Vyborg: A Place I Now Have Been

Last weekend I had the tremendous pleasure of visiting Vyborg on the American students’ excursion. I have heard many things about Vyborg, most notably that it is very nice in the summer, a popular day trip spot, a “European-style” city with a castle, that it is Karelian, that it is Finnish and Russian and Swedish? German? Anyway it’s basically on the Finnish border/on the gulf. It’s famous for having a mix of architecture because of all the different countries that possessed it at one time or another. Also, it’s Vyborg! A vacation spot just a short commuter-train ride away!

To go to Vyborg, we departed on an 8am bus, which caused me and most other people to wake up at 5:45, because the bus left from the last stop on a metro line that was 50 minutes away. Ah the Parnas metro stop–imagine, a space-age metro station plopped down in the middle of a swamp/sewage discharge lot/wild dog meet and greet/decrepit bus resuscitation center/mud pit/plot of asphalt in the middle of nowhere seemingly serving no purpose, with one of the world’s largest IKEAs within view. Plus, it is dawn. Russia is full of visions of dystopia.

Anyway, Vyborg made me question why I had been so excited/adamant about going on the excursion. First of all, no longer being forced to go on excursions, I forgot how much I don’t like them and how apparently short my attention span is. I got bored of listening to our guide, despite his charming quirks (few remaining teeth, told some Russians we were all from Las Vegas, given to proud and belabored proclamations–”These cobblestones are the same cobblestones you find in Red Square in Moscow and in Palace Square in Petersburg! Because those are Vy-borg cobb-le-sto-nes.” “Only seven cities in the world have exhibits from the Hermitage! And what is one of them? Vy-borg!” “Never forget, you are eating lunch in a basement that dates from the fourteenth century! This basement is unique to us, is only in Vyborg!”).

I also felt antagonized by the weather. True, readers of my blog are no doubt by now aware that I am very easily antagonized by the weather, but it’s really spring now in Petersburg–impossibly sunny skies, jacket-weather, extremely long days. Paradise, in short! In Vyborg, which is on the water and further north, it’s still winter. Or rather, some post-winter terror-zone where everything is slush, dog shit, mud and garbage. It was cold and raining. My feet rapidly lost feeling. And I must add that the trip got off to an ambivalent start for me when I paid 75 cents to pee in a hole in the ground.

Also, it was Easter. Not sure how that relates, but it was weird.

Anyway, due to my loss of interest in the excursion, I took a lot of pictures of things that may or may not be sights, which I will post here for your consumption. Vyborg appeared to be on the brink of total collapse. Maybe when the ice and everything is gone, before the tourist season, they’ll spruce it up, but seriously, at least half the old down part appeared to have recently seen the wrecking ball. Naturally, that’s the part I took pictures of, on one occasion inciting the anger of a local who insisted that I should not be taking pictures of such garbage, Russia has better things to offer. But even some of the Russians on the trip were surprised/embarrassed by the condition of Vyborg and of the suburbs we traveled through to get there. In their words, “Russia is the least presentable of all the European countries.” All of the stuff was in the tourist center of a touristy city though, it’s not like I went looking for rubble or gaping holes in the ground.

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Here you can see a picture of Vyborg in all its summery splendor: Here

One note: the picture with the moose. According to our guide, the moose was the biggest/only? bronze statue of a moose in the world. Only in Vyborg! Taking a picture with it is good luck. Not taking a picture–bad luck.