This morning we left the camp for Saint Petersburg, and faced a 12 hour drive.  With Sasha’s music collection.  We drove along the simple highway through forests and fields, and for a couple of hours ran parallel to a train track.  The only train we saw was towing at least 50 tankers, probably delivering oil to a refinery.  The road deteriorated and at one point we were practically off road, something for which our mini bus was not well designed.

We stopped for lunch, which prompted Sasha and Dimitri to have an impromptu knife throwing contest.

Not long after we finished lunch and resumed our journey, Dimitri was stopped for speeding.  Sasha explained that we should hope the police officer was corrupt, because if he was, the fine would be 100 roubles and the process would take about 20 seconds.  If he were not corrupt, the fine would still be 100 roubles, but the process could take up to half an hour.  Dimitri actually had to queue up behind four other drivers to speak to the officer who was issuing tickets – his partner was clearly being very trigger happy with his radar gun.

Barely 5 minutes later, all five of them had been processed, and we were back on our way.

Not for long.  About an hour later, we were stopped for speeding again, and Sasha and Dimitri were equally jovial about it, although this one took slightly longer.  Maybe he was honest.

We reached the state border, with more police, and eventually arrived at our hotel in Saint Petersburg.  Sasha leaves to go home, since he lives in Saint Petersburg, and we are left to explore.

We have dinner at a restaurant called the two moons cafe, presumably a reference to saint Petersburg’s white nights, when it only gets dark for a few hours every day.  After spending all day in the mini bus, we decided to walk into the city and make use of the extended daylight hours.  We crossed four bridges to get to the city centre and then went looking for an Internet cafe, having given the lonely planet one last go.  Of course, it didn’t exist.  We walked back to the hotel along various riverside paths, finding it amazing that it was still light just after midnight.  We knew that all the bridges in Saint Petersburg open at 2.00 AM to allow large boats to enter and leave the city by night, so we had to make sure we got over the last one before it opened and stranded us on the wrong island.  We crossed at 1:45.  Phew.