The cats of St. Petersburg and a huge clinic.

The next thing in plan was to see Aurora sail away.

The ship that has stood on the Neva bank for almost a 100 years. The ship that symbolises the October Revolution and the beginning of a new era – suddenly taken away. What’s going on? A lady confidentially tells us it’s being taken into reparation, but will never return. So it’s going to be put into storage somewhere?????? Sounds weird. Even if you don’t like what has been, you cannot re do it. ’’Aurora’’ as a symbol, whether it be good or bad, is still important and should be respected. The lady tells us more – the whole story about ’’Aurora’’ (its cannons declaring the Great October Revolution) was a fairytale, it was made up later. Of course, every great country needs their fairytales, but why give them up now? I don’t know, I don’t understand the semiotics of these great countries. As I sometimes shouldn’t, being from a country with a population of 1 mln.

What is this weird tower at the end of the street?

It's not a tower, but a raised bridge.

 People are waiting with cameras and phones in their hands.

Even the horses have to come watch "Aurora" sail away.

and there goes ’’Aurora’’. It is still a bit unclear where it went.

Happy Estonia and happy Ukraine - dr. Natalja Ignatenko

Natalja still had some time before her flight so we visit the botanical gardens.  

We meet Nataljaga again in a few days in Rostov.

After that Silvia and I change hotels from the conference hotel to one closer to the city centre and go back on the Neva embankment to enjoy the beautiful midsummer’s weather (unbelievable, that’ it’s the last week of September).  

Main street - Nevski prospekt.

The concert of my idols in adolescence. I listened to Matia Bazar right here in Leningrad in 1984.

 A very important cat of St. Petersburg

Former school for noblemen.

Even the post office looks like a palace.

We stroll around and see a giant statue of a cat. 

Of course we must go and take a closer look. It appears to be a coffee shop called „Cats Republic“ 

We step in, the whole cafe is covered in pictures of cats, statues of cats and everything else to do with cats. 

We order a light meal and as we are munching (it really is good) more and more people are coming in. 

All of them exchange words with the owners, put on plastic shoe covers and disappear somewhere.

 It seems to me that some are meow-ing. Our curiousity gets the better of us and we go inquire. It turns out it is not just a coffee shop. One can also communicate with cats, if one so wishes. Just meow behing a door wearing plastic shoe covers and you get to pet and cuddle all the cats you like. Oh, and you also have to pay - 120 rubles. It seems a little too little for such a fun thing. Of course we want to take part too. We’ve had to make do without our cat Maksim for 3 weeks now.  The lady at the cafe says that tonight is not possible – all the times are already fully booked. We’ll come tomorrow then.

Las two: Silvia is solving a puzzle in the coffee shop - find 67 cats.

On our way home we go to St. Isaac’s cathedral

...the famous Jelissejev mall (which sells every delicious treat you can imagine). The last 4 photos.

 ....and bought bubble tea from a funny little bar.

This is how bubble tea is made (green tea without ice, fructose standard, kumquat and cherry bubbles) and what's left of it after drinking. The last 4 photos.

 In the evening we find out that we’ve walked 22 km that day. For some reason my legs are covered in horrible hematomas. I wonder what effect flying on a plane will have on a blue person. Do I have to take precautionary measures before I fly to Rostov? Silvia took a picture as well, but I am certainly not showing it to anybody.

Cat's Republic cafe

                  We got our shoe covers, We meow-ed and entered the kingdom of the cats.

 Lovely Tatjana Garamova told us the whole story from the idea to the actual outcome. 

The cats all come from the streets or are rescued from mean/careless owners. They can only bring very sociable, friendly and communicative cats, but even so it is difficult when kids, whose parents haven’t thought them how to deal with animals visit (they don’t let many in at once). I guess the collective at Cat’s Republic try to help those who for some reason can’t keep pets, but still want to have their company.  Tatjana told us a story about every cat. Unfortunately we couldn’t remember all of them and with cats bustling about had no time to write anything down either. We had pet every head and scratch every tummy. Cat’s Republic works closely with the cats at the Hermitage. Again we heard how important those cats are so that the rats won’t get to the pieces of art. During the Second World War the cats in St Petersbordsome were eaten and some died. After War they brought in 8 wagons full of cats to replace the eaten ones. We leave the cat cafe with terrific impressions. I feel a little cautious about a cafe where cats just wander around the customers, but this sort of arrangement is very catfriendly in my mind (risk of infection is minimal and they have their own lives as well).

Silvia and I wander aimlessly further. I want to show her the Maria Theatre and  the Estonian church  in St. Petersburg. We find both of them. In the meantime summer has become fall. We escape to our hotel. They serve us tea every day from three to five and then I am off to find dr. Sotnikov’s clinic
.

Maria theater from the inside and out. Unfortunately the season hasn't started yet. The last 2 photos.

Estonian church in St. Petersburg. Before the October revolution there was a lot of Estonians living in St. Petersburg (over 50 000). My grandfather from my mother's side was born here and graduated military school here.

An art exhibition on the street

The last 6 photos. There are beautiful houses on every corner in St. Petersburg. There are no ugly ones.

Actually there are ugly houses too, but in other neighbourhoods. Tourists don't normally find themselves there, but I am off to look for dr. Sotnikov's veterinary clinic.

You have to take metro and thes bus and you have to buy this nostalgic ticket.

