Russia 🇷🇺

After walking around well past 2:00 AM, it was a lazy morning. There was complimentary tea and coffee at the hostel pantry. After getting ready we checked out of the room and left our bags at the front desk. The original plan was to try and visit the Peterhof Palace or the Catherine Palace at Pushkin. But the rain and overall weather were not encouraging and also we didn’t have all day. So we decided to skip that and spend more time at the places we had seen yesterday. We walked along Nevsky Avenue to the Kazan Cathedral and then along the Griboyedov Canal and the Italian Bridge to the Savior on the Spilled Blood. ...

This was part of A weekend in Russia - Day 1 🇷🇺 🔗. We had seen the Obvodnyy kanal (Обводный канал) station when we arrived earlier today. We started off from the Admiralteyskaya (Адмиралтейская) station and took the northbound Line 5 (also known as the Purple Line or the Frunzensko-Primorskaya Line) towards Komendantsky Prospekt (Комендантский проспект). ...

This was part of A weekend in Russia - Day 1 🇷🇺 🔗. We joined the 10:30 AM St. Petersburg Free Walking Tour. We started our walk at the Bronze Horseman and then headed towards St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Our guide told us about the history of Russia and specifically of St. Petersburg. Our next stop was the Admiralty Building and we saw the Monument to Nikolay Przhevalsky and the Admiralty Fountain. ...

From October 1, 2019 nationals of 51 foreign States (including India) could be granted an e-visa to enter the Russian Federation through checkpoints (except via rail) located in the Saint Petersburg region. This was an opportunity I wasn’t going to miss. A few colleagues and I were going to be in Helsinki for work, and we since had a weekend during our stay, we decided to take a trip to St. Petersburg. We booked Lux Express from Helsinki to St. Petersburg leaving late Friday night (just before midnight) and reaching St. Petersburg on Saturday morning. The LuxExpress bus was comfortable, had free Wi-Fi and a machine for complimentary tea and coffee. After about three and a half hours of driving we reached Vaalimaa and exited the Schengen region and had to clear immigration and get entry into Russia at Torfyanovka. ...