Category: May Term 2010

Warsaw is the only city on our itinerary that I’ve not been to, but I feel a connection anyway. My brother has been scanning family documents, and there’s one picture of my grandfather in a Russian army uniform (his family was from the Kiev area), the picture being taken in a Warsaw studio; we think he was stationed here, so if I feel as though I might have been here before, in a sense I have.

When we crossed the border from Latvia to Poland, it was obvious to us that we had crossed what was once a major border–from the Soviet Union (aka Mother Russia) into one of its former satellites; the Baltic states had been part of Russia itself. Poland has had a checkered history depending on the fortunes of what are now its larger neighbors, especially Russia and Germany. Before the 18th century partitions that divided Poland among Austria, Germany, and Russia, Poland was a major player in Europe, especially in the 17th century. Warsaw became the capital in 1596, when Lithuanian and Poland united, because the city was closer to the center of the new country than Krakow, which had been the capital of Poland (where we’ll be tomorrow), and the country’s armies played a major role in turning back the Turkish armies from the gates of Vienna in the late 17th century. Jon III Sobieski led troops that raised the siege at a critical moment, sparing Europe one of its many frightening moments from the East. We’re staying at the Sobieski Hotel, and saw one of his summer palaces today.

The trip to the city was long (Poland has some of the worst roads in the European Union, and, bad combination, among the most cars; and like the U.S., one season is under construction), but interesting. The Polish-Lithuanian border area, said Sascha, is one of the vacation spots of Europe; it looks like Northern Wisconsin, with pine trees and lakes, and when I saw a rack of canoes and kayaks, it was all I could do to stay on the bus.

Warsaw is a city of nearly 2 million (in a country of about 38 million); the second biggest Polish city (at least at one time) was Chicago. When I went to Lane Tech, I could have taken Polish, which was offered as a foreign language (French was not). Like the other cities we’ve visited, Warsaw has an old town, with a difference; most of the old town is new, courtesy of World War II.

Here’s how that happened. The Polish state which reemerged after Versailles helped defend Western Europe from the latest scourge of the East–the Soviets, helping defeat the Soviets in 1919-20, which prevented further “Red” incursions into Europe. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin’s foreign ministers signed a treaty that helped divide Poland again, part of the Great Patriotic War that the Russians have conveniently erased from their public celebrations on May 9. The Russian reoccupation in 1939 led to the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn Forest, which was recently in the news because the Polish president and most high ranking military and political officials were killed on their way to commemorate the massacre; there’s a big and moving exhibit in front of the now-unoccupied president’s palace. Elections are next month (ironically, the first constitution in Europe was Poland’s in 1791, which was one of the triggers to the partition of Poland by its more autocratically inclined neighbors; the Polish king was elected).

When Hitler scrapped his treaties and invaded Russia, Poland fell under the Germans, who had little love for the Poles; many of the extermination camps were in Poland (e.g., Auschwitz). What I’m building up to are the two great uprisings that destroyed 85 percent of the city and probably that many inhabitants. In 1943, an uprising in the ghetto by the desperate remaining Jews (at one time, over 300,000; today 1,000 and one synagogue) led to the total destruction of that section of the city. It’s not been rebuilt, but a major museum will open in 2012; we saw a monument where German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1970 got down on his knees and repented the role of Germany in the extermination of the Jews (and gypsies and Poles). In 1944, in anticipation of a Soviet liberation of the city (and somewhat fearful that the Russians would put a puppet government in place), the government-in-exile ordered partisan troops to liberate the city in conjunction with the expected Russian arrival. To the great dismay of the partisans, the Russians sat on the opposite bank of the Vistula River and watched the carnage (and refused to let Allied planes land in Russian airports, which minimized resupply and logistical support); 63 days later, Hitler was so enraged that he ordered the city razed, and when the Russians did move into the city, not much was left.

As I said, you’d never know it, because there’s been a painstaking restoration of the old town, and it looks, well, old. Many of the churches were spared during the war (somehow), but they frequently did non-church use during the Soviet occupation. The old town (and the newer town) look like the pictures from the period of the 1780s, which is when I think the restorers were aiming. We’ve visited restored palaces, city gates, town squares, town halls, etc.–and they do pass for the 1780s, at least to us tourists.

