St Petersburg

murphey

murphey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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murphey
Russia, not Florida.

I just got invited to a technical conference the end of June. Have passport, will travel. I did notice that getting a visa may take up to 30 days, but when I talked to the company that handles the visas, they claim 8-10 days.

So the next question - from Denver, any recommended airlines or ones to stay away from? Because United took away my 50K award miles many years ago, I'm forced to fly coach. (rats!)

Any other suggestions? Pretty much everything is paid for (food, hotel, travel) and I've got an extra day or 2 at the end to play.
 
My information is a bit old, but I participated in a standards committee meeting in St. Petersburg in 2000. Stay away from the Hotel Moscow. It was a dump (and that's being kind). People had stuff stolen from their room while they were sleeping in it. I didn't have a shower the last morning I was there because there was no hot water. Heck, there was no water in the hot water pipes.

I flew in/out on Lufthansa through Frankfurt. The one time I've really been happy to see an LH plane arrive was the day we left. We figured if he landed he was going to take off and we'd be on it. Let me know if the airfield still looks like it has a collection of old aircraft waiting for the scrapyard. They weren't then, they were still in use for domestic flights. :hairraise:

If you have the time (and I didn't), the Hermitage museum is supposed to be an absolute must see. Fabulous art collection.
 
Ghery said:
If you have the time (and I didn't), the Hermitage museum is supposed to be an absolute must see. Fabulous art collection.
Click to expand...


It is

The museum itself is a work of art.

I was there for 2 weeks in the early 1990s, shortly after communism fell.

We were supposed to be there for business, but Russians like to delay… put off… cancel meetings until the last minute as a negotiating tactic, so we had many days/opportunities to visit the museum.

It's a beautiful city as well

We flew Lufthansa Airlines through Frankfurt as well
 
Hermitage is already scheduled as part of the conference.

Many years ago (late 70s) company I worked for had major business in Moscow. My office mate & I flipped a coin, I won. He went to Moscow, I went to Monterrey and San Francisco. His report was 1) bring toilet paper 2) bring canned tuna fish. Well, can't bring food anymore (TSA has a fit) but does the toilet paper requirement still exist?

This is not a trip I'd take on my own - far too expensive. $400-600/night at the hotels. I'd rather go back to Prague, but the conference is in St Petersburg.

Now I have to figure out how to get a visa in less than 3 weeks. May required a quick trip to SFO next week.
 
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