FINLAND, RUSSIA, ESTONIA (part II)

[fluffymark]

alektoeumenides has been impatiently prodding me to finish writing up my adventure last month, so finally heres my N-Z!

N is for the Neva riverside All the charm of St Petersburg focuses on one thing, the charming River Neva. The obvious comparisons are with Venice, but it's not like that at all, it's specially romantic in its own unique way. I spent many happy hours strolling along the riverbanks, or sitting with a beer right by the water and staring in admiration across the waters. The architecture is grand - here on the the riverside is the grand Winter Palace, the impressive Peter & Paul Fortress, and all the huge bridges (St Petersburg has more bridges than any other city in the world), that even open up to let ships through at night. Admittedly there were probably a few too many Weddings going on for my liking (it being a horribly romantic location at the beginning of May) but they didn't bother me - I could sit there in peace and close my eyes and bring back vivid images from my reading of Dostoyevsky's White Nights. St Petersburg got its claws into my heart.

O is for Orange underground trains of dooooooooom in Helsinki Aaaaaarrgh! They hurt my poor eyes. For some inexplicable reason, someone had the awful idea of making all the trains in Helsinki a bright shade of DayGlo Orange. They look far scarier close up, believe me, not that you want to go anywhere near them. They are Wrong and Bad and I would expect the Finns, who have excellent taste in many other walks of life, to be able to choose a less brainwarping colour for their trains. They should put health warnings at all stations, in my opinion. Wrong wrong wrong....

P is for Pretty Pavolvsk Park alektoeumenides and myself decided one afternoon to go picnicing in the vastness of Pavolvsk Park one sunny afternoon. This lies just a short train ride out of St Petersburg, but a Russian train is of course an life-changing experience in itself. Pavolvsk Park is *huuuuuge* - over 600 Hectares, which makes it several times larger than London's Hyde Park. Imagine what you'd get if you attempted to terraform a Russian forest into an English garden (the original park architect was English) and you get a sort of idea. A vast expanse of tall trees, curving streams and open spaces dotted all over with ornate bridges, bizarre odd items of statues and little delightful Colonnades, Pavilions and other odd structures emerging here and there. All very pretty and one could spend many hours relaxing and chilling out here. There was a lovely little stall with a шашлик fire going, so I had a yummy шашлик along with my балтика beer. alektoeumenides then managed to get us totally lost as we tried to find the exit. We walked and walked....and walked....and walked, and the path got narrower and narrower and an hour later we were well and truly lost. Eventually we found a passing Russian, who pointed us onto the right path, but informed us it'd take about another hour's walk to get to the exit. As I said, this park was big. When we did finally get out, we celebrated with ice-cream. :)

Q is for Quenya and the Finn-elf conspiracy Now lets get the facts straight - Quenya is based partly on Finnish, and listening to Finns speak it's obvious, they sound like elves at times. Finland is a land full of forests and lakes. Also many Finns are very tall (or very short...) and blond. And all are absurdly pretty. Finally, they have a tendency to hide their ears behind their hair. There is only one conclusion. I'm certain Finns are secretly Elves. The tall ones are High Elves, and the shorter ones being Wood Elves or something. Plus, as 791point43 pointed out to me, Santa is known to live in Lappland with his Elvish helpers. Do we need any more proof than this?

R is for Roaming up and down the walls of Tallinn Amazingly, the Old Town Walls of Tallinn are pretty much intact. Consisting of dozens of medieval towers linked by a huge old stone wall, these are not only pretty to admire, but fun to explore. Parts can be walked on, and so armed with a sense of adventure, I boldly climbed up some of the towers, scrabbling up narrow spiral stone staircases to the tops - even reached bits of Nunna Tower I'm sure people aren't supposed to be able to reach (in the very top room the floor was totally missing...er...) after getting myself mucky squeezing up a particularly dusty and narrow steep unlit staircase. But well worth it - the views of the rooftops of the old city from the towers are magical. Even more exciting, one of the towers (Neitsitorn, the "Virgin's Tower", even though it used to be a prison for prostitutes) has very carefully been converted into an hauntingly nice cafe/bar, and theres tables along the wall-top, so I spent a good time enjoying the refreshments and pretty views from there.

S is for Strangers being absurdly friendly One of the fears of trevelling alone is the loneliness - however this is more than countered by the joy of meeting new people. Maybe I had "Strangers, come and talk to me and be nice" tattooed across my forehead in Finnish, or maybe it was just that I looked lonely pootling around on my own, but people kept coming up to me and starting conversations. Normally I'd hate this, but being in need of human contact, I jumped at the chance of conversation. And many were helpful beyond the call of duty - isobell's lovely friend Satu put me up for the night in her lovely place in the woods when I was stuck for somewhere to stay for my second night in Helsinki (the hostels were all full...!!). A Finnish businessman caught me in a chat over a beer on the Tallinn-Helsinki hydrofoil about the wonders of sailing, the pretty islands of the Turku archipelago and the fabness of the EU, and then gave me a lift to Helsinki station when we arrived unexpectedly at the Helsinki West Ferry Terminal, miles from anywhere. A friendly tram-driver gave me a free ride and told me what to see in Helsinki, and directions as to where to buy the "pootle around Helsinki on trams all day" tickets. Disturbingly, in Tampere, my bag got grabbed from behind while I was crossing the road, and there were incomprehensible words of Finnish directed at me - I thought I was being mugged! Then I saw it was a little old lady wanting me to help her cross the street! Awwww, how endearing. The same cannot be said about the Russians, who do not smile. It's so true, sadly!

