Bye Bye Russia!

June 22 -

Well, we’ve left St. Petersburg.  We were supposed to sail at noon, but the wind picked up and was against us so we finally got away at around 2:30 PM.  We understand now what the problem was getting here; the channel is extremely narrow and with high winds would have been impossible. They had to hold up inbound traffic so we could make our way out.  There’s no room for passing.  Along the way we sailed by a Russian naval base.  The ships looked a little rusty, but there was a sub there that looked in pretty good shape.  We can’t even imagine how many listening devices are planted in the Baltic and how much aerial surveillance is being done. We didn’t see any buzzing of aircraft, ours or theirs.

We wouldn't have gotten away from the dock without the help of this tug.

Gazprom headquarters building under construction by the port.  The locals don't like this, but they were told "too bad."

The Russian sub - not the Red October

High speed hydrofoil coming from somewhere to St. Petersburg

Our tour guide Olga was very interesting to listen to, not just about the history of what we were seeing but also about some of the realities of being Russian.  For example when we left the Catherine Palace we tried to go out the usual exit.  A guard there told us the exit had been changed (evidently for no apparent reason) to one much further away.  Olga said that this is typical Russian; more precisely she said, “We Russians know how to suffer.” When she talked about schools, doctors and hospitals, it was clear that Russia is not the first world country it would like to be.

As we waited in line to enter the Catherine Palace, she told us that she had taken a group from Gazprom, Russia’s large natural gas conglomerate, to the Palace not long ago.  She said some money changed hands between the Gazprom people and the ticket people, and magically another entrance was opened for the group.  Once inside they were allowed to visit rooms that Putin has used during visits of foreign dignitaries which are normally closed off.  Clearly, as in many places, money talks.

It was an interesting  visit.  I think I’d like to go back and spend some more time at a little less hectic pace.