When we waited for our bus at 1:30, there was the beginning of a student equivalent of a bar crawl. Sascha said it’s something like in Berlin (his favorite city, I think), where the night clubs sponsor a parade, giving a float to each university, which wends its way through the streets, attracting crowds who dance; I put ours on a short lease, though, since we had an afternoon partly scheduled to see the Chopin statue and a famous former royal park, and partly for free time with a ride back guaranteed to the hotel. I spent the free time at the Chopin museum, since it’s the composer’s 200th birthday. Like many Russian empire intellectuals, Chopin left Warsaw at age 20 for Paris, and never returned, but the Poles celebrate him as one of their own; as German troops invaded in 1939, I believe Polish radio played a Chopin Polinaise. I also like European museums because they have a “reduced rate” for seniors, which is how I think it should be!

Tonight is “Night at the Museum,” when the museums are open late (till 3 a.m.) and free. They have special programs, including opening parts of the museum that are usually off limits. Several of us are planning to attend a Chopin concert at 11 p.m. in one of the Palaces, which should make our 8:30 start for Krakow seem even earlier.

Now if only I could find the photo shop where my grandfather had his picture taken.

If it’s Thursday, we must be in Vilnius. We spent most of the day getting here, transiting through Latvia to Lithuania. As we got farther south, the agriculture seemed more “regular”–which is to say, more like back home, with some cows, and a lot less forest. The northern areas looked more like the North Woods of Wisconsin, with miles and miles of tall pines.

Again, we’ve changed languages (Lithuanian, we were told, is as close as any language today to Sanskrit), currency (I think travelers are going to welcome the eurozone all being on the euro; right now, many are using their own currencies. Our guide says the Baltic citizens love to travel and use the euro, then love to use their own currencies when they get home), and their own histories. I suspect personal views of the three are rather like those Wisconsin and Illinois share–except the Baltic peoples do speak different languages.

Lithuania is the largest of the Baltic countries, at around 3.5 million, with a large diaspora in the United States and elsewhere, including Jim Meizelis’ family (Jim was a long-time friend of my Scout troop, who has asked me to find the real meaning of his name). Our guide told us Lithuania was the only Kingdom in the Baltic, a short-lived state that “married” to Poland, and wound up with an area from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea at one time. It then “enjoyed” the fate of its northern brothers, enduring war and revolution, including a threatened attack from the Turks. Vilnius is the largest city in the country, with about 600,000 population. Though it was the capital of historical Lithuania (the kingdom apparently lasted for only one king), Vilnius, I just learned, was part of Poland in the interwar period, when Lithuania (like Latvia and Estonia) gained their independence. Even today, Lithuania has a large Polish minority, and a small enough Russian minority to have given the Russians citizenship after 1991, which was unusual in the Baltics.

We had about a three-hour tour of the old town, which has some very distinctive Churches. Lithuania was a bastion of Catholicism (I think I heard 95% Catholic), bolstered by the Pope’s sending of the Jesuits here to spearhead the counter reformation (we’re learning a lot of European history; as one of the students marveled, “They’ve got a lot more of it than we do”). The result was the founding of a university that is the second oldest in Europe–it still exists today, hampered by Lithuania’s joining the European Union (along with NATO; someone needs a geography lesson!); we passed it today. It’s near the Presidential Palace, which was the governor’s house under Russian rule, the Nazi HQ etc., etc.

The main features we saw were the baroque churches (which is why I mentioned we went for baroque), not quite as over the top as some I saw last summer in Germany; a late gothic church that Napoleon is reputed to have said he wanted to put in his hand and take back to Paris; his soldiers used it to stable their horses in winter and burned the wooden fixtures to stay warm; a “black Madonna”–the oak wood aged; parts of a city wall; and the former Jewish ghetto. At one time, Vilnius had a large Jewish population, almost 40 percent of the city’s population. It was known as the Jerusalem of the North, and I want to say that Jascha Heifetz, THE violinist of my youth, was born here. The Nazis wiped out over 300,000 Jews during the Holocaust, and a lot of Lithuanians as well. It’s a similar story elsewhere in Europe, and I’m sure we’ll have more to report after our next stop, which is Warsaw.

The Baltics have been a real treat, and I think our students have enjoyed them. A little rigor-mortis (in Riga!) set in this morning from last night’s two birthday celebrations, so everyone is enjoying a quiet evening tonight. At least Sascha and I are.

