Random thoughts on St Petersburg

I bought my first train ticket yesterday. Quite an adventure. Here it is:



I had hoped to take an overnight train to Moscow, but I waited too long to buy my ticket and there were no seats available. Being an umemployed travel bum, I forget that some people actually, you know, work for a living. So it didn't occur to me that it might be a problem getting a ticket on a Sunday night. All the Muscovites who come to St Petersburg for the weekend take the overnight trains on Sunday so they can be at work on Monday.

So I had to book a train in the afternoon, which means one less day in St Petersburg, which means I won't be able to go to Pushkin Palace and see the famous Amber Room. Bummer.

I went to the Dostoevsky Museum today, which was a ripoff, but I did take this picture, even though I probably wasn't allowed. This is his tobacco box. On the lid his daughter wrote "Papa died today" and the date of his death.



(Note to my Russian friends: This is what the audio guide said it says. I take no responsibility for the translation.)

It was a nice, sunny day so, despite my first Russian hangover, I took some pictures of some landmarks. Here is one of the canals here in "Northern Venice":



Baltimoreans may recognize this guy. Yuri Temirkanov the Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic but he was also Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2000 until 2006.

Dostoevsky Day

Today I decided to visit a few sites that would require me to navigate my way around the city. I wanted to work on reading maps and signs in Russian. I did a Dostoevsky tour. One of my favorite authors lived and wrote and was imprisoned and was buried right here in St Petersburg. It was another day of "Things That May Interest Only Me."

Just a few blocks from my hostel is a house where he lived. And at the far end of town is a monastery in which he is buried. It's sort of a celebrity graveyard, with some of the most influential and famous former city residents buried there, including the composers Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky.

This is me at Dostoevsky's grave: