St. Petersburg, a city of 5 million inhabitants, has had a reputation as a place where all the Finnish tourists get robbed in the metro - at least this was what we had heard. Therefore, we were very cautious in the beginning of our trip, my sisters being almost hysterical about the security. However, it didn't last for long. After taking a taxi from the train station to our nice hotel, A Boutique Hotel, close to Nevsky Prospekt, we already started our discovery of the Russian (drinking) culture. We headed to Datscha, a recommended bar at Ulitsa Dumskaya. As the bar didn't seem to serve any cocktails, we were obliged to start our trip with some vodka (around 3 Euros a glass). After the first little grins, we were into it. Chatting with Igor ("hey, these Russians are not so ugly after all" - the first myth busted) and dancing old school hits with Pjotr and Andrei (PhDs working for the Russian Academy of Sciences) a little later leaving our bags unwatched somewhere next to the Swedish Erasmus students and local semi-hipsters. After one last vodka, feeling very safe, we headed back to the hotel; after all, we had a Hermitage scheduled for the next morning.
St. Petersburg seems to have a good nightlife and there are plenty of nice bars to choose from. Another cool place where we ended up was the Terminal (on the trendy Ulitsa Rubinshteina). A small place inspired by New York style. I'm not sure if it was the vodka or the local people, but it was easy to start a chat with the Russians and some of them spoke excellent English (some none). I guess the friendly Russian people that I met during our weekend trip were a major reason why I really liked the atmosphere in the city. Thank you Andrei, Pjotr, Igor and you guys at the Terminal!
The second myth busted: For some reason, the Russian kitchen has never really inspired me. At school in the 90s, we ate stroganoff and borsch soup that left a bad taste - for years. As a vegetarian, I was also afraid that the culinary scene in St. Petersburg wouldn't offer me much choices. Fortunately, I was wrong and I completely fell in love with the blinis and pelmenis that we had. A surprise for a Finn is that blinis are not those puffy and small pancakes that we are used to call Russian blinis in Finland, but more like the usual thin crêpes. In any case, they were great. A cheap and typical local option is to buy some from a Teremok kiosk (see below) that you can find everywhere (except when you're looking for one after an exhausting tour at the Hermitage). A recommendable mushroom blini from Teremok was only 41 rubles, equivalent to 1,30 Euros.
A more comfortable place to try some blinis is Bliny Domik (at Kolokolnaja 8) not far from the Terminal bar. The menu is abundant so there is no trouble finding something that satisfies everyone in the group. My sisters shared a tasty borsch soup and blinis with fish and caviar. I had a pumpkin blini with boiled cabbage (100 rubles, or around 3 Euros). My sister was courageous enough to try Russian wine, but I had the traditional tea served in a samovar (photo). Our waiter was a guy happy to practice his English and the other waiter was also entertaining the clients with his singing talent. He was practicing for his concert in Finland... In the next street, there was a superbe Georgian restaurant, Ket, where we had dinner on a Saturday night. The food was excellent and I'm waiting for the moment I can buy some khachapuri in Helsinki as well.
For Sunday lunch, we had pelmenis in a very cosy restaurant, the Idiot, close to St. Isaac's Cathedral, by the Moyka canal. It used to be one of the only vegetarian restaurants in the city, but now the menu offers meat dishes as well. The mushroom filled pelmenis, or dumplings, were delicious (see below). There was also a free shot of vodka on the arrival, though on our last day in St. Petersburg we could have also survived without any vodka drop. I think I finally need to buy that pasta machine so I could start doing some pelmenis myself.
My brother-in-law had jokingly, but I guess believing in it to some extent, said that we should only take our worst clothes with us as they would be burnt after our trip due to bedbugs. Many people in Finland still like to think that Russia is a backward and poor country. Of course it is that as well, you can see it immediately when you cross the border or check some statistics; there is absolute poverty and the inequalities are huge in Russia. But at the same time, there are people in St. Petersburg that are richer than the richest of Helsinki all together. The amount of luxury shops and fancy restaurants is overwhelming, the main street Nevsky Prospekt is lined with boutiques that we didn't even dare to look at.
There was also a wonderful delicacy store Kupetz Eliseevs close to our hotel on the Nevsky Prospekt (see a good panorama of the pretty Art Nouveau style shop on their website) selling exquisite European products, Russian vodka in beautifully decorated bottles, caviar, and all sorts of delicious-looking pastries and cakes (by the way, there was also the one and only black person we saw in the whole city). Despite the huge variety of food and wine, there was unfortunately no Russian champagne, or shampanskoje. A drink that is definitely worth tasting!
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