During the Cold War days – finding housing in St. Petersburg was virtually impossible – so many families ended up in communal flats – one appartment shared by 2 or 3 or more families – one shared kitchen, one shared bathroom – but seperate bedrooms.

Why do I bring this up? It turns out that this life style still happens in St. Petersburg. Even though the housing crisis has long since eased up – owning your own flat is simply beyond the possible for many families – particularly if the parents are divoriced, or you are not sure you’ll be staying in the city, or you are a student. Our new friend proudly announced that she had just managed to get her own flat – and her son is 9.

We managed to experience Communal living – St. Petersburg style – personally – not by choice however.

When we arrived at the MIR hostel and discovered it was 5 very long, very hard flights up and had to change, we also knew that the Suricata couldn’t host us for the last night (the 11th) of our stay. They had previous bookings – and we were not willing to share a bunk room with strangers.

So the manager of the Suricata – Sergey – arranged for us to stay in another hostel for the last 2 nights of the stay. He even helped us move our luggage – and to give him full credit – called each night to be sure we were fine. Our new landlady spoke no English – and he was concerned.

He didn’t need to be – sometimes you can manage to communicate even if you actually have no words in common. I learned she had an altar to her dead husband, discovered she was from the Crimera and I found out that she’d only been managing this ‘hostel’ for 3 days.

She worked hard every night scrubing and cleaning, and supervised two ‘workers’ – who were being paid to do the painting and repair work. She was always up before we were – and went to bed much later.

The physical space definitely had it’s issues. The hostel is on 2 floors – each one has a kitchen and a bathroom. But since each floor sleeps 10 people at least – we’re talking 1 bathroom per 10 people. And unlike the Suricata – the shower is in the bathroom – so one person taking a shower – no one is going pee! I’m thinking that it’s a good thing that a) it’s still under construction, so the entire 2nd floor is off limits – and 2 of the 5 ‘bedrooms’ is unoccupied. We had no issues – but it did make me worried.

There was no WIFI, the kitchen was insanely small, the sink in the one bathroom was cracked, the shower on our floor had seen much, much better days, and the beds were so soft you couldn’t even sit on them without sinking down to the floor. The kitchen walls were badly in need of painting, which they were working on – so I feel a bit bad saying anything. The stairs in the hall leading up to the ‘hostel’ were cracked and sagging cement – a tad scary – but I figured they had held up this long – they should make it 2 more days!

Plus – there’s the communal living issue. One room of the flat was Tanya – the host’s – bedroom – another bedroom was occupied by a young girl attending school in St. Petersburg (clearly not a tourist), and the third room was ours. It was fairly obvious that having tourists was a completely unexpected surprise – and while they were very nice about making sure we were comfortable – some standard hostel attributes were missing. No common, no tea or coffee available, and limited cooking supplies. We all shared the one toilet – and tried politely to keep out of each other’s way. Tricky in a tiny kitchen with a table with only 2 chairs. The Intrepid Traveler is fairly sure that the other ‘guests’ didn’t have kitchen privileges – based simply on their never using them!

But we took it on the chin – the company was interesting, the location very good, and there was only 1 flight of stairs. Our kind of place!

After putting our stuff in the new hostel, we still had time for 2 museums – and a really good dinner for under $5 per person!

Our first stop was the Imperial House of Porcelain – where they have a simply amazing collection of Porcelain items – some made by the Imperial House – some coming from France, Germany, or even Great Britian. I particularly liked the ‘People’s of Russia’ series of huge ‘dolls’, carefully sculptured into dramatic poses – and wearing ‘clothes’ painted to resemble the traditional clothes from that region.

Our 2nd stop was the Andrew Nevsky Monestary – and while the church was very nice, we felt that visitng trhe graves of artists and composers like Dostoyevsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc. was back to that Russian streak of Macabre.

As we were leaving the Monestary – we spotted their ‘tea-room’ – and decided to check out their dinner offerings. I had a wonderful Borscht – I’m definitely getting addicted to this typically Russian beet soup – or maybe it’s just the sour cream. The Intrepid Traveler opted for one of those mystery meat balls with rice – it was yummy as well.

Well fed, and suitably ‘cultured’ – we head for the Mariinsky. Tonight we have tickets to Carmina Burna – and I’m excited. As well I should be – it’s perfect. Double orchestra, double choir, kids choir on the side for balance, 3 soloists – the only thing missing is the ballet component – but even the Mariinsky must have to compromise somewhere.

The concert is completely, totally, absolutely outstanding. Perfect. There is round after round of curtain calls – and we love it. The conductor decides that the audience deserves an encore – and from the stage calls for the orchestra to play and the singers to sing. More perfection!

Moral – if you find yourself going to St. Petersburg – immediately get tickets to the theatre. It’s worth every single penny.

And the 2nd dress circle – aka Balcony – is perfect. First row – as centered as possible. Stay away from the 3rd circle – it’s the highest balcony – and I got scared going to my seat. I couldn’t stand facing outwards to slide into my row – and had to file in facing the back wall of the Theatre. That’s scary!

Signing off – The Soup Lady and the Intrepid Traveler.