Reval–better known by its Estonian name (at least here), Tallinn–is a city in Estonia with a long and storied history. I hadn’t thought about it, but northern Europe, specifically the Baltic Countries, were sometimes players in the game of Empire, but frequently pawns. Until Peter the Great stamped his footprint on the area, the Danes, Swedish, and Poles fought over it. In fact, Tallinn means city of the Danes. That was reinforced when we crossed into Estonia from Russia at the city of Narva, to be greeted by a wondrous 14th century fort we were told the Danes had built.

The border crossing taught an epigrammatic lesson about the contrast between Russia and its former satellites (the Baltic countries were absorbed into the Soviet Union during the Second World War–one of the unstated ironies of the Great Patriot’s Day is that the Great Patriotic War starts in 1941, but Russia invaded Poland and fought with Finland starting in 1939–and absorbed the Baltic states as a result of its treaty with Nazi Germany). In 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated, the three Baltic countries declared independence.

When we pulled up to the Russian passport/control area, the driver spoke to Dr. Vitzthum, explaining that for an extra 2 euros a person (about 3$), we could be spared having to take our bags off the bus; that smacked of a bribe as much as a convenience, so we refused. When we got to the Narva side, the officer took our passports and stamped them for no charge!

The last day in St. Petersburg, we were able to really see the city. The night before, most of us took the Metro downtown, where the size of the festive crowd, and the jostling, reminded me of Shanghai or Beijing–that’s how crowded it was. A number of us looked for a boat ride (St. Petersburg, built on swamp, is at the delta of the Neva River; the many canals are one way to travel) with a tour. Unfortunately, by the time we traipsed around looking for an English-speaking boat, the boats had stopped running. The walk along Nevsky Prospect, with its many converted palaces and monuments, reminded me once again that capital cities tend to be built to overwhelm, and the Russian royal family certainly overwhelmed with ponderous pretentiousness.

The next day, the bus took us down Nevsky Prospect, where we stopped for pictures at the Church of the Spilled Blood, built in the Moscow style (i.e., non-Peter, non-Western), onion domed) to honor Alexander II. It was erected on the spot of his assassination in the 1880s.

We then left the city for our exit from Russia, but first we stopped at the Peterhof, one of the many legacies of Peter the Great. Located between the city and the naval base further West, Peterhof spared almost no expense to dazzle visitors with the wealth of Russia. Perhaps its most well known feature is the gardens, which feature fountains and statues coated with gold leaf that make for great pictures. All I could think of was what took the Russians so long to rebel against what was obviously an ostentatiously rich system, much of it at the expense of the peasants. But it was a last chance for blini pancakes and caviar. That was my lunch.

On to Estonia. As we crossed the border, we could almost tell we were in a different country. With a population slightly over a million, speaking their own language, with a currency abbreviated as “eek” (Estonian kroner), the Estonians declared their independence of Russia in 1918, then fought a two-year war for Independence, and another less bloody revolution in the 1990s to escape from the Soviet Union. It’s only recently that the country was able to erect a monument to the former event.

Tallinn’s old city is a two-part gem. The hill was occupied by the church and knights; hence, the hill contains the fort, with towers enjoying colorful names (fat Mary, see the kitchen from the tower), and several imposing churches including the imposing orthodox church in honor of Alexander Nevsky, built by the Russians at the beginning of the 20th century. The irony is not lost on Estonians; the country converted to Lutheranism after the reformation, when it was under northern European rule, and Nevsky was a prince who helped turn back the Teutonic knights in a storied Russian victory captured best in the 1930s propaganda film warning Germany that Germans who came to conquer Russia had never done so. Though about 20-30% of the population is Russian by birth, the Estonians have required a reading and spoken knowledge of Estonian (a Finno Turkish language, not Romance based) for citizenship, which has, in effect, reversed the privileges once enjoyed by the Russians in Estonia.

The lower city–once divided by a wall from its upper protection–housed merchants, and also some spectacular churches. It was fun walking the city in the evening, as some of us did, because we could linger on the streets and read the signs on the buildings–such as the one housing the oldest pharmacy (1422) in Europe. Simply put, the lower city–claiming to be the home to marzipan–is cute.

