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We make our way to Sheremetyevo Airport on a damp smoggy morning and relax in an Irish pub while old Ilyustrian Aeroflot planes chugger along outside and jet people off to remote parts of Siberia and the Caucuses. Our slightly more modern Lufthansa A320 takes us firstly to Germany, and then back to where we started – Dublin.
I start to form the distinct impression that all taxi drivers in Russia are unshaven, beer bellied and only wear old plain white t-shirts. As we bypass the many pushy touts on our way out of Leningradsky station, the stereotype fails to deviate. The taxi ride itself is about as close to a motor related near death experience as you can have.
It was off to Moskovsky station for our midnight departure on the Krasnaya Strela, or Red Arrow overnight train – an antiquated monster of a thing which will be our home for the next 7 hours and 400 miles Southeast to Moscow. It’s also supposed to act as a sleeper train, but perhaps that’s just being a tad optimistic.
St. Petersburg has been described by many as an ‘Outdoor museum of Architecture’ – a phrase that couldn’t embody one city more definitively. It’s status as a UN World Heritage site is not without justification. For St. Petersburg’s splendour truly does spread to nearly every square, building and canal with ornate distinction.
A foot onto the platform at the methodically named ‘Finland Station’ (each train station in St.Petersburg derives it’s title from the destination), signals my tumultuous arrival. Our hotel transfer fails to materialise. While waiting, I get growled at by an army attired security woman – apparently for taking a photograph inside the station.
