St. Petersburg arrival

After spending all of my time in Russia around the Moscow area, I decided to take a weekend trip to St. Petersburg. The roads between Moscow and St. Petersburg are not good. In several parts it is one lane in both directions. Most people, I think, travel between these cities by train. I took the overnight train, which provides a boxed breakfast.  Here is the view inside my train car.

Note the book about Galois on the table.

In the next four photos I take down the back of the seat cushions to produce the mattress underneath (well, behind) them.

I had the bottom bunk, but the last time I took the train to St. Petersburg on a trip to Russia I had the top bunk, which has a guard rail to counter the psychological fear of rolling off the bed (I doubt it will save you if the train flies off the tracks):

The next photo is the hallway on the train.  Note the cabins all have sliding doors.  There are other train cars where you can sleep in a bunk bed without a sliding door.  The price for the sleeping areas with a door is an order of magnitude larger than the sleeping areas without a door.  My ticket cost about $100 each way. I think the door-free sleeping areas might be $30 or so.  For $100 you get a storage space which other passengers can't easily access.

Right away when I arrived in St. Petersburg I saw a striking contrast with Moscow: a lot of snow!

The ice is not the worst problem.  You have to be very careful about the vegetables.  The sign over the carrots in the next photo says "Watch out! Danger zone! Danger zone! Watch out!"

I'm kidding. The problem is not really the carrots, but what is overhead:

There are more monster icicles elsewhere:

That last icicle may look small at first, but compare it to the height of the window nearby.

I stayed in Nord Hostel, which is very centrally located.  Actually, they have two locations but write a lot more on their website about the one which is near all the big sights.  That place has dorm-style accommodations: use of a 10-bed room (along with a bathroom, kitchen, and internet access) for about $20. They also offer private rooms with a double bed, but they are located near the train station, which is not the best part of the city. I chose the dorm-style place, which has the better location, and since nobody wants to visit St. Petersburg in the winter I was the unique guest at the hostel for the weekend.

Here's the entrance (2nd floor):

So many beds to choose, and so little time:

 The view outside the window of the hostel:

Although I was somewhat bothered by walking around the cold, some of the local window models really liked it: