Skating in St. Petersburg, Russia
1999

Author's note 13 June 2002:

This article was written in 2001 and published in condensed form in the newsletter of The Inline Club of Boston www.sk8net.com. My experiences in Russia date back to 1999. I understand that skating and skate touring have grown more popular since then. I'm heading back in the Summer of 2002 and perhaps I will update. Oleg Vigodsky in St. Petersburg organizes skate tours - check out his web site at www.inline.spb.ru. Skating maven Kathie Fry has also been to St. Petersburg and has lots of photos at www.skategrrl.com. Kathie will also be in St. Petersburg in the Summer of 2002.

St. Petersburg's 300-year anniversary is in 2003 and I have heard that the city is getting ready and will be sparkling like the gem that it is with many restorations and new constructions. If you may only visit Russia once in your life this is the time and place to do it.
Thank you very kindly to the readers who have expressed their pleasure in reading my article.

Michael

Three hundred years of social and political upheaval, as well as mankind's most destructive war, have not lessened the grandeur of the city built by Peter the Great. Skate tourists will find St. Petersburg a challenging experience on many levels and a welcoming place that ranks among the most unforgettable skating destinations on the planet.
In my opinion, there is no bad time for vacation and travel but most people would suggest visiting St. Petersburg during the justly renowned "White Nights", a period of about four weeks from mid-June to mid-July when the sun barely sets at all, the streets are full of people all night, hearts are filled with joy, and romance is everywhere. Of course, skaters are the most joyful of all as they may skate all night long in the dusky combined light of the sun, moon, and stars.

Visas are required to visit Russia and an official "invitation" is needed to obtain a visa. Hotels, youth hostels, and travel agencies provide these invitations without fuss. It does take some time and planning but it is much more simple and routine than it sounds.

Helsinki is commonly the gateway city to Russia. A train makes the five-hour journey twice a day between Helsinki and St. Petersburg, so you might consider making Helsinki the end point of your air travel. If you can stop a day or two there you will see both a beautiful, manicured city and experience what skating in heaven must be like. Smooth, broad bicycle paths are everywhere in the city center and run in spokes and rings for hundreds of miles around the suburbs and beyond. Most of these bicycle paths are lit at night and commonly have under- and overpasses built across roads.

The skating club Katukiitajat (Street Gliders) in Helsinki meets every weeknight at 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. at the central rail station for a group skate. http://www.katukiitajat.fi/english/index.htm.
There are only two slight imperfections in the skating infrastructure, though both are dependant somewhat on your point of view. The first is that this country of sea and lakes without number is flat and climbs and descents are few and slight. The second is that after skating in Finland you will forevermore complain about the pitiful skating infrastructure throughout the United States and your skating colleagues will shun you as a bore (at best) or as a lunatic (at worst).

For most people, Russia doesn't impress on a first impression. Most things are a bit worn, a bit threadbare. There are in fact many things brilliant and sparkling new in Russia, but you'll first notice what isn't, and sometimes feel that you've stepped into a world where time has stood still and the dust has been accumulating all the while.

After some time, (less time if you're a very romantic person given to reading gothic novels or Dostoevsky), you'll learn to see the beauty, as the Russians do, in gentle decay, crumbling ruins, overgrown fields, and in dark entranceways and gloomy stairs through endless courtyards connected by a labyrinth of rutted walkways and arches.

Russia is a very rich country; only her people are poor. A few have money and then some. These are the "New Russians" - usually a term of derision meaning anything from "nouveau rich" to "mafia". The vast majority of Russians eek out a living on salaries of $50 or $100 per month. However, most have nearly free housing, health care, and many other services, such as $3 seats to see the finest ballet, opera, or symphony in the world (note: visitors to Russia cannot buy or use these subsidized tickets and, even if you have Russian friends, are strongly advised to not even try). The cost of food and other necessities is also much less but one should also bear in mind that Finnish butter, French wine and American cigarettes do all cost about what they cost here. And they are available in the shops; shortages of anything but the money to buy such luxuries are a very distant memory in today's Russia.

On the grand boulevard of St. Petersburg, the historic Nevsky Prospekt, you will find several sport stores selling inline skates. You may even find brands such as Roces and K2, although relatively few Russians can afford even much more modest, low quality knock-offs manufactured in Eastern Europe. Helmets and padding are usually a foregone additional expense and may not be available everywhere. One can also find skate components such as wheels and bearings including very inexpensive items of somewhat crude Russian manufacture. In general, the Finnish butter rule applies - the good stuff that a foreigner would consider acceptable costs the same or more in Russia as it would in the West and while there are incredibly cheap Russian substitutes one would only accept them out of economic necessity.