It says a lot about tourist season that the town hall, one of my targets for visiting during our free time, opens only after May 15. The climate here is cool (it was 6 degrees Celsius at night), and the farming we saw (and the forests–Estonia is heavily forested) were about as far along as Wisconsin two or three weeks ago. The growing season is short, and I was struck by the relative absence of livestock along the road–it’s about 300 miles from Tallinn, which is across from Finland, to Riga.

When we crossed from Estonia into Lithuania, we changed currency (the Lat), but did not have to go through customs. The relatively easy entry between the member states of the EU is one major improvement since the last time I was in this area. Then, we got to a customs stop during lunch and waited about an hour until the officers were ready to resume. Another benefit from being in the EU is the support a small population like Estonia (Riga is the biggest city in the Baltic, with 800,000) gets. Our guide pointed out that the superhighway we were traveling on had been built with funds from the EU.

When it does warm up here (I was here in August, and it does get warm), Estonia has beaches and islands that attract hordes from elsewhere in Europe, perhaps the same way and for the same reasons as Wisconsin. We went through the resort town of Parnau for a short break and quick look at what had been a Russian resort spa. While some of the houses and hotels were unmistakably Soviet (i.e., too much concrete), turn of the century elegance mirrored the elegance of the home Peter the Great built there in the early 18th century.

We got to Riga late afternoon Tuesday, and I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow. We’re here for two nights.

St. Petersburg — May 9, 2010

The tour of Russia began (for me) on Friday night, when I joined Prof. Vitzthum and his friends from Ruhrgas, where we’d visited earlier in the day, at a local bistro for dinner. When we were done, it was around 9 o’clock, and, far north, it was still light at 9 o’clock. Sascha suggested walking back by way of Red Square on the chance it was opened. When we got there, the square was still closed, but the approaches were opened–and the Kremlin area is especially beautiful at night.

From sometime in the 12th century, the Kremlin (I think the word means fortress) has guarded (and symbolized) Moscow. Within its walls, the Russian leaders expanded the empire to the Caucasus mostly in the18th century, to the Pacific ocean and central Asia in the 19th, and to Eastern Europe and through the Communist International into Asia, Latin America, etc. in the 20th. The Romanov dynasty and its predecessors lived in the Kremlin until Peter the Great moved the capital (in Russian fashion, he was an absolute ruler and said he was moving to a new city–St. Petersburg, 400 miles north, providing a window to Europe that Peter looked to for inspiration). Even when St. Petersburg was the capital (until the Bolsheviks, fearing western intervention, moved the capital back to the center of the Eurasian continent), czars came for coronation and wedding to the wonderful cathedrals in the Kremlin. Sascha and I were able to get pictures in front of the gingerbread Church of St. Basil, with its onion domes, red square decorated for the 65th anniversary (minus the Lenin mausoleum, buried as it were behind bunting and stands for the May 9th celebration), the famous Gum department store (which now houses western-brand boutiques), and walked around the festive area.

The next day, we went back with students. Our tour started when the Kremlin opened, and we were able to visit the Orthodox domes of the churches within, and get nice views of the whole city. The President of Russia still has offices in the Kremlin, and frequently hosts heads of state, but it’s no longer the residence of important or royal people. But, as I exclaimed, “I now can say I was in Russia,” because the Kremlin/Red Square area is one of the places that is unique–nowhere else in the world. Security was pretty tight because of the festivities and the attraction of foreign visitors; we found that out when one of the guards in the Kremlin saw us changing into our yellow trip shirts and urged (that’s a kind word) us to take the picture and change back again because otherwise people might think we were a terrorist group!

The afternoon highlight was a visit to the hills overlooking the Olympic stadia from the 1980 Olympics, which the U.S. and other countries boycotted because the Russians had invaded Afghanistan (I think there’s a lesson there!). It was a nice view of the city, and also of the famous Stalin-built Moscow University, a major high-rise that is either quasi-Gothic or quasi-gauche depending on your point of view. It’s one of seven buildings in Moscow that Stalin built in the early 1950s that are quite recognizable. One has now been converted to a 5-star hotel (a Hilton I believe); there’s one like it in Shanghai and one in Beijing, testimony to a long buried Sino Soviet pact that fueled American fears in the 1950s that there was a communist conspiracy to surround the west.

