Since arriving here in St Petersburg for our training camp before heading over to
Kazan for the regatta it feels like we have seen many great things. Today we went out sightseeing. We were very lucky to be shown around the best parts of the city by a host Maria, who spoke English very well and had a great knowledge of the history of the Saint Petersburg.
There are numerous parks, monuments, museums, palaces and rivers. The whole city is comprised of small islands and is connect by canals and rivers. Maria said its known as the 'Russian Venice'.
We first saw the Palace Square and what is called the Alexander Column, a 600 tonne monument made of a single piece of granite. It is huge and it stands without any foundations because it is held in place by the sheer weight of itself. It is the tallest monument of its kind in the world and was brought here by sea all the way from Finland. They had to design a special barge to ship it here and then erected it without and cranes. Imagine dropping that on your big toe...
We then went to Saint Isaacs Cathedral. A marvelous building that was built with 100kg of gold on the exterior and another 300kg on the interior. It looks beautiful when the sun shines on it. Which must not be very often, Maria said that St. Petersburg only gets about 30 days per year of cloudless sunshine. We seem to have been lucky enough to get a few of those 30!
Another site that we got to see were some beautiful parks and rivers. There we noticed a lot of wedding parties taking pictures and I saw that many of the brides looked quite young. Maria told me that women here who are unmarried by 25 are almost out fresh of luck for finding a husband. She explained that the war and revolution caused a 10 million man lack in Russia and that most girls are married by 18 or 19. Sounds like us kiwi girls better hurry up!
Whilst driving from place to place we saw a lot of young soldiers who Maria said were completing their military service. In Russia it is compulsory for every 18yr old man to serve the country in the army for at least one year before they progress to university or the workforce.
Another stunning building that we got to see was called the Church of our Savior on the Spilled Blood. A church planted right on the spot where the Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by a group of revolutionaries who threw a bomb at his royal carriage. The church to me looks like it was made out of candy by Willy Wonka.
Here are a few more of the city sights:
Saturday 1st September - Saint Petersburg
I am writing from in my room here at the rowing club, it is 5am and I can't get back to sleep so it looks like I've adjusted well to the time zone which is 8hrs behind NZ. The others seem to have adjusted well too.
We have had no Internet here for the past couple of days, but it has been repaired and we are finally back in touch. It is a strange feeling not being able to keep up with the world as all the news and radio is in Russian!
Yesterday we went for a walk to the nearest shop which was just over a km away. There are almost no shops out here so we have been wondering where all the four million people buy their food from! Dairies and corner stores seem to be non existent in this part of town. Also, we are fully catered for here at the English Rowing Club so there isn't much need to go out. We have been presented with all kinds of Russian cuisine including the traditional soup 'borche' which is made from beetroot, and all kinds of other stews, rice dishes, salads and cakes. Even so, were all curious to see what the food is like at the store. So we set out by foot hoping to find a supermarket, but where we ended up was more like a Russian version of Nosh or Farro; a flash delicatessen with many goods imported from around the world including gourmet chocolate, fresh produce and a beautiful bakery with Russian pancakes known as 'blini'.
We bought a few snacks and when we went to pay with our credit cards the cashier asked us for proof of ID or "documetu". We didn't really understand very well but sheepishly handed our credit cards and ID and hoped for the best.
Maria our tour guide from Thursday said that English is compulsory to learn at school. However, It seems that English speaking Russians are very rare. Either that, or they just choose not to speak in English very often. On our walk home from the shop a man ran up to us and asked us something in Russian, I thought he might have been asking for a lighter or directions but having no idea what he was saying I yelled "английски", pronounced as "angliski", which is the Russian word for English and he gave up on his questions and stormed off. 'Stupid tourists' he was probably thinking!
Gestures and expressions are proving very helpful for communication, especially yesterday at the boat club where I must have looked like I was playing charades while trying to ask security for keys to the boat shed door!
In terms of training, we are staying at a rowing club but are training elsewhere at a huge complex a few kms up the river. For training we bike over to the training centre where there is a 1km course on what appears to be a purpose built reservoir for rowing, canoeing, kayaking and even coastal rowing. It is well sheltered here and the water has been glassy for every single row!
The training centre is full of life with all classes of boats going in and out all through the day. It has also a bike path down the side of the lake which attracts many rollerbladers and makes a great spot for our coach Lauren to follow us up and down the course on her bike.
Training has been going very well. We are enjoying the Filipi boat that we are training in here. The boat is set up with steering in the bow seat, so Kirsty T has a new job now which is the foot steering and Sarah gets to focus on setting a good pace and rhythm.
Biking to Training
The Regatta Centre
Training Lake at Sunrise
Training Row
Biker gang on the way home
On our first day of training here we just did some light trainings to help us get moving again (after 40hrs travel time) and get a feel for the water. Now we are into doing speed work and working on fine tuning our race plan.
Well it's 5:45 now and time to get up soon for first breakfast and a cycle down to the regatta centre for 1km race pieces. We also plan to visit the Winter Palace today so I had better get up and get ready. I will give another update soon.
Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment for any of the team.
Kirstie J
No comments:
Post a Comment