Part five: Russia and Estonia.
|
St Petersburg (21st July)
We entered the harbour area by the route proposed in The Baltic Pilot. From Kronshtadt
along the 12 mile Morskoy (sea) Kanal then on through the harbour, past dozens of
cranes in massive cargo handling areas all of which looked abandoned and the product
of better times, then into the Bol’shaya Neva. Here the buoys are followed around
a shallow area to the customs quay, just beyond which is the Central River Yacht
Club.
|
|
Our first trip ashore meant passing through customs so we joined a queue of some
200+ people from 2 cruise liners which had just docked. Interestingly they didn’t
have visas so were each given a bright red tour visa card but they had to stay in
the tour group. We three were checked and stamped and then we had the freedom of
the city.
From the yacht club it’s a 5km walk through the old industrial areas of the city,
sadly all now closed, very tatty and a little bit frightening. We had a map of the
city but navigation was really difficult because stupidly the map was in English
and so used a mere 26 letters to construct street names, whereas the actual Russian
signs used 33 and were pretty unreadable so totally failing to match our map. Imagine
a word in upper case letters having a backwards facing 3 or a lower case b in the
middle and then a random smattering of Greek letters hmmmm. We found the main road
and then it all seemed less intimidating, we just needed to ignore street names.
St Petersburg is a city of real contrasts, splendid opulent palaces, and churches
co-exist next to run down apartment blocks albeit they are housed in what once where
splendid buildings. The roads have poor surfaces but in some places are six lanes
wide, very busy and full of pollution as non of the vehicles have catalytic converters.
Many of the vehicles are old and rusting, see the gallery photograph of one such
taxi.
|
Winter Palace & Hermitage Museum
When we visited the palace we had never seen so many riches and opulence in one
building, too much to take in in one visit. The cathedrals and churches we visited
were breath talking in there splendour. A horizon full of spires and domes covered
in gold leaf, so many riches and yet on every corner was also a reminder, in some
form, of the poverty that exists in the city.
|
Our son David has written the following about St Petersburg:
I have always wanted to visit Russia, after learning the language doing a college
course. So I was very excited about a month holiday aboard Mithril and the chance
see St Petersburg. Once we had lined up for 30 mins and been through a very organised
and professional passport control we emerged into a sunny industrial St. Petersburg.
The first challenge was where is the city centre, after looking at the map turning
it upside down a few times, putting it away we set off down the busiest road. It
was a very hot day resulting in constant smell of car fumes all the way into the
city. It was amazing , round every corner was something interesting, remains of
old industry or an old derelict church and the ever present clapped out Lada.
It was a long walk into town, but once we found the river Neva we were nearly there.
Once in the centre the architecture takes you by surprise, virtually every building
is a masterpiece. We had our usual mid-morning coffee and then headed for the Hermitage
museum.
I must add, that in each room was a security guard, well actually a Russian grandmother
sat poised to shout at anyone who stepped out of line. You could not look them in
the eye.
|
We also visited the Winter Palace, again, amazing decadence, gold leaf, silk wallpaper,
crystal chandeliers and beautiful parquet flooring we could actually walk on. Amazing
paintings and furniture. Altogether quite breathtaking.
|
|
Once outside we decided to take a walk through the city to see the sites. We ambled
down Nevski Prospect, the main street, until we came to what seemed to be a war
memorial full of columns. We walked round it and then realised that it was the main
cathedral. We also saw the most amazing building The Church of the Spilled Blood.
It is red brick but has elaborate bright coloured domes. It reminds me of a smaller
version of Gaudi’s Cathedral in Barcelona. Inside is even more stunning, all the
internal walls are made up of mosaic. 7,000 sq m of minute tiled pictures of the
most unusual religious images. It is absolutely amazing. I can not imagine the time
it took to complete these.
We ended the day with a Russian nesting doll shopping frenzy. An amazing day in
a amazing city.
Day 2 we decided to spend the day just outside St. Petersburg and visit the
famous Summer Palace, at Peterhoff. It is about an hour outside of St. Petersburg.
