But it is not Russian. Moscow is Russian. So I'll wait until I get there to form any real impression of the country.
I did a foot tour of the city today with an Aussie couple I met here who were nice enough to invite me along. This is me on the the Neva River, with The State Hermitage Museum in the background. The city is at roughly the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. You can see I was quite comfortable in my shorts and a polo shirt, but it's 11:30 pm and the sun hasn't set yet!
The museum is the centerpiece of St Petersburg and of the world's great art museums, with the largest collection in the world. It's housed partly in the Winter Palace, a place of almost obscene splendor. You can see how big it is. Even at a distance it fills the camera frame, and it's as wide as it is long. I plan to go back and do a more thorough tour because, get this, you can take pictures inside! (For a fee, of course.)
The entry to my hostel is dirty and dingy and a little scary. The hostel itself is on the third floor, and it's wonderful. The girls who work here are friendly (and beautiful!) and speak perfect English. I'm sleeping in an 8-bed dorm room but this is the bathroom:
My hostel bathroom has a jacuzzi!
St Petersburg has produced some of Russia's favorite sons: Vladimir Putin is from here, as were Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoevsky. I can only assume that this place is named after of one of his novels, otherwise it's a pretty lousy name for a restaurant:
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