Travel Notes

Hub Dreams

Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg is holding a tender for investors to turn it into a European hub through construction of a new, 185,000 m2 terminal. Three companies will submit bids to the city government, which will make its decision at the end of June. The winner of the tender must start work this year and the airport must be ready by 2013. The three companies bidding for the project are Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element, Vneshtorgbank, and a joint venture of Gazprombank and Leader. Once the new terminal is finished, Pulkovo-1 terminal will close for construction and Pulkovo-2 terminal will be dismantled, Fontanka newspaper reported.

Museum Booty

A museum in Kaliningrad region will exhibit a boat that belonged to Somali pirates and was brought back as a trophy by the Neustrashimy guard ship. The Baltic fleet museum is located in Baltiysk, in Kaliningrad region. The pirate boat will be displayed in the museum courtyard. During a two-month mission in the Sea of Aden last year, Neustrashimy fought off three pirate attacks and saved two tankers and a container cargo ship. “You only realize they are pirates rather than fishermen when their boats approach the multi-ton ships and the fishermen take out large caliber machine guns and grenade launchers,” said Oleg Gurinov, a captain who served on the mission. (Regnum agency)

TripAdvisor Doesn’t

Moscow did not fare well in a survey by the popular American website tripadvisor.com. According to the site’s survey, which agglomerates 2,400 tourist opinions, Moscow is the third least friendly city in Europe, its residents are the third worst dressed, and its food came in second to last place. Only three of the 13 categories mentioned Moscow, and the Russian capital was the only Russian city that made it onto the list. The Moscow city government disputed the results, calling Moscow “the best city in the world.”

“This American agency’s ratings always offend Moscow, but in fact we have the cheapest metro and the cheapest ‘baton’,” said Dmitry Shultsev, of the city’s tourism committee. The poll “offended” other European cities as well: London was voted as having the worst food, Paris was voted most overrated, and Brussels the most boring. (Kommersant, tripadvisor.com)

Leaning Rodina

One of Russia’s most famous Soviet-era monuments is atilt. Rodina Mat Zovyot, (The Motherland is Calling), the 85-meter monument to the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), has been tilting since 1966. The massive statue is currently tilted about 211 millimeters (8.3 inches) from plumb. If it continues to tilt and reaches 272 millimeters (10.7 inches) off plumb, the situation will become critical, the monument’s designer said. Alexander Velichkin, director of the Mamayev Kurgan Museum Complex, where the statue is located, told Interfax agency that the monument is in satisfactory shape. However, a series of tests and studies of the statue’s state will be done to diagnose its safety.

Zurab to Fabergé

The new Fabergé museum in Baden Baden (see Russian Life Notebook, May/June 2009, page 15) of course required a contribution by sculptor Zurab Tsereteli. His studio donated a three-meter-high copper hare, which has been installed near Leopold Square, in the Fabergé museum’s courtyard. The hare is a copy of Fabergé’s famous miniature silver rabbit, but blown up to 30 times the original’s size. The hare stands on its hind legs and is now the largest monument in the city. (gazeta.ru)

Sochi Hilton

The Hilton hotel chain will open its first hotel in Sochi in 2011. The hotel will operate under the Doubletree brand and have 200 rooms and 15 cottages. The Sochi hotel will be on the site of the existing Solnechny Luch sanatorium, Vedomosti reported, and will be the first hotel operated directly by Hilton in Russia. Two existing Hiltons operate as franchises.