We’re home.

It takes some getting used to; “The people around me can understand what I’m saying? For real?”

I’m still waking up at 4 in the morning and going to bed before sunset, but we’ve more or less recovered. As such: on to St. Petersburg.

We arrived early into a beautiful morning. St. Petersburg gets about fifteen sunny days a year, and we got one.

The first order of business was getting to the hostel. Normally that wouldn’t merit mention on the blag, but the St. Petersburg subway is not entirely incidental to our story.

One thing you have to understand is that the Russian subway system is a marvel. Much more so than New York’s. For one thing, if you’ve waited more than two minutes for a train you get the feeling something’s wrong. But the physical structure alone is also more impressive. The old blue trains thread deep under the earth through endlessly varied art deco stations, each unique and each (usually) beautiful. And when I say the trains go “deep”, I mean “really really deep”. When you go down into the subway system, you’re going down into the subway system. Down where you will be safe from, say, bombs. Which is not coincidental.

Some of the stations try to pretend they’re near the surface. They might, for example, sport oval “windows” in the ceiling to mimic the open sky with mosaics of tile. But everyone knows better.

Anyway, the extra special thing about the St. Petersburg subway is that, unlike the Moscow subway, it’s not safe. Before Andrew’s parents visited, Beth had read about the new technique of the Petersburg muggers: two guys will pin you from either side so you can’t move your arms, and then someone will remove the contents of your pockets at their leisure.

Maybe Andrew’s dad looked especially like a tourist, or maybe he looked especially vulnerable, or maybe both. Whatever the reason, one day in the Petersburg subway they heard a shout and turned to see Andrew’s dad pinned from both sides.

What happened next makes me chuckle every time I think about it. I’ve never met Andrew’s dad, but if he’s anything like Andrew he’s a confident fellow not given to being pushed around. With a roar—GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME—his father backed up into a wall and then came out swinging.

I like to imagine the look of surprise on the muggers’ faces: “This was…not what he was supposed to do. Ummmm….PLAN B!” Deciding they’d bit off more than they wished to chew, they ran. No one was hurt and nothing was lost. But still: scary.

So on this bright morning on our own trip to St. Petersburg, Andrew and Beth warn us again: this is not the Moscow Metro. Be alert. Then they hand us our little subway tokens. Elizabeth and I glance at each other with wide eyes, hug our bags closer, consolidate our precious documents somewhere our sweaty hand can hold them tightly, and begin the long, slow drop into the belly of St. Petersburg’s subway system. It was the first of two nervous rides through the Petersburg Metro. Happily, we make it through un-mugged and rise back up into the streets of St. Petersburg.

In his poem The Bronze Horseman, Pushkin writes that St. Petersburg is infused with an austere harmony. It is a befitting description. The broad streets are flanked by flat, unbroken walls colored lime and apricot, tan and pale sea-green. The streets are tremendously wide, even the cobbled back alleys. The city feels…noble. The buildings are straight-backed, well-bred structures that do not crowd each other or compete for attention, but instead stand confidently and self-assured in close rank.

Gazing down a broad prospekt, it’s hard to imagine the kind of man who would attempt to build this city from scratch. But that’s what Peter did. He was smitten with the cities of Europe, and wanted his own city to mimic them. Everywhere you see the influence of Europe: the canals, the cathedrals, the parks.

Where would we be living amidst all this? As noted at the time, Beth and Andrew managed to find us some very cool digs. Not only was the Hermitage literally around the corner, but the hostel itself could not help but have class, considering the building that housed it.

With our bags safely locked up, we began our first day in earnest with a visit to, you guessed it, the Hermitage.

What can I possibly say about the Hermitage? It’s huge! Huger than huge! You cannot possibly imagine how huge it is! And it’s full of crazy amazing art! And big golden rooms! And big crystal rooms! And multiple throne rooms, in case you have multiple queens with nothing to do but receive multiple foreign dignitaries! We spent the whole day there!

Maybe the most treasured time at the Hermitage was spent with Rembrandt. Elizabeth in particular had been looking forward to seeing these pieces for months.

By the way, don’t sweat the spacing too much when labeling your priceless works of art. Fit in as much as you can, but whatever doesn’t fit just squeeze on somewhere at the end:

At this point, I’d like to stress very strongly that I turned my flash off for the few photos I took in the Hermitage. I stress this because I was the only goddamn person who did so. I cannot say how infuriating and heartbreaking it was to watch flash after flash fired off at these paintings. The “guards” in these rooms—and I use the term loosely—were old women who sat sleeping in chairs in the corner.

It was truly stomach-churning, and it reached a fever pitch at the two Leonardo’s. Below is a shot of the crowd buzzing around The Madonna and Child. Not one of these people actually went up to look at the painting. Every single one just wanted to take a photo. A crappy digital photo. Usually with a flash.

The idiocy burns, on so many levels.

You can see Andrew there in the background, about ready to knock some cameras to the floor. I was feeling similarly.

But. Idiots aside, the Hermitage was amazing.

When we finally reached our saturation point (“My eyeballs won’t look at paintings anymore!”) we left the palace. Beth found us a Georgian restaurant, and after our second tense Metro ride (Andrew and I were so ready to rumble) we had our first taste of the utterly delicious Georgian cuisine. Afterward we skipped the Metro entirely and walked home over the river and through the Petersburg night.

Not a bad first day, but there was more still to come.