Contiki's Scandi/Russia Tour: Part 2 - 17th August - 31st August 2000

St. Petersburg

They advised us not to take any valuables into Russia and not to go out alone.  After the pre-departure meeting, I was so apprehensive that I almost decided not to go.  As we went into Russia, the crew removed the hub-caps from the bus and warned us that the bus wouldn't be cleaned in Russia.  A bright shiny white bus would stand out, so we didn't want to draw more attention to it!  They'd warned us not to leave anything on the bus, because they don't just steal things from it - they'll take the entire bus!  

In Russia, you have to book a package of things to go to - so you either get everything or nothing.  We had a guide who took us to see the Peterhof Gardens and Fountains, the Hermitage and Winter Palace, Smolny Cathedral...  Inside the Hermitage, you walk for hours around the art galleries.  They're never ending.

They took us to a folk show, where we watched traditional dancing and listened to a choir - not really my scene!  The first time I've ever been to the Ballet, and it was to see Swan Lake at the Alexandra Theatre.  

The Curiosities museum, which many of us visited, had foetuses in jars, many of them of deformed babies and siamese twins.  It was a bit gruesome, but I guess I just wanted to go out of curiosity...  Many people confuse Spas no Krovi (Church of the Spilt Blood) with St. Basil Cathedral.  This is definitely in St. Petersburg.

Moscow

We arrived at our hotel in Moscow - 'Hotel Russia', the biggest (and most ugly) hotel in Europe with 6000 beds and also appears in half of the postcards in the background of St. Basils Cathedral!  All of us celebrated being in Red Square that evening drinking 'Champanski'.  I hadn't realised until I visited Russia that Kremlin doesn't mean 'The Kremlin', it means 'fortress', and just about every town in Russia has one.  Inside 'The Kremlin' are a museum, a church, a theatre, and a giant broken bell which was too big to be hung up.

We got to visit Lenin's mausoleum, although I have my doubts about whether he was real or a waxwork model.  Regardless, we were not allowed to carry bags, cameras, hats - no talking, smiling etc.

It was kind of shocking that Russia is trying to erase all evidence of it's communist history.  The underground stations which had been decorated with mosaics, paintings and statues are now being whitewashed, although we did get to visit a few that remained at that time.  The museums too are selling off their exhibits and closing down.

Other things included in the Moscow tour package were the Moscow State Circus, a visit to a military museum and a 7 course dinner at a restaurant...  The courses weren't big, even I managed most of them!

During our free time, we wandered around markets selling matryoshka dolls, old military equipment etc.  5 of us, Barney, Paul, Tina, Mina and myself took a ferry along the river, past Gorky Park and the huge Peter The Great Monument, and landed near to the Kremlin, after walking for miles trying to work out whether the '7 Sisters' building in front of us was one we'd already walked past or not!  My favourite part of Moscow was the area behind the Kremlin with all it's fountains, bars and restaurants.  It looked fantastic at night when it was lit up.

My parent visited Russia about 10 years ago, and lots of things that are in Moscow now were there before.

Well, what can I say about Minsk - not much more than our guide really.  She struggled to think of anything to tell us!  

The most interesting part was the Island of Tears.  A memorial which had been built by the mothers of soldiers who had been killed at war.  We got to visit the Cathedral too.

Before our historic crossing into Poland, we stopped at Brest.  They were playing piped music in the entrance to the fortress, which was quite spooky, but a worthwhile place to visit.

The currency was a bit confusing with the 1,000,000 rubel notes being the same value as the 100,000 notes.  

Our tour set a new Contiki record - 8 hours and 13 minutes from arriving at the Belorussia/Poland border to leaving!  To celebrate, we opened some bottles of Champagne - but no glasses...  No worries, we got some of those empty plastic coke bottles, cut them in half with a Swiss Army Knife, and used the top and bottom as 2 Champagne glasses!

We had a 2 night stop in Warsaw, and whilst many of our group went to visit the Auschwitz WW2 concentration camp, the rest of us went sightseeing in Warsaw.  After a day of walking around the city, our nice clean bus came to collect us, and we had music, dancing and strobe-lighting on the drive back to our base, the Hotel Felix.  Did we get some strange looks from the people in the streets???  I woke up both mornings at around 5.30am to see the most wonderful sunrise.  

We visited Lazienki Park, the Chopin Monument and Palaces within the park, and also the area of the WW2 Ghetto where the Jews had lived.  Deb and I spent most of the day strolling around the Old Town, with it's jewellery shops and art markets.  The Old Town had been demolished during the war and has since been rebuilt.

Another 2 night stop - we got to take a quick look at the Berlin Wall when we arrived in Town before stopping for a couple of hours in the Bahnhof Zoo area.  The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church looked really dramatic when it was lit up at night.

On our full day in Berlin, we had a walking tour which included Hitler's bunker, the new construction work at Potsdamer Platz,  parts of 'The Wall', the Brandenburg Gate, The Telecommunications Tower...  

The rest of the day, we spent at leisure, with much of the afternoon at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.  Fascinating museum, with stories of how people tried to escape from East to West.  One exhibit is a car with false panels with dummies stuffed inside.

A big night out, as one of our group was leaving us in Berlin - and this time, no Contiki bus to take us back to our hotel.  Lots of people got lost on the Berlin subway, especially as the train we wanted wasn't running!

We had a flying stop in Amsterdam, arrived for dinner and left early the next morning.  We were given a whistle-stop tour of the red-light district, and then a few stayed out for an evening of entertainment.  I don't know where they ended up, but it was not a pretty sight on the bus the following morning!  We left for Zeebrugge and waited for a few hours to sail, but due to the industrial action on the ferries, ended up sailing from Calais.

Vodka, Tractors and Rock and Roll...
We heard our day song for one last time 'Where's the Moon' (Leningrad Cowboys) and then lots of sad goodbyes!  This tour was incredible, and I could have stayed on the same bus for another 5 weeks with the same people.  

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