55 degrees today in St. Petersburg, Russia. Partly cloudy with occasional sun sightings. This is the first country where i needed my passport to get off the ship. Cued in a customs building and then herded 14 guests to a shuttle bus. I escorted a guest tour of two royal palaces today. First impressions of the city from the bus were positive for the most part. On the surface, it looked like many other major European cities; bland imperial era architecture, lots of car traffic, etc. Written Russian looks confusing. There seems to be a big disconnect between what's written and what's said, you know? Unlike our Estonian tour guide, our Russian tour guide didn't have such a disdain for the old communist era. She spoke in mostly neutral tones and almost avoided the issue all together. On several occasions when referring to the time line of a construction or renovation project, she would forecast that "eventually it will be done" or "hopefully it will be done for my grandchildren" and then remark that "nothing happens immediately." I wondered if this unpredictable time table, and the resulting "aw shucks" attitude towards deadlines, was a result of living in communist Russia. She also mentioned that a lot of the street names, squares, and buildings are going back to their "original" names. Didn't see any "Stalin Boulevards" on this tour, thank you very much. But this process of renaming, as with other processes, "takes time."
We visited two palaces: Vladimir and Yusopov Palace. Behind their modest facades lay these very opulent palaces stocked w treasures from foreign lands: statues, chandeliers, paintings. The Yusopov Palace is best known for the place where Rasputin was murdered: the cyanide cookies didn't take so they shot him... Not how I want to go.
As interesting as it was, it all got a little repetitive. At some point you start blankly shuffling around like a zombie taking pictures of things because the tour guide pointed at it or because it was shiny.
Overall though the tours were good. I'm already a little bit palaced out, and I escort another palace tour tomorrow.
After my set tonight I went out to the crew deck of the ship and noticed that at 10:45 pm the sun was still up. Snapped the photo I posted below.
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