Don Curry crawls through St. Petersburg

Don Curry considers himself an agile guy. He is not frantic, he doesn't like stress, but he also can't stand twiddling around, wasting time. That's why he sets clear goals and wants to achieve them energetically in a reasonable amount of time, even if there are obstacles to overcome.

For example, this was the case during breakfast at the café of the Hotel Atlantik. It is located in an annex, so Don Curry had to descend from the 3rd floor of the elevator-less hotel. He identified himself as a hotel guest with his room key, but that wasn't enough. The friendly waitress told him in English that he needed a voucher from the reception. So Don Curry stomped back to the 1st floor to get the voucher. As soon as he handed it over, the swift waitress delivered the breakfast: a glass of orange juice, a warm buckwheat porridge sweetened with some syrup, a basket of bread, some butter, a plate of sausage, cheese, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and finally a plate with a large piece of omelette and a fat sausage. The only thing Don Curry had to inquire about was whether he could also have a coffee? But that was also possible. Don Curry only ate part of the abundant breakfast, then left the simple but nice hotel and the town of Vyborg, which could become a real jewel on the Baltic Sea after appropriate renovation work.

His first destination should be another fortress town: Schlüsselburg, founded by Peter the Great. There was already a fortress on a small island in the mouth of the Neva River into Lake Ladoga, which had been built either by the Swedes or the Russians - both claimed to be the founders. This strategically important fortress was expanded over the centuries, conquered and destroyed several times, but always rebuilt. Even in World War II, the Russians held out here against the German invaders who had already conquered the entire surrounding area.

Don Curry was able to reach the mighty fortress by a short boat trip, which had also served as a prison for a long time. A walk through the battlements, a martial monument of the Russian defenders, and wonderful views of the southern part of Lake Ladoga made the effort worthwhile.

After a long time, Don Curry had lunch again: a hot dog 'with everything'. Whenever the saleswoman showed him a bottle - ketchup, relish, mustard - Don Curry just said 'There - yes'.

After returning to the mainland, he admired the picturesque ensemble of churches in the town of Schlüsselburg: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches side by side - each church in a different vibrant color.

Actually, Don Curry's daily program was now over, and he could have gone straight back to the hotel. But since it was only just after 2:00 p.m., he decided to make a spontaneous visit to the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, a little south of St. Petersburg. When he easily found a parking space nearby, he sensed that something was not right. And indeed, the palace was closed on Tuesdays. But the extensive park was open and could be entered for 150 rubles (= 2 €). Since the sun was shining extensively today, Don Curry considered this a quite acceptable alternative. He didn't regret it.

Although the palace was cordoned off on a large scale, there were plenty of opportunities to take pictures of its facade. The park not only contained beautifully maintained flower beds and trees of various kinds, but Catherine had also placed various exotic buildings in the park. So today you can find buildings in North German brick Gothic style, Egyptian pyramids, Italian Renaissance bridges in the style of Palladio, Russian palaces, Chinese pagodas, and a Turkish bath in the form of a mosque with a minaret.

Don Curry was particularly taken with this; not only the golden dome and minaret, but also the interior in Moorish style with its tear fountains and antique furniture delighted him deeply. The interior had only been restored in recent years with foreign assistance.

After these diverse and magnificent impressions from the time of the tsars, Don Curry wanted to focus on the present of St. Petersburg and drive back to his hotel: from the Catherine Palace in Pushkin a total of 30 km and 45 minutes. But reality looked different. Don Curry could still manage the first 10 km to the outskirts of St. Petersburg relatively easily, but then it was always: join the queue!

Already on the drive to Schlüsselburg, Don Curry had seen the northern and eastern city limits of the million city from the Petersburg ring road, from the south it made the same impression: like a modern city wall, an extensive ring of high-rise buildings stretched around St. Petersburg; countless cranes indicated that this ring would continue to grow. The wide Moskowskoye Street leads through this ring until it merges into the even wider Moskowskij Prospekt, which leads straight north. There are 4 to 6 lanes available in each direction here, but the traffic jam was increasing. Soon, Don Curry also shared the locals' preference for delicate lane changing, hoping for a small advantage on the left or right neighboring lane.

