After our date with the young woman in the remote dacha, we have our next date right here in the city, with Polina. Like Olga, she is also a couch surfer. Due to time constraints, she cannot accommodate us, but at least she can meet us in the evening. We go to an Irish pub and learn a lot about Russia from the young student. In St. Petersburg, the current president, Vladimir Putin, does not have many friends. This city is unusually cosmopolitan and modern. Openly living homosexuality is not a problem here. However, the media cannot be trusted anywhere and the laws in Russia are said to be terrible and are reduced to absurdity by corruption.

We also learn that people don’t toast each other with the familiar “Nastrowje” but that the whole thing is called “Sastrowje” in Russian. The former comes from Poland and has successfully replaced the Russian toast in our heads. “I love the German language” is what we hear here from Polina.

“In Germany you have rules that make sense. In Russia you have rules to break them!”

The next day, we are not deterred from our plan by another surprise invitation and walk to the famous Hermitage to visit this palace and museum. However, hundreds of other people have the same idea and the line stretches out into the square before the gates even open. We are surprised that we have to wait in line for hours, while our tour guide raves about how those days are long gone and that every tourist can now get into the large museum quickly thanks to the ticket machines.

Due to a “technical problem”, however, this option is not available on this day. The wait is really disgusting. We look enviously at one or two tour groups that have disappeared past the queue through the entrance. However, we are pleasantly surprised when we finally get to the ticket booth. Entry is free today, as an exception – and we save the equivalent of 25 euros per person.

HEremitage: 25 Euros / free

I once spent many hours in the Louvre, fascinated, and had to be dragged out when it closed for the evening. The Hermitage is said to have three times as many exhibits. Catherine the Great had the palace built and collected large quantities of art even in her time. In addition to many works by the most famous Renaissance artists in all of Europe, there are also other legendary works.

We see objects from the household of the Russian royal family and also some of the legendary Fabergé eggs. But many historical pieces, stone tablets and busts from Palmyra in Babylon and sarcophagi from Egypt are also on display in the basement.

The Hermitage’s cats are also well-known. Since many of the exhibits were popular food for small, heat-loving rodents, a regiment of cats was employed to defend the art history of humanity.

However, thanks to better and more modern defense systems, the cats have been put out of work, but not laid off. They still roam the vaults and in the courtyard you can still see how they are gratefully fed until they are round.

There is one more small thing we had to do in Saint Petersburg: visit the UAZ spare parts shop. That was the original reason for our trip. Of course, we can’t carry car parts in our luggage, but we want to see what they have; our car also needs a new engine, as the old one was dismantled in Bavaria.

We see lots of interesting winches, gearboxes and assets to add on. The UAZ is really loved and, like a Lego car, is expanded as much as enthusiasts can. A guy who speaks English is called so that we can explain why we German tourists have lost our way here in this inhospitable outskirts of St. Petersburg.

The man looks at us in shock. We had expected more enthusiasm. “You have UAZ in Germany? Whhyyyyy??? Russian cars are not good. You have Mercedes, Audi, BMWäääää!” Well, but no four-wheel drive panel vans with a hundred possible upgrades. Pimp my UAZ. Uli once showed me a video in which bored Siberians had even developed a tracked drive base for a UAZ. The UAZ salesman is right on one point, however. The quality of the cars is the opposite of the quality of the concept behind them. The workmanship of the well-thought-out commercial vehicles is catastrophic. Uli’s plan is to compensate for this disadvantage with a complete overhaul.

There should also be no problem finding spare parts when traveling through most of the Russian-influenced countries in Asia.

Now, however, it is a problem because the economic sanctions against Russia due to the Ukraine crisis (annexation of Crimea in 2014, separatist fighting in Donbass) have rebuilt the Iron Curtain. You can buy an engine, but you can’t send it to Germany. It is only available within Russia, and understandably we can’t get there with our UAZ in its condition. So we have to drive with another van at least as far as Kaliningrad, where there is the nearest UAZ branch. That is not an option for us. We thank them and leave the shop with dark thoughts but nice impressions of exciting car parts. Uli will later discover in Germany that it is possible to have the engine sent to him in individual parts.

When I see a post office, I remember that I want to send a few more postcards to my friends. I desperately remember the Russian words for “одиннадцать” (“eleven“), “Марки” (“stamps“) and “Открытки” (“postcards“), so that I can recite these words to a tiny old lady with a friendly smile, “Спасибо” (“thank you“). Slowly, looking me in the eyes, she repeats every single word, which I confirm with a “Да” (“yes“). Then an unexpected marathon begins. She rummages through drawers and pulls out an incredible number of bundles of stamps. She writes on a piece of paper that each postcard needs 35 rubles in stamps, so 11 times.

I don’t have the postcards with me, though. Apparently there are no 35-ruble stamps. No 30-ruble stamps either. No 5-ruble stamps either. For whatever reason.

With the enthusiasm of an assembly line worker, the lady begins to cut out eleven 20-ruble stamps, eleven 10-ruble stamps, eleven 1-ruble stamps and twenty-two 2-ruble stamps and hands me a big bundle of them. I have to stick them all on the postcards later. There won’t be much room left for a message.

We try to find a good Russian restaurant again, but in this part of town we only find kebab shops or Chinese restaurants. We finally find something Russian in a run-down shop, but the food there tastes as bad as the inside of the restaurant looks.

The city could have bid us farewell a little better, we think – and the city responds. In the light of the night we once again have a breathtaking backdrop to take wonderful photos and board a plane to the North Caucasus with good memories.