So inline skating is known in Russia, and Russian skaters, if not a routine sight, are not an extraordinary one. The equipment is a limiting factor and skate touring, night skates, and commuting by skates are largely activities that are unknown to the vast majority of the Russian population. Aggressive skating does have its adepts and skate parks can be found in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Novgorod. Some organized events have been held in Russia, such as a downhill competition outside of St. Petersburg a couple of years ago.

The recreational skating scene in St. Petersburg is found at Palace Square, which, while modest from the technical point of view as a skating venue, is otherwise one of the most impressive locations in all of Europe to enjoy whizzing around on inlines.

The grand square is flanked by the Neva river, the Hermitage Museum (housed in the imperial Winter Palace), and other majestic buildings constructed when the Russian empire was at its apogee. In the center, the 47.5-meter tall Alexander Column, fixed in position only by its weight, towers over the square.

My Russian host family, being very solicitous that I should enjoy pursuing my skating interests in St. Petersburg, had the kindness to accompany me to Palace Square. Unfortunately, it only takes a minute or so to skate around the square so I was a little perplexed as to how I could show my appreciation by demonstrating that I was having a good time skating while they watched me, a bit like one would watch a small child in a playground. So I raced around the square some ten times or so, jumping up and down curbs and skating backwards. That seemed to satisfy them and they assumed that I, too, had had my desire to skate fully satiated. Later they were greatly perplexed when I left for a full day of skate touring and reported to them that I skated to distant places that were, for them, inconceivable to skate to.

Greatly perplexed was a fairly common reaction as I began to skate everywhere in St. Petersburg. People that had never seen a skater on an open road would often follow me in their cars simply to watch in amazement. In general, reactions were neither positive nor negative as people struggled to understand exactly what it was I was doing. Once, as I skated along the bank of the Neva river, some guys in a car shouted, in heavily accented English, "Yankee go home!" (presumably, my helmet and wristguards a sure indication that I was a foreigner), but the shouting seem good-natured.

Another time a police car followed me down Moskovsky Prospekt ordering me to do something I wasn't able to understand over the loudspeaker, several times over a couple miles. I assumed that not having a good understanding of Russian gave me dispensation to ignore the police.

Evidently the police agreed since they eventually lost interest in me and drove away. The only truly negative reaction I got was whenever I skated past St. Petersburg's five star Grand Hotel. The doorman would eye me like a fierce bulldog dying to take a bite out of my carcass, running out shouting and waving his arms anytime I came anywhere near the entrance to the hotel.

My Salomon TR Racing skates excited the awe-struck admiration of boys everywhere -usually street urchins who, lost in fascination at my glittering yellow skates, would forget to beg for money. Often they would ask me how much my skates cost. I felt that the right answer was to tell them the exact truth as they seemed all the more satisfied to know that they had, indeed, seen a treasure worthy of a Czar.

Boston skaters will feel right at home on Russian roads, but for others I should mention that the condition of roads is often so bad that one might wrongly believe that it is impossible to skate on them. This is not the case, but one needs to be both alert and to have excellent street skating skills. Russian road engineering is, generally, not on a par with the west and the roads crack, buckle, and are rutted and full of potholes. Numerous cycles of freezing and thawing every winter wreck havoc on the roads, and drainage does not exist in this city that is as rainy as London. Streetcar tracks usually jut out of the road surface - not because they were designed to be above ground but because the road has sunken and collapsed around them. A kind of tar is used in some places that turns into goop whenever the temperature rises above 70 F. I'm sure that in a million years archeologists will find perfectly preserved skaters that drowned after skating into deep pits of the stuff.

While Boston skaters will enjoy the challenge of Russian road conditions, they may be disappointed by the weak opposition of Petersburg drivers. The trajectory of a car in Petersburg resembles that of a drunken fly as drivers swerve from one side of the road to the other to avoid potholes. At first the skater may believe that the cars are actually aiming for them as each defensive shifting of the skater is matched by another jolting lurch of the car. Soon, however, one realizes that this cannot be the case because the drivers never look up from the road to see what is ahead of them.

Where to skate in St. Petersburg? I skated over almost every inch of the city so I would say everywhere. Skating is the ultimate way to get to know a city - in a few weeks I knew more of the city than many natives who tend to think of all locations only in turns of metro stops. Beautiful sites, history, and adventure await you in every corner of the city. There are, however, certain staples of skate touring in St. Petersburg. First and foremost is cruising down Nevsky Prospekt. Nevsky Prospekt is the glorious main street of St. Petersburg, terminating on one end near the Neva river, and on the other near the magnificent Alexander Nevsky monastery.

