The JaYmes Escape

It’s almost a week since we said ‘Das Vidanya’ to St Petersburg and boarded the cruise ship to Helsinki. The contrast between those two neighbouring cities couldn’t be greater. St Petersburg is crowded, dirty, chaotic, cheap and spectacular. Helsinki is clean, spacious, highly efficient, expensive and simply elegant. St Petersburg is also a much bigger city with much more to do; there’s so much I think we could have stayed a month, though the tap water is so badly polluted I don’t think my skin would survive for that long.

The snow has followed us everywhere from Riga and we braved a 4 hour walking tour of St Petersburg in a full-scale blizzard on Sunday 21st. Our local guide took us to places that were well off the beaten track including Pushkinskaya arts centre, a soviet artists’ commune in a back alley near Moscow station, and a 1920s residential building shaped like a hammer and sickle that was built by communist families who came to be persecuted and ultimately executed by Stalin. On the Monday we visited the suburb of Pushkin, home to the Catherine palace and the recently replicated amber room.

In Helsinki it was a bit warmer, a mere minus two on the first day (as opposed to a low of -11 back in St P) but still plenty of snow. The highlight was definitely the sea fortress of Suomelinna (or Castle of Finland) which was originally built by the Swedes and has been a vital strategic stronghold in the Finnish gulf for several hundred years.

Tallinn is proving a great place to unwind. The medieval old town with it’s walls and towers looks incredible in the snow, and the christmas market in the town hall square has an enchanting quality that makes all big city christmas lights look totally garish and soulless. The Estonians are very hospitable and although (thanks to Easyjet) the place is crawling with Brits, they thankfully seem to be the more respectable kind.

On Thursday Alex is flying back to London and I’ll be on my own, so from now on I’ll have to ask passers by to take my photographs and try to get myself out to see the important sights. Thanks is due to Alex for making sure we got to Pushkin and Suomelinna, and for keeping my vodka consumption down to a respectable tourist level.

The St Petersburg photos are all up in the gallery and I should be able to add the Helsinki and Tallinn ones when I’m back in Riga at the weekend.