Russia

September 17, 2006, Day 8
We were up at 5:00 AM to get our bus to St. Petersburg. I must admit, I was a little nervous about the bus ride. This wasn’t a tour bus but rather regular public transportation. All week-long, others in the group made jokes about riding with the chickens.

Well, upon boarding of the bus, we were faced with our first challenge – how to fill out the forms required at the border. I thought I was rather witty pulling out my visa and matching up the words with the Cyrillic letters. Unfortunately, that only worked to a certain point. I still had many blank spaces left on the form.

Meanwhile, some others in the group were spreading stories on how you might have to pay extra if you don’t have the form filled out completely, you will have hard time if you don’t complete the form. I don’t think I ever heard so many unfounded horror stories in such a short time. At least one person had decided to use good sense and decided to ask a Russian. In no time, we completed our forms.

All in all, the bus ride turned out to be OK and crossing the border although time-consuming was uneventful. We made it to our boat the MS Mayakovsky and checked in. We quickly checked our itineraries and looked forward to a few days in St. Petersburg followed by a cruise to Moscow via rivers and canals. We debriefed on our upcoming optional packages and greeted by the staff.