Along the 4.5 kilometers of its length you'll enjoy skating past hoards of people (on or off the broad sidewalks), fashionable shopping cafes and restaurants, the famous canals and bridges of St. Petersburg, innumerable statues and parks, great Cathedrals, the best bookstore in St. Petersburg ("House of Books"), the Moskovsky rail station and Insurrection Square, still proudly displaying in giant red letters "Leningrad, Hero City", in memory of the three year siege of St. Petersburg during the second world war. Last but not least, you'll also find Stockman's of Helsinki department store, where you can go for a bit of Western repose in the atrium when you need a small break from your Russian adventure.

St. Petersburg's other great boulevard, Moskovsky Prospekt, longer than the Nevsky Prospekt but featuring only a few outstanding sights, was perhaps my preferred route for long, fast skates. The Moskovsky actually goes all the way from the airport to the center of town, about 15 miles, but you will want to go as far as the outskirts of town to the monument of the liberation - perhaps eight miles or so. The sidewalks are very broad and, for much of the way, in good condition.

The Moskovsky passes through some fairly tony neighborhoods and you will have the opportunity to see some good examples of Stalinist architecture. If, like me, you have your Khruschevian grey apartment blocks confused with the grand, empire architecture of the Stalinist era you'll be in a for an eye-opening surprise. But while you have your eyes open be sure to watch out for the roaming stray dogs - the instinct to chase skaters seems to transcend national boundaries. However, there is a trick that is amazingly effective in warding off Russian dogs - simply yell "Foo" at them!

One outstanding attraction on Moskovsky Prospekt for me was the existence of a western style self-service Supermarket. The usual method of buying things in Russia is to discuss your selection at length with someone behind a counter who tallies up the total of your purchases and sends you over to a cash register on the other side of the shop where you will repeat your total, hand over your money, and receive a receipt which you will present to the counter person in order to receive your purchases. The foreigner in Russia must either learn to speak Russian very quickly, find the self-service market on Moskovsky Prospekt, or die in front of the sausage counter while unsuccessfully trying to commit to memory a long stream of syllables representing some sum of Russian rubles. My Russian wife, however, already had an instinctive disdain for supermarkets even before she knew of the existence of Johnny's Foodmaster in Charlestown and my shopping expeditions were of the furtive variety. This proved to be excellent preparation for speedskating as I would have to skate sixteen miles very quickly every time my wife sent me out to pop around the corner to buy groceries at the usual Russian shops in our neighborhood.

St. Petersburg is built on islands and one extraordinary trip is to skate around the adjacent pleasure islands in the north of the city: Primorsky, Kirov and Kamenny. Primorsky, extending all the way to the seashore, features the largest park in St. Petersburg and a seaside sports stadium. Perhaps due to its location far from the city center, it isn't much used. It would be an excellent site for a skating scene like that in Central Park in New York City and probably is large enough to offer speedskaters a training loop on its relatively good pavement. Kirov is a smaller island with paths through the woods, boats for rent, a small amusement park, delicious picnic sites, and a hidden palace.

Just to the north of Kirov island, one can see a particularly fascinating and unexpected site - a Buddhist temple. The temple is being restored but even surrounded by scaffolding it is an impressive structure and a testament to the diversity of cultures in both the far-reaching Soviet Union and present day Russia. On the third island, Kamenny, wealthy Russian families built great wooden houses, many of which still stand as outstanding architectural examples. New Russians have been restoring these houses and building new palatial estates. The roads on this island are the best in St. Petersburg, of western standard, providing some of the smoothest and most enjoyable skating in scenic surroundings in the city.

From Kamenny Island one can continue back towards central St. Petersburg by way of the large island of Petrogradskaya. Petrogradskaya is a very lively, bourgeois neighborhood and provides another long boulevard (Kameninostrovsky Prospekt) for pleasant skating. This boulevard will lead you past the great turquoise-domed Mosque, the golden steeple of the Peter and Paul fortress complex, and over one of the several great bridges that cross the Neva river into the city center and the Nevsky Prospekt.

Russia has been open to the world for more than a decade but it still remains a challenging and astonishing destination. Few visitors to Russia experience more than a small taste of the richness and depth that it has to offer. Skating provides one way to experience St. Petersburg in its sweeping breadth and to feel the many layers of history every location in the city can reveal. It opens up the possibility of many fascinating encounters with Russian people off the beaten tourist track and also presents to Russian people an unexpected glimpse of western culture. It is a physical challenge, a true adventure. Welcome to Russia, and, by all means, bring your skates!

By Michael Leventhal with assistance from Stuart Culshaw

Photo: "Wandering Camera"