So in a spur of the moment event, I decided to head out to the opposite end of the Neva River to go to the Oreshek/Schlisselburg fortress. I did this despite knowing that I had essays to write and a major amount of homework to do. My only reason that it was closing on October 31st, and it was now or never.
Heading from the purple to the red line, I went all the way to Lenin's Square to go to the Finlandsky Train Station, because that train lead directly to the fortress. Upon entering, I went up to the cashier, and asked for a ticket to the fortress, which I said by name. The grumpy old lady of course, wanted the exact name of the station. I told her that I didn't know it, but I knew that the fortress was next to it. Of course, she told me that they didn't sell tickets to it.
Going to the information booth, I decided to ask the lady there what the station was called. She, in a very uncheerful mood (I got scolded), told me that it is called Петрокрепость . Why was it so hard for the cashier to tell me that herself? It took only a second for the other lady to find it on the map.
Returning to the cashier, I asked her for a ticket to and from the station, and present my student ID, which essentially gave me half off. After much confusion with what time the train departed, a person who was getting on the train with me told me that the train was boarding at 9:54 AM. So, from there I went into a cafe, drank coffee, and started my reading for my Russian History presentation.
At about 9:40, I headed back to the gates, and saw that the train had just arrived, and made my way inside, sitting in a corner, propped my feet up on the seat in front of me, and began to read the retellings of foreign ambassadors, merchants, and prisoners during the time of Ivan the Terrible, and their thoughts on his reign.
During the nice, quiet ride, interrupted only by people trying to sell their horrible wares, it started snowing way harder, and I was quite happy to see the super green Petersburg landscape become white.
After a good 2 hours on the train, I made it to the station, and I met a Russian lady who was going to the island as well. This quite aided me in my endeavors, since I had no clue of what to do, and she was nice enough to ask for directions to the ferry, and from the ferry to the island.
Once on the island, you can see the Oreshek Fortress, which is a medieval fortress later turned prison once there was no need for it. It suffered heavy bombings during World War 2, and there are several memorials to the soldiers who died defending it, and of those who survived. All in all, I thought it was super cool, and the quiet only added to making it feel like a prison, paired with the snow. Most of the buildings lay in ruin, but the old and new prison were still intact thankfully.
After taking the ferry back to the mainland, I looked at the schedule and saw that the return train wasn't due until 2:30 PM. It was 12:35 PM and my feet were frozen thanks to all the slush from the snow and my shoes becoming torn apart from my excessive use of them in walking. I should probably invest in boots sometime soon.
I then decided to just take the Marshrutka, which is a privately owned bus, for the first time ever, and it was just completely awkward. When I paid the bus driver, he got mad at ME because HE dropped 10 rubles. I had to tell him that I wasn't giving him 10 more, and that if he wanted to, he could pick it up when we stopped, because what I had left was for the metro. I sat in the back, and it took an hour to get to the end of the orange line, which I took to Alexandra Nevskogo Ploschad', and took the connecting train to Gostiny Dvor, to of course, meet my friend Alexandra, who those at Juniata might recognize!
We decided to go get lunch on Nevsky Prospekt, since she was visiting the city, and we just ended up chatting about different things. Sasha was accompanied by her boyfriend Bob, who is a very nice guy! Afterwords, we went to go see the interior of the Kazan Cathedral, in which photography is forbidden. (I'd rather get yelled at by a museum employee about pictures than a religious babushka). Meanwhile, the asian tourists just didn't seem to care about taking pictures, and even I had the mind to scold them.
We soon departed, and I went home, to start writing my presentation, because who doesn't love doing work at the last minute? This was a first for me during my time in Saint Petersburg.
(Photo credit to Bob)
October 25th, 2016
We are exactly 2 months away from the western Christmas, and we received quite an early present here in Saint Petersburg. It snowed. While this is not a major event to the average northerner, to me, a southern man, a proud Texan, snow will always leave me completely awestruck. So this will always be worthy of a blog mention, and I am quite content that it didn't rain on my way to class, since that would have made me quite sad. It did, however, rain on the way home, so we win some and we lose some. Since it's the city, the snow didn't quite stick at all. Oh well, I'll start complaining when my toes are frozen for walking outside too long.
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