively road of the city, Nevsky Prospect. The performers were professionals and the costumes very beautiful. You had to pay a fee if you wanted to take pictures. Again inside the theatre, lots of souvenirs were there waiting to be bought.

On the second day I went to the river cruise canal tour. Our tour guide was Valentina, competent and knowledgeable. The tour was very interesting except for the last part which was a visit to Peter and Paul Fortress. On one part of this fortress there is a church where all the czars of Russia are buried. The place was packed with tourists that would have to elbow their way to follow their tour guides. The result was mass confusion. I could not hear one word of what Valentina said down there.

I have somehow the feeling that around very touristy places, there are too many visitors at the same time.

Besides that St. Petersburg has several buildings under renovation, as attested by the works on the façades. It’s a gigantic endeavour since there are so many interesting buildings and I assume also that a very expensive one, although the current high price of oil has busted Russia’s economy. On the roads of the city one can observe lots of expensive German made luxury cars, along with many once popular, locally produced Ladas. These tend to break easily, so I witnessed during the tours. It was a common sight while on tours seeing a Lada with an open bonnet and a driver bent over it with disillusioned looks while accessing the fatigued guts of the soviet era beast. Around the place trams are old and rusty and almost always empty. However they have vans equipped with far too many seats for their size, that I suspect, serve as collective taxis.

A curious note: on every tour I went, the name of the driver was Vladimir. We discussed this fact with tablemates at dinner that also had other Vladimirs as drivers. I ended up with the feeling that in the Soviet era the name one was given as a child would determine their future occupation.

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