Pavlosk by accident
Trip Start
Aug 11, 2006
1
9
27
Trip End
Nov 19, 2006
St Petersburg,
Russia
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Today I had a proper adventure - when I was here a couple of years ago, I couldn't fit in visiting Tsarkoe Celo (It's called Pushkin now, after the Russian national writer. Kind of like Shakepeare, but a poet, and rather tempestuous.), so vowed I'd see it this time. It's Catherine the Great's old palace, and the gardens are full of fountains, sculptures, things to see. Getting there is an adventure in itself (as you'll see) - I had to get the metro to the of edge of town, then get a kind of mini-bus called a marshrutka there. Finding the right marshrutka was a bit of a challenge - the book just said they 'leave regularly from outside Moscovskaya Metro'. Outide the metro turned out to mean cross a massive square with a rather prominent Lenin statue, whilst banks of speakers are playing the 1812 overture at deafening levels and a fountain does a little dance to it (Sophie, remember Budapest? about 100 times louder, but the fountain wasn't as good, just up and down)!! I found the right marshrutka, but, as I didn't know where I needed to get off and couldn't really see anyway, I somehow managed to overshoot Pushkin. Not too much of a disaster though, the Pavlosk Palace is just down the road, so I hopped out there.
Not nearly as grand as Pushkin, the Pavlovsk gardens are a small landscaped area near the palace, then huge sprawling woods to tramp though. The paths started off as wide avenues, with statues, a maze, palace garden-y things, then got narrower and narrower until there was just me and a hell of a lot of trees. It was a really nice reflective afternoon, just me, trees, and not a lot else. I had a lot of fun imagining the 18th century ladies swishing up and down to the lake in their big flouncy dresses!
The evening was almost as cool. Anna, Dan, Rob and I went out for a couple of drinks, and stumbled into a bar called "Snatch". It was covered in film photos, and a band was playing Russian versions of classic rock songs. Pretty good, but the real entertainment was watching the Russians dance. Whilst highly commendable for their endless enthusiasm, I feel I can honestly say that no dancing has ever caused me such gleeful delight. I have no idea what they though they were doing, but the appeared to be a) imitating a jelly fish, b) doing the hokey cokey, or c) pointing and shouting excitedly at the ceiling. Really, this should be a spectator sport! One of the dancers came over to chat - Dancing Dima! He was very sweet - I think he was asking Dan and Rob why there weren't dancing with the beautiful ladies, in between telling us that he 'loves America' (hands over heart kiddies), and really not seeming to understand that try as I might, I don't understand!
Of all the people that are hideously rude (the ticket lady at the train station shouting at me for one!), people like Dima make it so much better. The stereotype of Russians all being surly and miserable doesn't really hold (although a few seem to rather enjoy being surly and miserable), and guys like Dima are hilarious!
