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From Russia with . . .

© Diane Goldberg under the original topic name "Budget Travel"

Guidebooks often exaggerate. After reading about Paris in the spring, the piles of dog poo on the streets come as a bit of shock. The hordes of sleeve grabbing entrepreneurs outside Ephesus and the swarms of trendy ex-pats in Prague inspire dissonance at best.

St. Petersburg is often described as the Venice of the North, an island nestled fairy-tale city framed in perfect palaces and exquisite onion domed churches . . .

No exaggeration

The purpose built city on the Gulf of Finland, Russia’s most western metropolis is every bit as beautiful as the guidebook prose suggests.

But St. Petersburg is not Europe.

The city sits closer to Europe than the rest of Russia, a product of imperial romanticism and perceived progress, but it is not Europe. St. Petersburg is unmistakably Russian with all the attendant enigmatic bureaucracy, quirky fatalism, and social norms that baffle westerners.

Ms. Budget Travel has just returned from St. Petersburg. She does not understand the city. She spoke to numerous ex-pats who universally began their assessments with, “I’ve been here ____ years and I still don’t understand . . .”

St. Petersburg can be a glittering set for a fantasy or a dark Kafkaesque nightmare where drab clothed men drunkenly shuffle into the bowels of a massive metro system. Which St. Petersburg you see and how you see it is depend on one variable --- language.

Unlike Western Europe, you won’t find waiters who speak English, tourist information offices every twenty feet, or dual language signs. Anyone who stops to help you on the street is suspect --- a young woman explained, “In Russia we have two daily questions: ‘What do we do?’ and ‘Who is guilty?’”

The police may pick your pockets while checking your identity papers.

If you can’t read Cyrillic, the metro map is indecipherable.

Should you go?

Well of course. But do it right --- learn the language. Contact Language Studies Abroad through their website at http://www.languagestudiesabroad.com or call them at 1-800-424-5522, they work with language schools all over the world to help students all the way up to the age of 86 find the right language course. And they make site visits, check out the home stays, and really know what your experience will be like. They can find you a non-smoking home with a piano in Spain, a vegetarian-friendly family in Italy or a kosher home in St. Petersburg.

Upon my return to the USA, I spoke with Kim from Language Studies Abroad about my trip. The young adult in my home stay family had been invited to a party connected with her job --- they were going to do the hot new thing in Russia --- bowl.

The copyright of the article From Russia with . . . in Traveling on a Budget is owned by Diane Goldberg under the original topic name "Budget Travel". Permission to republish From Russia with . . . in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.