Saint Petersburg Travel Answers

oh, yes!!! And in Poland, too! The world's largest photography swap meet is every weekend in Warszawa flea market.

For flea market / street stalls you will get on better in the Kyiv part of your journey ; not far from St Sophia's, the windng street downhill called Andrew's Descent is full of vendors

Dear Paisleypaul.... Thank for the exact directions from M. Udelnaya. You write of the "real flea market - people selling all kinds of bits and pieces from blankets on the ground." This is exactly what I want. I suspect my Russian guide thinks I'm nuts. She's never been to a flea market. :-) Here is my plan, and please tell me if my timing is OK or if I should modify it some: 9:30am Arrive by Siberia Air from Perm. Take metro from Mayakovskaya station to Gostiniy Dvor. 10:45 Attend Children’s Mass (in Russian) at St Catherine’s Catholic Church 12:00 – 3:00 Meet my guide at the front door of St Catherine’s Church. Take Metro to Udelnaya flea market. She to assist me to purchase Soviet residue and folk art at flea market. 3.00 – 5:00 Metro to Kresty Prison; guide to translate during tour. (See http://tinyurl.com/26o2q8) 5:00 – 6:00 Take chastniki to my homestay. So, that's my plan for Day 1 in Sankt Petersburg! I have two more days where I will see Hermitage, Catherine Palace, St Isaac's, Peter and Paul, and Museum of Political Police. And, I hope, to taste your Russian fish, "sterlet" at the Russkaya Rybalka restaurant. It's sounds very good on the Internet. :-)

Dear Tarochtka.... Please forgive me. I gave PaisleyPaul all the credit for your wonderful instructions! I am so sorry! Still, I hope you look over the schedule and tell me if I need to adjust the timing. Dear PaisleyPaul.... You write about the flea market in Kiev not far from St Sophia's. I will try to get to it, but my timing is pretty tight in Kiev. The plan is to fly on Monday, May 14, from Warsaw to Kiev on AeroSvit arriving 12:00 noon at Kiev Borispol. From the airport, I hope to get to city center and join a tour of Pecherskaya Lavra and St. Sophia. I also hope to see the magnificent chestnut trees. I have not found a tour company yet but I am looking. I have written two but have not received an answer. Will try some more. BTW, I grew up in Los Angeles, California, and while we had some very fine trees, we had no chestnuts. And by the time I was old enough to travel in the Midwest and Eastern parts of the US, a disease had killed most of them. I DO like trees! On May 15, I expect to spend the whole day visiting Chernobyl, returning to the city at 4pm or so. Then I take the night train to Moscow.

It's really up to you but I think you are wasting your time going to such places as flee market and fish restaurant. First, most Russians are not interested in old things you would see on a Western flea market. Russians come to a market to get cheap consumer goods from China, etc, generally of low quality, that's the point. I suspect your notion of a flea market is a bit romantisized. Second, Udel'naya metro station is far away, and you can't know if that "flea market" is going to be opened or not on that day. Things just don't run smoothly in Russia, and you are going to waste a lot of time trying to do things that are not certain of happening. As for fish restaurant, it would probably be just a "touristic" place where you would be ripped off your money. If you have only 3 days in St. Petersburg, go instead to one of the suburban summer residences (Peterhoff, Pavlovsk, Pushkin - the last two can be done in 1 days, if you leave early), which make this city unique. Also, try to attend some ballet or opera performance, go to all the museums, or just walks along the canals in the white nights! 3 days is not much, so try to maximize your time! That's my humble advice to you.

Serjozha, jeto eschjo samoe maloe, ja tol'ko vzdyhaju no chto podelat' - ja tozhe poproboval v chuzhoj monastyr' so svoim ustavom, ne vyshlo. On terjet dni v ozhidanii samoljota kogda poezd i deshevle i bystree i mnogoe drugoe. Koe-kak pomogli hot'. A nadejus' Ty svoju ideju s Kosovo Pole otstavil. Tam blin, i v samom dele nekudyshno.

Parni, the key word is in the Kresty post: "I have also taken tours of the Fresno jail and of "Corcoran,"... It will be FUN to compare." VERY FUN, indeed, isn't it? LOL

Elena, To my understanding Marshall is not taking this tour for fun - he is taking somewhat like paying tribute and out of his beliefs. Some things could be odd for us - people are different. Dont' be harsh on him but hope Marshall won't mind if we smile a bit. An somewhat unrelated story. Imagine, you are on a long distance train. You wake up in the morning and go take a tea from Titan. You did not wake up completely, just a bit. You put your favorite teabag (I am politically incorrect, I use IRANIAN teabags!) in the glass, open the Titan - and instead of boiling water you get very week little bit warm coffee. Than you realize, you are not in Russia, but America and it's what they like for morning. Oh well... I tried to explain to the train attendant, a Titan supposed to have boiling water and not warm coffee. She just could not understand. That I realized, I cannot teach the entire America what to dring for the morning :-) And besides, I am also weird. If I would arrive St. Peterburg I would just head straight to Novgorod and spend like week or more there trying to map all frescoes of Theofanes The Greek with my camera. Everyone has it's own: "u kazhdogo po svoemu krysha na bok poehala" :-)