Our sleeper for St. Petersburg didn’t leave until nearly midnight, so we got dropped off at Old Arbat street, a kitschy-in place that when I was here in 2002 had lots of street vendors selling souvenirs, and some nice antique stores balancing the tchotke dealers.The street has been gentrified (I’ve been to a number of streets like it, for example an old market recreation in Hangzhou).The street vendors are gone (except for painters, etc.), and one has to go into the stores for the matryoshka (the dolls within the dolls), there were bands and musicians, and great restaurants serving everything from borscht and blini to sushi (we had dinner at one that served both).It was especially suitable for people watching, which we did until it was time to go to the train station.Partly because of the holiday on Sunday, there was little traffic on the train, and we pretty much had a car to ourselves.We had four-person sleepers, with magazines (Russian Sport) and TV (Russian TV), and a rather leisurely voyage to St. Petersburg.

When we got to the city Peter dictated, we immediately went to breakfast and realized that our bus was going to be impeded by the day’s activities every bit as much as it would have been in Moscow. The parade was to start in a few hours, and the crowds gathered and the traffic got controlled. We realized when our bus had to back down a street that it was going to be an interesting day to let someone else drive.

Perhaps different than Moscow, St. Petersburg seems historically dominated by three things–the first, the effort to outdo Louis the 14th. To be a real ruler in Europe, one benchmarked against the Sun King in France. Hence, Peter’s efforts to build palaces (though he was a relatively plain living man–we stopped at his cabin, conveniently across from a large souvenir shop–he encouraged other nobles to copy European models; he himself seems to have preferred Holland, a result of an in disguise tour he undertook) that would rival Versailles. His daughter, Elizabeth I (?), was even more outlandish. She constructed the Summer Palace which we visited. Its combination of gold and mirrors, and the famous Amber Room, are so over the top that the style is called Elizabeth baroque, even though the baroque period had ended elsewhere in Europe. Its gardens are stunning as well, and the comparison/contrast between the richness enjoyed by the royalty, and the poverty of the peasantry always made me wonder why the Russian Revolution took over 300 years. The monumental approach to architecture in particular, and its aping of Europe, makes St. Petersburg much more comfortable I think for Europeans and Americans than the larger city, Moscow. Ironically, the Summer Palace was behind German lines, and the Germans trashed it. One of the first acts of world communist leader Stalin was to pour money to rebuild this symbol of mother Russia, but Russian history is full of ironies.

The second influence in St. Petersburg (and perhaps in Russia as well) is Napoleonic. While the big battles were fought closer to Moscow, and in fact the French armies got to Moscow, there are major victory items here too. One I think is a very western-looking Church of St. Isaac, which was at one time the largest Church in Russia.

The third formative influence was the decline of the Romanov dynasty and the emergence of Communism in its wake. The city’s most distinctive (read Russian style) is the Church of Spilt Blood, a colorful gem constructed in memory of the assassinated Alexander II?, the most liberal of the monarchs. And of course the Russian revolutions of 1917, the first overthrowing the czar, and the second, the October Revolution, overthrowing the overthrowers, when the Germans allowed Lenin to return to St. Petersburg from Switzerland, and the rest is history. We saw the cruiser Aurora today, which reputedly fired the first shot of the revolution.

Now that I think of it–as I should today–World War II as well greatly impacted Leningrad. 1 million Leningraders (St. Petersburg became Leningrad during Soviet times) died in the 900-day siege; the Russians have put the death toll from World War II at 26+ million. We stopped at a memorial to the Siege of Leningrad. When you get off the train here, the first sign you see is “Heroic City, Leningrad.” We’re hoping for fireworks tonight.

One other thing about this 65th celebration.For the first time, Russians are inviting their former allies to participate in the parade.Perhaps a sign that the vision Roosevelt had for a peaceful post-war world, fostered by the allies, the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia, may be finally coming to pass.This is certainly a wealthier and less gloomy country than I remembered from my first visit in 2002.Visually, Russia has moved so far along the globalization curve (we had lunch at McDonald’s yesterday) that I was glad we were able to visit historical reminders that we’ve traveled different roads in the past.Maybe that’s why the still extant Communist Party objected to inviting the 1945 Allies!