Despite all this quite chaotic and highly unpredictable driving behavior, Don Curry nevertheless had great admiration for the mutual fairness. Honking was almost never heard, and almost every lane change was patiently facilitated by the drivers in the adjacent lane. However, the fact that the majority of vehicles had significant dents and bumps showed Don Curry that things didn't always go well. He also passed several rear-end collisions - they were also a reason for the constant necessary lane changes.

Don Curry briefly left the Moskowskij Prospekt near St. Petersburg's huge university to head for an intermediate destination in a parallel street: the Chesmenskaya Church, a kind of cream cake of church architecture. The building cannot be assigned to any usual style epoch, it is simply a dream in white and light red, elegantly striped and contrasting fantastically against the bright blue sky. Unfortunately, the interior couldn't keep up, it turned out to be a rather sober version of a typical Orthodox church.

After this final detour, Don Curry joined the queue again and crawled towards his hotel in the city center. In between, the Brandenburg Gate suddenly appeared in front of him, but it wasn't a daydream due to the gradual dozing off, but rather the Moscow Triumphal Arch, which is similar in size to its Berlin counterpart, but doesn't have a crowning quadriga.

Don Curry finally reached the Nevsky Prospekt, the most famous of all streets in St. Petersburg, via an extremely complicated roundabout. Here, not only cars appeared in large numbers as before, but also pedestrians. Masses of people pushed up and down Nevsky Prospekt on both sides of the lanes, and that on a normal Tuesday evening!

During the further drive, a painful sound of horror suddenly escaped Don Curry's throat. He had just caught a glimpse of the famous Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in the immediate vicinity of his hotel - famous above all for its old Russian style and its numerous colorful onion domes. Don Curry saw that someone had removed the top onion and the remaining stump was wrapped thickly with plastic wrap. It looked like a broken pencil that no longer made any sense. At the moment of moaning, Don Curry knew he had to return to St. Petersburg - sometime when this most photogenic of all local buildings would be complete again.

Finally, after almost 2 hours of driving through this huge city, Don Curry's car arrived safely at the Hotel '3MostA', he immediately found a parking space in front of the hotel and then moved into his smallest hotel room during this trip. A tube-shaped room of just over 2 meters wide. But it was comfortably furnished, even had a refrigerator.

Don Curry used the evening hours of sunshine for a long walk to the Baltic Sea and to the absolute center of the city, Palace Square with the Winter Palace and the General Staff Building. Life was bustling everywhere, tourists and locals strolled, Peter the Great or Catherine the Great walked around to have their pictures taken for a few rubles, and musicians of various styles played in squares and on streets. Everything seemed somehow Mediterranean, la dolce vita in Russian. No wonder St. Petersburg is considered the most cosmopolitan city in Russia.

For dinner, Don Curry trusted the 'Lonely Planet' once again for the choice of a restaurant. In the city center, it particularly recommended the 'Yat'', ideally located halfway between Palace Square and Don Curry's hotel. This quaint cellar restaurant offers modernized Russian cuisine, its own beer, and a variety of homemade vodkas with exotic flavors. As a responsible researcher, Don Curry immediately ordered a tasting set, consisting of 3 vodkas of his choice combined with 3 Russian snacks. Don Curry had Appleberry Vodka, Sea Buckthorn Vodka, and Nut Vodka served, accompanied by herring on bread, pickled milk mushrooms on bread, and pickles. The vodkas turned out to be rather sweet liqueurs based on vodka, mixed with a lot of fruit juice or similar. Not unpleasant, but not to Don Curry's taste. The snacks were quite tasty, however.

For the main course, he ordered pork medallions in plum sauce, accompanied by bell pepper fillets gratinated with cheese and roasted buckwheat, all accompanied by a - flavorful - Yat' Lager and then a - sweetish unremarkable - honey beer from the bottle. In any case, a nice restaurant for the first evening in St. Petersburg. The satiated Don Curry strolled back to his hotel - always along the Moika Canal; he crawled through St. Petersburg...