...but I manage just fine and get a good overlook of the clinic. 

It seems to be a busy time. There are many patients in the waiting room and all doctors are working. Actually dr. Sotnokov´s practice compromises of two separate clinics with more than 100 veterinarians. There could be as much as 13 doctors working in the clinic at the same time and every one of them has an assistant + the staff of the lab. There are 6 doctors working in the night shift. Obviously it's a very big clinic and dr. Sotnikov says that 550 m2 became to small a space a long time ago and that they would need at least 1000. The two clinics house all the necessary equipment (including MRI and CT).

The rooms of the clinic are on the second floor.

dr. Sotnikov's doog Keeks (Poundcake). Apparently he doesn't let visitors disturb him.

 Opthalmologist's office

The lab and dermatologist's office

A lab, which runs so many tests the list is many pages long

 Last four: patients who stay in the clinic for treatment

 Last three - endoscopy room.

 Surgery

Stomatology

Ultrasound scan.

 External fixation - control

Keeks, who is in between dr. Sotnikov and dr. Toomet doesn't like to be the patient.

When I leave the clinic, it’s pelting down with rain. The weather is bleak and cold.

 Silvia and I have agreed to eat real Russian cuisine at „Masha and Medved“ (Masha and Bear) restaurant. Silvia gets quite wet as well. Warm tea was a necessity and we has a strong urge to try the russians’ famous Beluga vodka.

Silvia on her blog: We ordered one regular Beluga and one Beluga Gold. They were double in price and we wanted to know if that would reflect in the taste. And so it was – Gold was much better and cleaner – one might also say more golden. When mum and I clinked our classes and started drinking, every single Japanese tourist in the table nex to us, turned their head and looked at us. We felt a little werided out, because it felt like we were pieces in a muuseum (one Japanese lady even stood up and explained something about ust o the other like a tour guide), but what to do – we had to drink. There was a French man behind me who continued tos tare at us long after w ehad finished. Maybe they were judging my mother, who was throwing back the hard stuff with her kid. We also ate some ///////pancakes???//// with caviar, of course russian dumplings (pelmeni) and babuška vareniki (///////………………////////). Otšen vkusna (very tasty). The varenki tasted a little like shoes, but they were pretty decents shoes none the less. ///////The French spent a lot of money to come to Russia, visited a restoran that offered Russian cuisine and ordered chicken ratatouille – unbelievable!//////////

Last full day in St. Petersburg and there’s so much more we would like to see and do. We take the tube to Vassili island. Silvia won’t allow we to talk on the phone in the tube, because everyone is looking. „A 10-year-old Samsung with a flip is not much of a sight.“ – I don’t understand, but Silvia says that I might as well carry around a landline and twirl the oldfashioned round number dial. To be honest, when I looked around even the scarfed old ladies and gents in weird hats tinker with their smartphones. I remember that in the olden days, everyone was reading – even the people who were standing up and had all their hands full. Maybe I would be less noticable with a book in my hands than an ancient phone. I really don’t understand why I should buy a new phone when mine calls just fine. Which is more than I can say about the phones my family members have. Everyone has a smart phone and all I hear is someone squiling, that they can’t hear or they can’t reach someone or the phone just randomly dials people and calls them, without it’s owner noticing or giving permission. I amd actually quite excited to see if I can manage to make it through this trip with my old phone.

From the Vassili tube station there’s quite a long way to the Kunstkamera, where we want to go. There’s also a piroznaja (cafe) on our way. We eat pies and vareniki and drink tea. It’s a very typical little Russian piroznaja or kofeinaja - very clean and in order with a big selection of diferent kinds of pies and pastries. The sausage pastries tasted quite like our own at home.

„    Põshki“ –  a little coffee or tea shop, where there's nice tea and hot pies. It's also very cheap. We highly recommend it.

Silvia on her blog: Kunstkamera was to hold a very strange privte collection by Peter the Great. I for one really wanted to see a fetus in a jar. When we first entered the muuseum, the ground floor was filled with diferent items associated with everyday lives of people from all kinds of diferent cultures. Basically pots and pans and rugs and so on. Very interesting (not really), but I came to see a baby in a jar. On the first floor I saw the baby + a whole lot of other creepy things. You see, in Europe during Peter the Great’s time it became really populaar to collect all kinds of strange things, like deformsed fetuses and exotical stuffed animals and display them in one’s home. Peter the Great really liked this and he felt ha had to educate Russian people so be fuounded Russia’s first muuseum and filled with oddities.

A baby in a jar and other oddeties in the Kunstkamera.

A nostalgic moment in the cafe "Sever" (Nord). When I went to Leningrad when I was a youngster visiting it was a must. 

Our last supper was in „Pelmennaja“. The Russian dumpling is an art in itself and we definitely want to eat them again.

This is what Usbeki pelmeni look like (mantõ)

Nevski at night

We spend our morning looking for a post Office (hopefully our cards reached Animaggi Oulu clinic and Blue Cross Hospital in Cape Town), losing our camera in our hotel room (we have no luck with cameras) and getting to the airport. Good-bye St. Petersburg. I’ll see you next fall during Baltic Forum. Colleagues, for your information, the organizers of Baltic Forum are looking for lectors for next years conference as well. If someone is interested in spending a few fall days in this beautiful city by the Neva river, contact me at tiina@toometikliinik.ee