The morning of our final day in St. Petersburg mainly consisted of frantic packing, frantic power bank charging, and trying to consume as much caffeine as possible for the lowest price. We all stored our belongings in one room and then headed out with our new guide for the day. We took a bus for 40 rubles and were told by one of the girl helpers that if we could use mathematical operations to get the 6-digit number on our ticket to add to 100 then we were supposed to eat our ticket for good luck. I personally think she was pulling our leg (but I still kept my lucky ticket for a rainy day aka finals week). We got off at St. Issac's cathedral and went inside. Again, it was a massive church but with less mosaics and more paintings than the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.
After exploring for a bit we bundled up and began a very long climb to the top. The countless stairs and the numb hands were worth it, though, as the view over St. Petersburg was remarkable.
After climbing back down we were all fairly hungry but didn't have time for a proper lunch. Instead our guide took us to the oldest baker in St. Petersburg. I wasn't sure what to expect but was pleasantly surprised by funnel cake type doughnuts for just 14 rubles a piece. For $1.75 I got four doughnuts and some coffee or, in other words, heaven.
With our insides warm and sugary, we headed back out into the cold to the Hermitage, a giant museum with over 3 million pieces in its collection. It was beautiful but actually had very little artwork by actual Russian artists. I have noticed, in the museum and throughout the palaces, there is a strong Roman influence. We even got to see an unfinished Michelangelo (notice the lack of toes/fingers and how rough the sculpture is).
We spent a while in the classical section before heading over to the more modern art. We got in for free with our student IDs and got to see some Faberge pieces and some Picasso pieces. After a while our feet were quite tired so we braved the Russian driving and went for dinner. Having eaten, we went back to the hostel, collected our belongings, and headed to the train station for another 9 hour sleeper ride. This time I traded my bottom bunk for an upper bunk and proceeded to not sleep at all. The car was so hot and I just couldn't get into a solid sleep. Eventually we got back to the Moscow train station and took the metro back to our dorm. I went back to bed for about an hour and then got up to start the school day.
Third impression of St. Petersburg: pastries on point, that stairwell wasn't very safe, more pasta please
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Emily Gentles is spending the spring 2018 semester studying math in Moscow.
Read more from Emily at
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