St. Petersburg Stories and Tips

Quote: I've been twice to Leningrad but never to St. Petersburg. "So what?", you may think, "I've been to many places twice and to others not at all." That may well be the case, but here we're talking about the same Russian city. Its first name…

Quote: When we decided to book tickets for the Trans-Siberian I really had no idea of what life would be like on the trains. The first train from Moscow would take three days to reach Irkutsk and I wondered if there would be enough to divert…

Quote: Describing the Mongolian dining car will be a short exercise as for most of the journey through Mongolia, there wasn’t one. From Irkutsk to Ulan-Baatar we relied mostly on supplies bought in Irkutsk. We stocked up on bottled water, orange juice, biscuits, beer, yogurts and…

Quote: The Trans-Mongolian journey from Irkutsk to Ulan Baatar was a very different experience from our first train. The accommodations were far more basic and the carriage interior was a stark clinical white with no noticeable efforts of decoration. The cabin configuration was the same but…

Quote: (continued from Part I) Our beds consisted of two cushy bunks, with large puffy pillows, a substantial duvet and an additional blanket. There was no danger of getting cold as the heating was kept at a comfortable temperature. It was, however, a sharp contrast to…

Quote: Departs Moscow Yaroslavsky Station at 11.29pm from 5 Komsomolskaya Ploshchad.We arrived at Moscow’s Yaroslavsky Station in good time for our 11.29pm departure. Missing the train when traveling on the Trans-Siberian didn’t seem like a wise move so we tended to show up 1-2 hours before…

Quote: Svezhy Veter Travel Agency426000 Izhevsk Karla Marxa 228a, RussiaTel: 7.341.245.0037sv@sv-agency.udm.ru www.sv-agency.udm.ru There are various ways to book tickets for the Trans-Siberian train. We had read stories about people who just turn up and buy once they’re in the country as this is one way to…

Quote: Petrogradskaya Storona is the Russian name for the Petrograd side of St. Petersburg. Consisting of five islands joined by numerous bridges, this is St. Petersburg's oldest and most treasured historical area. The best way to come here is to take line 2 of the metro…

Quote: The most impressive of St. Petersburg's suburban parks, Petrodvorets, or Peterhof, is a spectacular park-palace complex with a unique array of fountains, gilded statues, wooden bridges, and well-manicured gardens. The best time to visit is in summer, when all the fountains are in operation and…

Quote: I’d like to tell you about the history of this place. In 1900, during a trip to Paris (it was Repin's 5th time in Europe; the first one was after his graduation from the Academy, when he won the Gold Medal and a six-year scholarship,…