Into the Czardom

October 10th 2019

Outside our train's windows, the birch and spruce forests of Finland are reflected in still, perfectly silver forest lakes.
As we cross the Russian border, the pretty red block houses make way for slightly less pretty old industrial buildings, and the friendly Finnish border agents get some reinforcement from their slightly less friendly Russian colleagues, who — judging from their uniform — might just as well work for the KGB.
Welcome to Russia.
From Ploschad Lenina to Vladimirskaya

We arrived at Finlyandskiy station in Saint Petersburg just about five Minutes ago, and already a drunk Russian guy tried talking to us in Russian until his less-drunk companion dragged him away. A few meters to the side waits a grim looking man with a bouquet of flowers.
I buy a SIM at a small hut in front of the train station, then we take the metro (which takes a while to find in the first place) to our apartment. Things are much easier once you have Internet — with the possible exception of Russian electronic door locks, those are still pretty hard. But after we pressed all the buttons, entered all the codes, and rung the bell at two different apartments by accident, the door finally opens.
Spoken Russian sounds the best when delivered with a deep voice from creaky speakers in the subway, by the way.
On our first day in Saint Petersburg we dutifully cover most of the tourist must-sees. Churches, Palaces, that kind of stuff.
Art?

For the next day we planned a visit of the Heremitage, the Russian equivalent of the Louvre — our time in there is split roughly evenly into waiting at the cloakroom (capacity: 2400 people) and sprinting through all the rooms in half an hour. I'm personally not really into all the oil paintings on display here, but there are some really gorgeous rooms to discover: Libraries, golden halls, velvet everything, chandeliers and all that.
Afterwards we switch over to the opposite side of the square into the general staff building which houses the modern and contemporary collection of the Heremitage, among other things. Said collection turns out to consist of one Anselm Kiefer and a video installation by Bill Viola. The rest is more oil paintings, with some Picasso and Matisse here and there.
Hideaway

We are standing before a large wooden door, a few steps to the side some guys in costumes advertise a wax figure cabinet, though the Charlie Chaplin in the window looks like he's been dead for a while.
There is a hand-written note in Russian on the doorbell, the number three prominently featured on it.
We'll just take that as "ring at number three" and indeed the door opens a few seconds later to reveal a beautiful historic staircase. On the first floor someone opens the door and welcomes us into the Brat cafe — a serene, somewhat hidden cafe with loft-flair. The barista is taking a break on the sofa while we put our coats into the cabinet.
Our waiter feels the music and dances around the room with a pot of hibiscus tea, another waitress flits about in her flowery dress holding a stack of pancakes.