I didn't try to change anybody's opinion or believes, the question I rise - only ethical one. The word "fun" has not so many conceptions, despite the English language is not my point. That's Kresty is a place there REAL people are living their real life tragedy right now. It's not a TV show. Organization of excursions is immoral and visitors may be more immoral - and this is the same in US and Russia (at least in accordance with the law the client guilty in some cases, you know). There are a lot of exciting pages about Chernobyl here, in VT - but the authors are young people. I'd never start this discussion would distinguished Mr. Marshall 19 years old. Tourist is only a guest and despite his own points of view, must keep in mind that to bring cake and bottle of good wine to the private party - doesn't mean he bought the right to go to the masters bedroom and bathroom (sometimes host's permission means only tactful reply to not tactful demand). And in the case of Chernobyl, etc- it's like you go to the master's bedroom without any host's permission but because femme-de-chambre told you that she knows how to get there in secret. My reaction is a bit excessive, I know, but it's better to be prepaired here, virtually - not "in situ", that some questions could be painful and reaction could be rather negative.

> doesn't mean he bought the right to go to the masters bedroom and bathroom You know, I feel many tourist would not just knock on the master's bedroom doors but would like even to see very private moments of the master in that badroom - just to "crack" the secret no one could crack before: "what is Russian soul?" :-) The thing is...there was a discussion around "what is west and what is east". We maybe can say: "west" are those who try to peek in the bedroom in the hope to get closer to the solution of the above puzzle, "east" are in the bedroom enjoying the time and don't ned to solve anything. An other thing is the "eastern joke". I can translate most of the Russian jokes into Hungarian and also the other way, usually with success. But often I fail to feel the American humor and often our Russian/Hungarian/what-not jokes have a crash-landing in America.

I hope for some people to know painful points of others means to avoid these points. I know there is Chinese traditional medicine which is based on vice versa, but I won't allow everybody to touch such points on me:-)) they are only for licensed specialist I asked to do it;-)))

Marshall, incidentally, you won't find much "oppression" in the Kresty prison, except that the inmates still live in crammed and inhumate conditions. But most of them are ordinary criminals, and this prison (built in the time of Catherine the Great, if I am not mistaken), has never been a political prison anyway. If you are interested in political prisons, go to Peter and Paul Fortress, which is one of hallmarks of St. Petersburg anyway, as all Romanovs from Peter the Great were buried there. The Museum of Political History could be interesting, but I don't think it's specifically devoted to "oppression" theme either. It's located in the former headquarters of the Bolshevik party in 1917 (ballerina Kshesinkaya mansion), which is close to Peter and Paul Fortress, BTW. You will find there quite a bit of info on the political parties in Russia in the pre-1917 period, etc, which could be interesting to you, or not, depending on how well you are familiar with the Russian history. I am not sure if the exposition has English signs.

Malashen.... Thank you for your advice. After thinking on it further, I've decided to NOT go to the flea market. Also, I agree that Kresty today is not being used ala Trotsky and is now used for common criminals. Yes, I will be going to Peter and Paul Fortress. Again, thank you for your interest and help. Yours, Marshall PS... email me if you might want to meet while I'm in S.P. :-)

I teach at one of the unversities in St Petersburg summers and I assure you many Russians like flea markets and old things and that Kresty prison has plenty of oppression(prisons worldwide are known for it!) but unfortunately you can only watch the prisoners use hand signals to communicate with their friends outside and that type of stuff gets old quickly and it helps to know Russian. I find it amazing how the "old trick" of deflecting tourists away from what the want to see(like Kresty and flea mkts)and toward more cultural pursuits is alive and well in the 21st century. Ochen harashow! Just my "humble" opinion tochno LOL

Ne sovsem tochno. Indeed, the Russians like everyone do love flea markets. The largest photography flea market is btw. not in Russia but in Poland (Warszawa) - but Russian flea markets are a gold mine for collectors. Important is to know, WHAT flea market to visit, there could be few and I am not up-to-date here regarding flea market specialisation. Some are targetd at tourists, these are better to avoid as you can buy things on eBay sometimes for less. Hint: some eBay sellers are the same as vendors on the flea market, they won't lower the price on flea market because they still hope to sell on eBay. Russian and Ukrainian presence on eBay is pretty strong, that affects the prices. For instance everyone and their dog know hows much worth is an NKVD-engraved FED camera and what kind of lens it should have. I am sure, Marshall has no clue about real value of such things, I am sure I can sell him one of my NKVD cameras for tenfold of the price it's worth. For many tourists the flea market is a tourist trap. You can get a good deal once in a while but very unlikely: as one of the sellers begins to unpack his belongings in the morning, there will be hawks immediatly (one of them could be me - if I am there). If I see a slow-speed NKVD FED camera with 2.0 lens being offered for 3000 Rbl - I will grab it immediately without waiting for gates to be open for general public. That's how it is working: to many insiders know the value and too many outsiders coming. What I wrote is regarding photog flea markets; cannot imagine others are that much different. As for Kresty: nothing wrong to see it; but please look how limited is Marshall's time. As it turned to be - for Marshall is not easy to things in that part of the world what are easier for us (i.e. purchase Russian tickets in Poland, orientation, etc.). He really needs local professional help and he is fortunate so far doing OK. I am following his Odyssey through Poland, Ukraina and Russia right now. In retrospect I wuld say, the advice given him to focus on different things WAS 100% RIGHT. There was nothing about diverting.

Dear ElenaKKK. You cannot explain morals to Indiana Jones or Trinity. Don;t waste your time, better reread Vasily Shukshin about the guy and taburetka.