3:54pm Tuesday 22nd March 2005
By Charlie Harris
IT was 1.30 on a balmy June night. We were standing on a boat moored to the embankment of the Neva, the wide river that flows through St Petersburg towards the Gulf of Finland.
We were not alone.
There were hundreds of people crammed onto the boat, and hundreds more in the floating bar attached to it.
Along the embankments, on both sides, were thousands more, and out on the river were scores of craft, from the tiny, holding a handful of passengers, to large cruisers hosting substantial parties.
All of us were waiting with excited anticipation for a tradition of this great city: the opening of the bridges.
As the first bridge opened, a massive cheer went up, and gallons of beer, wine and vodka were quaffed in toast to the site.
It was a strange experience for a visitor, because the opening of the bridges is not a rare event: it happens every night from April to November, when the mighty Neva is navigable.
Soon after 1.30am, the first bridge, downstream from the city centre, within sight of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage Museumswings, opened. The flotilla of revellers moves upstream to await the opening of the second, and so on, until all the bridges are up to allow ships to pass to and from the Baltic.
They stay up until about 5am, and residents know, and visitors are warned, to make sure to be on the right side of the river before the show begins.
Half-an-hour earlier, my travelling companion, Dusya, and I had fled a superb restaurant on one of the islands that make up northern St Petersburg.
The food and drink and relaxed ambience had pushed from our minds that we risked being trapped on the wrong side, isolated from our hotel.
We ran, then flagged down a passing car (Russians rarely bother with taxis) to make sure we got to the mainland in time.
Quite why the citizens of this breathtakingly beautiful city make such a nightly festival of this otherwise banal event is still a mystery to me.
Asked why, Dusya shrugged and asked "Why not?".
That seemed to sum up St Petersburg, a much more easy-going city than Moscow, from where we had arrived the previous day aboard the midnight express.
To Russians, St Petersburg is the "head and mind" of Russia, while Moscow is its "heart and soul".
This 300-year-old city, for two centuries the capital of the Russian empire, is more westernised than its ancient, landlocked rival.
Tsar Peter the Great built it as a window on the West, a gateway to the open sea. Its architecture is consciously French, but the gold and blue domed cathedrals ensure that one never forgets this is in a massive country that also looks eastward, into Asia.
St Petersburg straddles the Neva, on an archipelago of former marshes, which gives it a flavour of Venice or Amsterdam. The Neva may be mighty, but it is only one of many rivers and canals that carve the city up into many islands.
This is a seafarers' city, and in Petrogradskaya, on the Neva's northern shore, alongside the preserved wooden cabin that was Peter's site office during the construction of the city, is a wooden sailing boat that the emperor built with his own hands.
A short walk away is the Aurora, the battleship which fired the shot that triggered the attack on the Winter Palace.
St Petersburg is surrounded by water, but it is also steeped in history.
Not far from the Aurora is the Finland station where, in 1917, Lenin returned from exile on the sealed train to further ferment the revolution that was already brewing.
For it was in St Petersburg that imperial Russia gave way to the Soviet Union, and the whole world changed.
The new government moved the capital back to Moscow the following year, but in no way is St Petersburg a provincial backwater.
It is a proud, lovely city, the most beautiful I have seen, with a character all of its own.
While Moscow has an elite rushing to take advantage of the changes that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, which have passed most people by, it seems that every citizen of St Petersburg is involved, their eyes fixed on the future, while their feet are rooted firmly in their proud past.
It is a city with a soul, despite what Muscovites may say, that overwhelmed me with its energy, its beauty and its sense of history.
Getting there
I flew Aeroflot to Moscow, from where I took the atmospheric midnight express, an eight-hour journey. The train left and arrived on time, to the second, in both directions. The sleepers are
comfortable, if not luxurious, and passengers are offered free drinks when they board and given a packed breakfast. There are direct flights from London.
Getting about
Most of the main sights are within walking distance of each other, but travelling by boat is a good idea. Taxis and car hire are rare: Russians flag down passing private cars and negotiate a fare,
although this is not recommended for visitors. The architecture of the Metro is a site in itself: the service is cheap and safe, but crowded during the day. There are buses, trams and
trolleybuses.
When to visit
I visited St Petersburg during the White Nights, the season in which twilight never quite gives way to night in this far northern city, roughly from late May to early July. The season is marked with
a series of festivals, including ones featuring classical, jazz and rock music.
Where to stay
Good accommodation is in short supply in the city centre, especially at the budget end of the market.
Eating out
St Petersburg has many excellent restaurants where the food is superb. I especially recommend the Noble Nest, the Old Customs House, Restoran and 1913 for a special meal. There are plenty of good
bars and cafes.
Must see
In the city: Winter Palace, Hermitage Museum, Mariinsky Theatre (the Kirov), Yusupov Palace (where Rasputin was murdered), Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood (and many other churches and
cathedrals), Peter and Paul Fortress.
Further afield: Peterhof (Peter the Great's seaside palace), Catherine Palace (with the famous Amber Room).
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