T is for Taru Meeting the lovely Taru (isobell) turned out to be one of the best happenings of my whole travels. It's a very rare thing to meet someone for the first time and to not only instantly click with them, but spent the next 48 hours together without driving each other totally insane. Of course it helped that she's short and pretty and adoringly lovely and very strokable.
One of the first places she wanted to take me to was "Fanny & Alexander", a delightful toy shop in the Kiseleff Bazaar, which was so full of fairylike wonderfulness that I knew that meeting her was a good thing, and over the next 2 days proceeded to take me to many pretty places I would have never otherwise found, and introduced me to her lovely friends. She even stuck around on the Sunday, keeping me company to see me off on the bus to the airport, which made me extremely happy. I think that everyone should go to Finland and meet isobell for she is so nice.

U is for the Underground palaces of St Petersburg People have this idea that all Soviet architecture was spartan, utilitarian and functional, and not at all pretty. Admittedly most of it is. However, one ride on the St Petersburg Metro will dispel that myth forever. The stations are intricate underground palaces, with exquisitely carved marble columns, floors and ceilings, elaborate light fittings, and patriotic murals and statues all over the place. It's nothing short of stunning - not only that, the service is impeccable (trains every 90 seconds, no delays) and costs next to nothing to travel on. If the London Underground was like this, I'd be a very happy commuter.

V is for Vappu Oh dear oh dear oh dear! Nobody warned me about Vappu. All innocent and unsuspecting, I'd booked a flight to Finland landing in the evening on May Eve. I walked out of Tampere Station just after 10pm, looking for somewhere to stay the night, and found myself confronted with the largest street party ever. Everyone was drunk, many wearing outrageous outfits, masks and their sailor-style student caps. It was ecstatically fun, and also total hell! Now I'm more enlightened - the Finns take Vappu (May day) seriously - they have 2 days public holiday, and spend 48 hours getting as drunk as possible, and consume vast quantities of homebrewed Sima, a sickly sweet meadlike fruit drink (which I got offered by friendly Finns who had too much...). Imagine London on New Years Eve, but a lot lot worse. This national party was my spectacular "Welcome to Finland!". I could not have picked a worse time!

W is for wonderful weather Finland is at a very high latitude, there was the eerie oddness in the appearance of the northern sky, that you only get at high latitudes. Unusually the area is only just recovering from winter in May, and barely gets warm, let alone hot - by some stroke of fortune, my 10 days travel around the Gulf of Finland coincided with a totally unseasonal extreme burst of sunshine. Blue skys, lots of lovely sunshine, no clouds for the whole holiday, and amazingly not too warm (just over 20C, nice and pleasant). Warm enough for picnics and lots of pootling around outside. It was perfect. Must have been the first sunny week since the winter, as there was still snow on the ground in places - in particular around the Finnish-Russian border, and in Pavlovsk park. Only problem is I returned slightly sunburnt - I'd not expected such a tropical climate in the far north!

X is for X-rays of doom Given the hassle I had to go through to get a Visa, and what with the new eastern border of "Fortress EU" just having been formed, I'd expected the most problems crossing in and out of Russia. In the event, they never even asked me to fill out the "compulsory" customs form, and waved me through, stamping pretty pictures of trains and cars into my passport on the way. Incredibly, the Russian border guards even smiled. Where I did have problems was landing in Finland from the UK - after my steel toecaps set off the X-ray machine at customs, they wanted to search everything. Aaaaargh!!! (It was Vappu, haven't they got better things to do, like get drunk?). Then they took away my passport and interrogated me on my planned movements around Finland - things didn't improve when I said I'd be getting the train out of Finland to Russia the next morning, they seemed very suspicious. In the end they returned my passport and sent me on my way, but I was a bit shaken up. So much for simple EU border crossings.

Y is for yummy Fazer Chocolate Yummy yummy yum yum yum. Belgium is famed for chocolate, but Finland should be too - Fazer chocolate is divine, and reason in itself to visit Finland. Sadly I've now either eaten or given away the stockpile I brought home with me, so I'm desperately seeking somewhere in the UK that imports Fazer Chocolate. There must surely be somewhere!! Help!

Z is for zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz A severe shortage of sleep for my 10 days, caused by sleeping late, getting up early to catch trains / meet alektoeumenides and a bumpy nighttime coach ride from Russia to Estonia, and late flights made me love my bed all the more when I did get home. So I zonked out for a well earned sleep.


Plus, if you're interested, please take a look at my pretty photos of St Petersburg and Tallinn sadly by the time I got to Helsinki I was almost out of memory on my camera, but I believe isobell has a few photos of us there to be scanned in soon. Yay! *smallsmile*

Comments

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm, places. Places are nice.

The Helsinki underground trains look peculiarly like those in Glasgow. I wonder if there's been oversea underground train fraternisation or something :)

[fluffymark]

They must be a different species of train, as otherwise they'd be having sex, and I've not seen trains having sex. Adn I shudder to think what the hybrid offspring would be like.

Remind me never to go to Glasgow.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

Bah, the underground system in Glasgow is great. It's not called the clockwork orange for nothing.
Glasgow's OK too, but you have to not mind rain. And I didn't go into the dodgy bits.

[fluffymark]

Calling it "The Clockwork Orange" doesn't make it any more appealing. *scared*

I've been through Glasgow. Stopping seemed like a bad idea, given what it looked like (well, it looked like Luton....I couldn't be sure, but thats what it looked like). Eeeep.