I was told that Russia set May 9 rather than May 8 for victory day because (and they’re both possible answers): a) the peace was signed late at night which was the next day in Moscow, and/or b) the Russians wanted to celebrate the beginning of peace rather than the end of the war. Given the ensuing cold war, that wish is yet another irony in the history of a country that is very ironic.

If you’re the right age (and that’s my age), you can almost understand my fascination with what’s happening in Moscow this week. For my generation, Red Square was the scene of enormous displays of Russian military might. I remember the dissection of the number of troops, missiles, and the speculation associated with which leader had risen, fallen, or vanished among the panoply of would-be Czars who threatened to bury us. That was the Cold War spectacle, when the Soviet Union would exercise its muscle as a super power.

This week much of Moscow is making ready for a big parade on May 9th, which marks an important date in Russian history–the end of the Great Patriotic War, as the Russians dub it, 65 years ago. The maelstrom that was World War II (and a stage on the way to that Cold War) ended, and Red Square is festooned for the 65th anniversary party.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), we’ll be in St. Petersburg for that holiday, and I understand it’s celebrated there, but not in the way it is in Moscow. After all, Moscow is the capital of Russia (at least since the Russian Revolution moved it here from St Petersburg.

I know we’ll be watching it on TV, and in the papers. It’s already blocked off Red Square (rats), which we were only able to view from a distance; we’re touring tomorrow, and I hope we can get closer!

We landed in Moscow yesterday, and have spent the major part of the last day and a half visiting companies. We went right from the airport to John Deere’s new assembly plant/logistics warehouse near the airport. It’s a huge facility that we were able to visit because one of my former students, who went on a January trip in the mid 1990s with me, is now a lawyer for John Deere. The plant opened last week, so we were one of the first groups to tour it. The factory side assembles 2 styles of combines (parts come from elsewhere–especially Germany and the United States–but will probably be sourced locally eventually) for large farms. One interesting fact that we learned that I’ll use in my international business class is that the company reorganized last year more or less around similar customer groups, putting Australia in with the United States. The plant builds to order (if someone orders a combine, they assemble one), so there’s not a lot of inventory sitting around. By contrast, the logistics side is 13 layers high, piled with the inventory that might be needed to repair the John Deere equipment. As I told one of my accounting students, “that’s a lot of fixed costs” for the plant!

On the two visits today we went via subway, which is one of the showpieces of communist “art.” The subway was started in the 1930s, and built by Nikita Khrushchev with a lot of convict labor. Some of the metro stations are really elaborate, with statues to Soviet art (workers, peasants, soldiers). They were built partly as bomb shelters, so they’re pretty well underground, but move large numbers quite efficiently.

The two businesses we visited were quite different.One that Prof. Vitzthum arranged is a German company that has partnered with Gazprom, Russia’s state company that has a major share of natural gas both in Russia and in Europe.If you’ve been following the negotiations between the Ukraine and Russia, you’ll know that Gazprom is an arm of Russian Foreign Policy.The company we visited has also partnered with Gazprom to build the Nordstream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany on the floor of the Baltic Sea.We had the company’s view of what must have been (given the strength of the green parties in Europe) a difficult struggle to obtain the permits.As I understand it, the pipeline has been cleared environmentally, and will be begun soon.

The other company we visited was Citicorps, which an alum who works here set up for us. What I found fascinating was his discussion of fostering the use of credit cards in what is essentially a cash-based economy. Partly because of the impending holiday, and partly because of the volatility of the world markets because of Greece’s debt crisis, the presentation seemed informative, but brief. The Russian economy fascinates the business literature, partly because the country is developing, but it is still a poor country (overall) whose economic health ebbs and flows on the prices of raw materials.

We’re staying at the Hotel Vega, which was part of a complex built for the 1980 Olympics.I stayed here in 2002, and fortunately, it doesn’t resemble my memory.Eight years ago, it resembled a monastery, or, as I thought at the time, a prison cell.It had bare lightbulbs and scant furnishings.I’m happy to report that it now looks like a hotel, and one much better than the 3-star ratings it has.

Sascha and I are about to leave for dinner with some friends of his, but I did want to wish everyone a happy Mother’s Day. I’ll write again after we’ve toured Moscow. We check out at 9 a.m., then tour, and take the overnight train to St. Petersburg at 10 p.m. As my brother said, “you better keep your track shoes ready for this trip.”