50 (fifty) or 15 (fif-teen)

We boarded the bus at noon and appeared to be the only non-russians on board! Most people we thought took the train. It was dark and stifling with heat until the driver turned on the engine. Luckily Andy had scored a last minute cold bottle of water and a couple of yogurts.

The scenery along the way from Helsinki through Porvoo to the border was not very distinctive, yet very green. Lots of trees and a few open spaces. After 3 hours and just before formalities, the driver (thankfully) stopped at a gas station for people to get food. It was hard to figure out (based on asking a few russians), but this stop was either 50 (fifty) or 15 (fif-teen) minutes long. Since we weren't sure, we just closely watched the bus driver as he went through this cafeteria style line. Hot food seemed to indicate 50 minutes. Cold, 15. Turns out he got a little of both so we still had to follow him through the 'meal.' We scarfed down some food and saw at about 12 minutes, unfortunately, the driver got up and put his flat and silverware away. We were enjoying the reindeer meat and salad from the hot buffet, but had to scarf the rest down.

The bus pulled into (what we thought) was the Russian border station. Everyone got off the bus and walked through on foot. The guards were friendly, spoke fluent English and even bantered with Sarah about Canadian Hockey. 'What was this?' we thought. This was so easy. Not nearly what we were expected from the Russian border. It was not long before we realized that we were LEAVING the Finnish border. We still had 10 miles of no man's land to go before crossing into Russia.

The minute we crossed into 'no man's land' the timbre changed dramatically. Rougher roads, bigger, more 'impending-ness' in general, and of course the occasional stripped down vehicle lying on the side of the road.

Truth be told, only after a few histrionics of the female guard being distraught that we didn't know Russian forcing her to have to mark our declaration forms, it was actually surprisingly painless. (Perhaps not for the convict-looking guy in front of us though who was getting totally grilled by patrol). One more once through check of our passports from another Russian guard and there we were on our way to St. Pete.

The signs passing by in Russian allowed Andy to start to try to learn the basics,--deciphering basic Cyrillic -- which would be our world in as we crossed the country over the next 16 days. What was even more different though was the feeling in the air of what I call 'Non.' The strange feeling that you are not supposed to be doing anything. i.e. going anywhere, taking photos, talking to people, etc. Which is hardly the reality -- except for the photo taking part. As Andy found out at the gas station he was filming when all of a sudden on the loud speaker someone said something about not taking pictures here. At the gas station! Yes, we all know what great secrets could be compromised here if anything got out. No, no one should ever know that Russians use gasoline.

It did give us the opportunity to make anomolies of ourselves on the bus however and invited all types of questions from fellow passengers about where we were from and what we were doing. Who are these people that film gas stations? It was good for us because one nice older St. Petersburg woman gave us the low down on the city and how to get around as well as some perceptions of Russian life at the moment. "Everyone loves Putin," she said. "He had over 80% at the poles at the last election." And that most Russians considered, after now fighting a common, more 'terrorist' force, for the United States and Russia to be "Brothers," she said.

The bus dropped us off in a random area of St. Petersburg. We were advised not to walk to our place we had reserved, that it would be too far, but excited to explore, we set out with full packs. We should have taken their advice. It took almost 2 hours to get there, but we did see some amazing scenrery along the way including, of all things, a gorgeous blue-tiled mosque. And we learned a valuable lesson. St. Petersburg is not a walking city. The blocks, while few, are enormous and you could walk for 2 hours easily to cover just a small part of the city. A little too late, the Metro became our friend.

The next few days, we tried to get to know the city. Nevsky Prospect -- where people watching is a nightlife event in itself. An old cemetary where Dostoevsky and Tchicovsky (among others) are buried. A market complete with whole cow heads. A public Banya (Bath) which combines an ungodly hot sauna with a bracing plunge into an ice water or literally pull a cord for the 'treat' of an icy cold bucket of water to be dumped on your head.


Even saw the results of the dangerous St. Petersburg traffic when a white Lada ran into a blue one at an intersection and flipped it over on its top like a matchbox car. While everyone around was stunned, the driver pulled himself out of the window of the upside down car, unharmed enough to argue with the Middle Eastern young driver who had just hit him.

Also, we checked out the Hermitage for a day. The highlight, however had to be when they raise the drawbridges during 'White Nights.' -- which means even at 2am there is enough light in the sky to see your way through the streets and they raise these mammoth bridges (street lamps, cable car tracks and bus cable tops and all) at surreal angles to accomodate larger ships on the Neva river at thinner traffic periods.


After a couple more nights (one of which included playing an electronic slot machine which we never understood but still liked the awful animated graphics of cherries and lemons kissing each other),
we joined an organized group which we were hoping would be a nice break from independent travel for a while as well as help with the numerous rail tickets and transfers it would take to plan out a proper Trans Mongolian rail- trip across Russia, through Mongolia and into China. The next few days would see us getting to know the group, getting our stuff together, and taking in some more sights before we headed to Moscow to begin our journey.

Our first leg (technically before the Trans Mongolian train was to begin) was an overnight train from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Our deep, communist-red train with 'C C C P' emblazoned across the bottom, left a few minutes before midnight and was due to arrive in Moscow at 8am. Oh yeah, they even set out a little plastic breakfast tray which included a descent instant coffee and salami but stale bread an indescribably awful turkey pate.