Several months before embarking on my Ireland adventure, I read an article that described how one can take a ferry from Helsinki to St. Petersburg and stay for 72 hours in Russia without a visa. I was immediately hooked and knew that I wanted to do it, even if it was a bit of a random journey, unrelated to (and nowhere near) anything else I planned to do in Europe.
Fast forward about 8 months, and I was planning a trip from Dublin to Helsinki, just to be able to take advantage of this visa loophole (created, I believe, in order to allow cruise ship passengers to disembark and spend lots of money in St. Petersburg. But, the local ferry company, St. Peter Line, has figured out how to utilize this loophole to their advantage and allow people to base trips solely around this 72-hour visa free rule).
Unbeknownst to me, however, I arrived in Helsinki the day before Midsummer Eve, a major celebration for the Finns, and one on which they all retreat to the countryside to spend time with family. So, the city was almost completely deserted and lots of museums, restaurants, etc, were closed for a few days. It was not the most exciting visit, but I did get to see some cool Midsummer bonfires. There was also a street market featuring some incredible crafts and tasty food, like the best salmon I’ve ever had in my life.
Other popular Helsinki destinations are the Temppeliaukio Church and the Sibelius Monument. Temppeliaukio Church, also known as the Rock Church, is built into solid rock, and I was fortunate enough to visit during a piano recital.
The Sibelius monument is pretty neat, but quite far from anything else you’ll be visiting. Once I walked all of the way there, only to jockey for a picture with the busloads of tourists, I kind of wondered why I’d bothered.
Being on the ocean, boat rides and tours are popular in Helsinki, and some of the best views of the city can be seen from the water.
However, my time in Helsinki was short, and it was hard to give it the proper attention when I was really focused on my next destination: St. Petersburg.
The trip between the two cities is about 13 hours, so the ferry departs at 8pm and runs overnight. Because it takes so long for everyone to check in and board (remember, you have to go through passport control before you can get on the ship!), you still have to be at the ferry terminal around 3pm.
At check in, I handed over my printed ticket confirmation, as well as my hostel reservation (one caveat for travel to Russia is that you prove you’ve booked and pre-paid for accommodation). In return, I was given a boarding card, arrival and departure cards, and information about the City Bus Tour that was required booking for those traveling on St. Peter Line.
Part of the visa loophole requires that visitors are chaperoned by a certified tour operator during their whole time in St. Petersburg. The idea being, I assume, that if they’re going to let you in without a visa, they want to know where you are at all times. St. Peter Line gets around this, however, by operating a bus between the ferry terminal and city center. It’s convenient for passengers and, on paper at least, meets the legal requirements (although technically, as a visa free passenger, if you were stopped by police you could get in trouble for being unchaperoned and away from your tour, although I also read that St. Peter Line has some *agreements* with the local authorities to ensure this doesn’t happen).
Despite living by the ocean for most of my life, this was my first time on a big ship (ok, it probably wasn’t that big, but bigger than a sailboat!). And although passengers will only be on board for 13 hours, it’s decked out with two bars, two or three restaurants, a cafe, a club, duty free shopping, and a kids entertainment area. And yet, no wifi. There was wifi you could purchase for $5/hour, but it only worked in the lobby on the main deck.
The next morning was full of waiting: waiting in the lobby, crushed with all of the other passengers and tour groups vying to disembark, and then waiting at passport control. Although the line at passport control was slower than most, simply because of the sheer volume of people going through, Russian passport control was surprisingly the easiest I’ve ever been through. Unlike entering most countries, they don’t ask you anything, or even exchange a single word. You present your documents (passport and arrival card), they are examined, every page of your passport is copied (I could see all of this reflected in the glass behind the agent), then your passport is given back to you with a migration card and you’re good to go. I imagine that the reason all of this is so straightforward and you don’t experience the “grilling” that other border control agents employ is because you have to jump through so many hoops to get here in the first place that if your documents weren’t already in order, you’d never make it this far.
