Russia Tour

The Finnish Rotary organises an optional trip to Russia each year for their inbound exchange students. I went along on this trip and spent 4 great days in Saint Petersburg with just over 100 other exchange students and some Rotex and Rotarians from all around Finland.

The first day was mainly travel. I got the bus from Oulu at 2:00am on Thursday morning and we arrived at around 9pm that night at the hotel in Saint Petersburg. Whilst Finland is almost 23 times smaller than Australia it is still a rather long country and being north-west required a long trip down and to the east to reach Saint Petersburg, so the travel was rather long and tedious.

This trip was the first chance I had had to catch up with all of the exchange students that had come over with me and been on camp with me in January when we first arrived. It was also my first chance to meet all of the exchange students that had come in August. I had previously met some of the 'oldies' in my district that came in August but I hadn't met any of the others staying around Finland.

It was a beautiful trip of building friendships with people from all over the world and being exposed to Russian history and culture. We had a guided tour in both the Hermitage Museum and the Kunstkamera Museum (Peter the Great's Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography), watched Russian folklore, had a guided bus tour of Saint Petersburg, had free time shopping down Nevski Prospekt (the main shopping street of St. Petersburg) and went to the Russian ballet in Mihailovski Teatre (Ballet La Sylphide).
We had maybe one and a half days which were really clear and bright, the rest was quite damp and drab but we still had a great time and didn’t really get rained on so we couldn’t complain, especially because we were told that Saint Petersburg only experiences about 60 sunny days per year and we got 1 and a half of them in our weekend!

Our free time was quite memorable! As I was walking back to the bus with a few others I had spent my time with we saw across the road a crowd forming by the front of a hotel. We were curious as to what was going on, especially because there were police and then also because we noticed a few others from our group amongst the crowd of teenage girls! We called out across the street, asking what was going on. Justin Bieber was coming!! Now, I am not a fan of Justin Bieber but at the idea of us being on exchange in Finland, taking a trip to Russia and happening to have free time and be outside the hotel where Justin Bieber would arrive at some point was so random and sent me and a number of others into the state of little fan girls. In shock, I screamed his name and sprinted down the street in a fit of laughter with the others running after me! I am not proud of my reaction but boy was it funny! We found a place to cross and ran to join the crowd. As the exchange students started dribbling back to the bus in small groups we called people over and eventually we made up the majority of the crowd! It was so much fun! I don't think many of us were even fans but we really got into it all! We were chanting and yelling and chatting with locals and had our home countries' flags out. People actually started stopping on the street and taking photos and videos of US! Crazy exchange students! Even our Rotex and Rotary tutors came and joined and let us stay later than we were meant to. Eventually we had to go though, JB hadn't come yet and we had to get back in time to have dinner at the hotel and get ready for the ballet. We were all so disappointed! We changed our bus to read 'I love JB' and when we drove away we went via the street where everyone was crowded waiting for Justin. They all started screaming and carrying on until they realised it was just us and not anything to do with Justin arriving! Turned out he didn't arrive until 7pm or later. We all wished we'd have seen him; it would've made for an awesome story, even if we weren't fans of him!

Overall it was an awesome trip and the end was so sad! Goodbyes were difficult because many of the students we had just met weren't going on Eurotour in June and then will be going home in either June or July. As we are all spread out around the country, for many this was the last time they would see each other and so most were quite emotional. 

Saint Petersburg wasn't the city I had expected it to be. I don't know exactly what I had expected but the mix-matched buildings, the rubble of unmaintained buildings and homes, and the general look was not what I thought Saint Petersburg would be. I think my impression of what the city would be like was a little influenced by one of my childhood favourites, 'Anastasia'. A childish influence but it was the only real exposure I had had to Russia before I went. I haven't travelled outside of Australia before now so this is a very interesting and different experience, seeing places and landmarks in person compared to what postcards and travel guides present; it's totally different seeing it for yourself. When you travel you don’t just see the beautiful places that you travel there to see but you also see things that maybe you don't expect or want to see. The first few hours driving over the border and into Russia was an eye opener. I don’t think 'run-down' even begins to explain the state of the houses we past as we drove. I was convinced that no one would live in those ruins, that they were abandoned. That was until I saw washing hanging on the lines right outside a few of the houses. I couldn't believe it! It wasn’t so bad when we got into the city but it still was dirty and higgledy-piggledy; it was obvious that poverty was present. Russia was both a beautiful experience as well as a confronting one. Walking to churches and tourist attractions I came across many beggars and people trying to sell me things, anything! I had never experienced that before; seeing poverty really makes you appreciate all that you have and where you were lucky enough to be born.
Whilst Russia wasn’t the picture perfect city I had probably anticipated, it was still beautiful in its own way. Even though it wasn’t a constant musical with people dancing and singing and the beautiful landmarks sparkling like in my cartoon reality of Saint Petersburg, it was an amazing city. I could especially appreciate it from my hotel room's window. I was on the 16th floor and looking over the city, it was truly magnificent! The evening was beautiful and the hodgepodge nature of it all just made it so unique and like nothing I’d ever seen before! Old buildings in such numbers and in the way that they were there are not in Australia. It was beautiful in its own way. Those few days were definitely not enough, even a week wouldn't have been enough time to see everything!