Travel is fun! The long route to St Petersburg
Dear readers,
In a couple of hours, I set out on the long route to St Petersburg.
Pre-Covid shut-down of intra European air travel, pre-Special Military Operation sanctions, the journey from Brussels was accomplished by direct flight, Zaventem airport to Pulkovo airport in a little over two and a half hours. With the advent of the New Cold War, the latest and cheapest travel variant entails three forms of public transportation: air, sea and passenger bus and, all in all, takes 18 hours.
I will now fly to Helsinki, then take the sea ferry to Tallinn, arriving late and spending the night. The next morning there is a 7-hour bus ride to Russia’s Northern Capital. Several months ago a finishing touch was added to this last part of the journey when the Russians closed their border crossing to buses coming from/golng to the Estonian side, allegedly for months-long renovation of the facility, and now the happy travelers make the 750 meter crossing by foot through no-man’s land, mostly on a bridge over the Narva river. Once reaching the other side there is a different bus provided by Estonian or Russian companies for the remainder of the journey.The effect is to accentuate the physical barrier separating two civilizations. Rain, snow, as we expect tomorrow, makes no difference to those on this new form of Compostela pilgrimage.
The harsh worsening of travel conditions that I have just described pertains to Europeans, for whom Russia was always just a short flight away. Travelers from the USA and Rest of the World are less penalized, since overall travel time and expense for visitors crossing one or another ocean to get to Russia does not change much when you transit via Istanbul or Dubai.
So be it.
I will be spending close to three weeks in Petersburg, returning home shortly after the 9th of May Victory in Europe celebrations which are a very important part of the Russian calendar of public events. Perhaps there will be an iteration of the March of the Immortal Regiment down Nevsky Prospekt that in recent years I found to be a wonderful opportunity to study the demos. Perhaps the march will be cancelled for security reasons in this period of heightened Ukrainian directed terrorism. In any case, there will be a post-parade celebratory dinner with friends that provides another temperature reading on the public mood in this third year of ever widening and intensifying war.
As usual on my visits, I will also spend time out on the street checking supermarkets and farmers’markets to do an offhand measure of inflation and supply of consumables.
Stay tuned!
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024