The summer palace is where the Russian royalty would spend their summer, a bit like
the Queen and Balmoral. The bus journey was fascinating it took us on a transect
right through the centre, industrial areas, residential area and the suburbs. We
had a guide on the bus who explained all the changes that had taken place over the
last 30 years. A lot of the central part of St. Petersburg was destroyed during
the second world war, and these areas have been left as parkland. Under communist
rule they encouraged new housing to be built out of town, so there are lots of massive
communities of flats. In the countryside you drive past derelict palaces, and grand
buildings that are now abandoned.
Peterhoff Palace
|
This palace is another amazing place, each room awash with historical artefacts,
elaborate pictures, chandeliers and furniture. Again a show of wealth and power.
What made the place special for me were the gardens, full of wonderful fountains
inspired by Peter the Greats travels through Europe and all powered by gravity.
|
|
Late afternoon, on our way back to St Petersburg, we had a traditional Russian meal
in a reconstructed wooden Russian village served in heavy hand made pottery.
|
Hanko (24th July)
We had another rest day after the exhausting trip to Russia and we changed the engine
and gearbox oil. And later, for the princely sum of 1 Euro, we went up the water
tower to see the splendid high level views over the harbour, the marina and the
archipelago. Naturally we took a few photos.
|
Tallinn (26th July, 64 miles from Hanko)
We had an early start, leaving the marina at 0615, and followed the 4 leads out
to sea, it was then 50 miles straight to Tallinn.
The wind was light but enough for us to sail at over 5 knots on a fine reach until
about 15 miles from Tallinn then the wind died. Redgrave our Hydrovane had handled
the steering up to this point. David’s first off-shore sail, across the Gulf of
Finland, couldn’t have been much better. There was little harbour traffic but we
adhered to the Traffic Separation Scheme rules, in case the locals were as ruthless
as the Germans are said to be over infringing local TSS rules.
|
|
We arrived at Tallinn and tied up at the customs berth at about 1730. Papers and
passports they said. Passports, no trouble but what papers? It seemed we needed
exit papers from Finland. Now in truth we’ve had no new papers since leaving Sassnitz
in Germany, thinking that as we were still in an EC country we were OK. Anyway they
looked at the Sassnitz one and said OK. They stamped one of our pre-printed crew
lists and told us to clear out properly before we left.
We tied up in the rather small but nice guest harbour in front of the yacht club.
The yacht harbour is at Pirita about 6km from the centre of Tallinn. The whole harbour
complex, sports facilities and hotel were built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics and
it must have been splendid then, as even now they are impressive. The showers facilities
where great, huge changing and lockers rooms big enough to accommodate 50 people
at a time, they had about 50 such rooms. The harbour loo block was a little less
impressive the tiles which must have been the original ones were badly in need of
replacing.
|
On our first day into Tallinn the weather was really hot. The old walled town is
wonderful, particularly in the morning sun, its a vast array of original well maintained
houses dating from the Hanseatic period and even earlier. All the rooves are a deep
red and contrast beautifully with the grey walls and towers. You can see this from
the picture strip below, taken from the top of a church tower - with only 320 steps
to the top - phew.
|
Winding cobbled streets with lovely handicrafts, felt work, stained glass, hand
knits in cotton and linen, amber and much more. Lovely town square where you can
sit at pavement restaurants/bars and watch the world go by. For us this is the most
impressive of all the Hanseatic towns we have visited. Then followed a day of such
torrential rain that we stayed on board for the whole day. The newspapers later
showed 46mm had fallen and although 23mm fell the following day we ignored it and
ventured out to visit a ruined convent, the impressive botanical gardens complete
with tropical houses and the TV tower. The tower was 314m tall and we where able
to take the lift to 170m where there was a viewing platform and a restaurant.
The next day we ventured out into yet more rain to visit Tallinn where even the
market was operating but we preferred to look around the large department stores
to doge the rain. The stores equal anything that England has to offer. Prices are
slightly lower than England so we bought some speakers to improve the sound whilst
we watch DVD’s. We are told prices are slowly rising and locals expect them to rise
even more now that they have joined the EU. Eating out in Estonia; we got very good
quality and variety for little money.
|
July's figures
|
|
Distance logged.
|
399
|
|
Hours at Sea.
|
80
|
|
Engine Hours.
|
32
|
|
Average distance per day.
|
44
|
Return to top
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)