Once I got through, though, I couldn’t believe I was in Russia. The view from the deck of the ship was pretty disheartening: smokestacks, cranes, and rundown factories. Once you get into the city, however, the opulence of St. Petersburg appears, and this dichotomy is apparent in much of the city.
After being dropped off at St. Isaac’s Cathedral, I set off for my hostel. It was a lot farther away than the map made it look, and St. Petersburg was a lot hotter than you’d think Russia would be. Sweaty and exhausted, I arrived at the hostel and gave my name to the woman at check in. She clicked around on the computer, and told me that she couldn’t find me. Confident, I handed over the reservation confirmation I’d printed for check in at the ferry. She perused it for a moment, then said, “I see the problem. This isn’t for tonight. This is for July.”
Panic-stricken, I began to babble about visa requirements and passport control, sure that I was going to be caught and kicked out of the country (at best), especially when the woman informed me that the hostel was full up for the next few nights. Luckily, St. Petersburg is full of really amazing people, and she called up their sister hostel that happened to have had one bed available for the next few nights. They even arranged it so that I would get a discount, because this new hostel was more expensive than the one I thought I’d booked! It all worked out well, because the new hostel, Baby Lemonade, was in a more central location and a little livelier and more friendly.
Still, I thought I had all of my planning down to a T, and yet, not only did I make a mistake, I made a mistake in my travels to Russia, of all places. I guess I’m fortunate that the agent who checked my documents when I checked in to the ferry didn’t notice my mistake!
The hostel snafu took up several more hours than I’d anticipated, and it was late afternoon before I finally found myself some dumplings and visited some amazing buildings.
Peter the Great is said to have modeled St. Petersburg (ostensibly not named after himself, but rather St. Peter, although I’d imagine he enjoyed the connection all the same) after cities like Venice and Amsterdam, and thus St. Petersburg is crisscrossed by over 300 canals and rivers. So, boat tours are a huge thing here, especially at night during the midsummer period known as White Nights.
St. Petersburg is so far north that during the summer there are only a few hours of darkness, and even then, some people claim the sky never gets completely dark (it looked dark to me, but what do I know). Every night, beginning at 1:30 am, about a dozen of the 300+ bridges are raised to allow barges to go through. Somehow, this has become a nightly party, and a draw for tourists and locals alike. Families come with children, local bands play, and dozens of the boat tours sail through as the bridges rise (before the barges can get on with the real business). The mood is so festive and contagious that it’s easy to get caught up in the countdown to 1:30, before you remember that you’re waiting with bated breath for a bridge to go up.
Although the dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral is currently under construction, it still provides one of the best views of the city.
Just visible in the first picture above, as the furthest gold spire, is the Peter and Paul Cathedral, within the Peter and Paul Fortress, the resting place for most Tsars since Peter the Great, as well as the last royal family, after their remains were recovered in 1991. Yes, Anastasia (or Maria) and Alexei, too, although their bodies weren’t discovered until 2007.
Oh, did I mention the Matryoshka dolls? They’re everywhere.
My time in St. Petersburg was so short that I really rushed to get in everything I wanted to do, and ultimately I still missed out on some significant things, like visiting the Hermitage, the famous museum housed in the Winter Palace.
My two and a half days in St. Petersburg were definitely not long enough, and I’d love to go back some day. I found the people to be incredibly friendly and willing to help, even though I don’t speak Russian. I’d been warned that, as a foreigner, I might be taken advantage of and people in the public service industry might be unfriendly, but at most they were indifferent, adopting an “I don’t really care about you” attitude, but exhibiting no animosity.
Perhaps because of the challenges of getting there, Russia really seems like a foreign land and a world unto itself. While I enjoyed every second of my visit, I never could wrap my head around the fact that I was in Russia. Clearly I’ll have to go back to see if it will sink in next time!
Going Out Your Door 