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St Petersburg is soaring hot by the time I arrived there. Well, its summer after all.

Its really like what people said. St Petersburg is more European than Russian. Thats explained why most of international conference held by Russia is held in St Petersburg. U know, when u'r guest come, make sure u hoisted them into the best room u got, and banned them from entering ur cockroach-infested kitchen?? (The "kitchen" here is analagous to other Russian cities, esp volgograd : )

I would really love to talk about the places I visit, ..National Hermitage, Peterhoff, bla bla bla...but i think that will be too boring...so lets talk about other aspects that Russian backpackers rarely touch on - the people.

Like in other part of Russia, the Peterburgian love their city. To some extend they want to be known as Peterburgian, rather than Russian. They called their city "Peter", instead of its full name. They really messed up their biological clock when the "White night" arrived, the northern soltice - a phenomena when the sun never really sets ..and the whole night the sun is still shining..- thus the name. They had a fierce sense of culture and arts, but like their other compatriot, they lack the sense of humor.

and they really good at faking their Russian accent from emerging when they speak English. So u got a really messy mixed up of English with English-like accent but with accentuated "R" and the lack of proper stress point. They tend to say "cool" rather than "OK" (like my hostel manager used to say). I guess they find it cooler to say cool than the classic OK, or at least its their way of showing that US influence is now seeping slowly under the old blanket of USSR.

All in all, I'm impressed with St Petersburg - and with what the Russians can do when they really want to do it. The city is inspired by Peter 1 idea of building a city with European standard in Russia. Unfortunately, he's dead before he could forward that idea to Volgograd. Thus, St Petersburg remain the only Russian city with European like atmosphere.

Next destination- HELSINKI. Im going to cross the Russian border tonight by land route (bus). Its gonna be a nightmare trying to pass Russian immigration border, but I dont know yet how worse it could be. So lets just keep our fingers crossed :)

warm regards.