Baltic Adventure - Day 7

The Westerdam arrives in St. Petersburg, Russia

Monday, June 28: St. Petersburg, Russia

Our much-anticipated visit to St. Petersburg finally arrived, greeting us with a sunny blue sky. Rather than participate in shore excursions arranged by Holland America, we decided to make our own arrangements for a private tour through a Russian company called Red October, which had come highly recommended to us by our friends Suzanne and Diane in Los Angeles. They had taken a tour of St. Petersburg with Red October the year prior. So Eric made all the arrangements with Red October via email months in advance, and everything was arranged prior to our arrival. We even remembered to bring the tour tickets that Red October had mailed to us at home weeks before we departed for Europe.

Prior to our arrival in St. Petersburg, much consternation was caused by the Westerdam's shore excursion director who kept insisting that passengers would not be allowed into St. Petersburg by Russian authorities if we did not (a) have a Russian visa which had to have been arranged before we left the States, or (b) had not arranged our tours exclusively through Holland America. They even went so far as to say that people (like us) who had arranged private tours with companies like Red October would not be allowed through Russian immigration. So, when it was time to leave the ship, we waited nervously in the line outside the tiny shack at berth 32 which passed for Russian Customs & Immigration. We were so nervous, it was like a Cold War mentality had overtaken us. We didn't have Russian visas in our passports because Red October had assured us they would arrange all the necessary group visas prior to our arrival. Finally we reached the booth with the uniformed Russian official sitting behind glass. It was one of those moments when time slows to a crawl. It was the moment of truth. It seemed like I was moving in slow motion as I handed over my passport to the Immigration officer. But she simply opened my passport, uncerimoniously stamped it, and handed it back to me. That's it?, I was thinking. She hadn't even asked me if I'd packed my own luggage or whether I had visited a farm during the past 30 days. We were through. We were in Russia!

The Red October representative laughed when I told her the story. She looked at us and said, "What did you think would happen? It's a free country after all!" And she was right. Russia is a free country. And we were ready to enjoy our visit.

Because we'd been so afraid we would be held up in Immigration, we left the ship very early, much earlier than our tour was scheduled to begin. But it was only a few minutes before our private mini van, with driver and tour guide arrived, apologizing profusely for being late -- even though they weren't. Our tour guide's name was Luba, and our driver was Alexander. They would be our Russian hosts for the next two days.

We left the pier and headed into the city for an orientation drive, during which we saw many things, including: St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral, Theatre Square with the famous Mariinsky Theatre, St. Isaac's Square and Cathedral, Vassilievsky Island and the Arts Academy, Menshikov Palace, the Neva River Embankment with beautiful views of the Winter Palace (The Hermitage Museum), Palace Bridge, The Admiralty, Nevsky Prospekt , Smolny Cathedral, Shpalenay Street, the "Field of Mars," Troitsky Bridge, Peter the Great's cabin, and the Cruiser "Aurora."

And that was just the beginning. We were already glad we'd followed everyone's advice and decided not to spend our first day going to Moscow, because two days in St. Petersburg wasn't going to be enough!