4

Trip

notes

Getting there

Emiratesand Qatar Airways fly to Saint

Petersburg and Moscow, the arrival and

departure ports for Viking’s Russia river

cruises, from select Australian cities.

Cruising there

Viking River Cruises’ 13-day Waterways

of the Tsars cruise from Saint Petersburg

to Moscow, and in reverse, operates

May to October 2018 and 2019. It costs

from $7,895 per person twin share,

which includes return flights from select

Australian cities to Russia, accommodation,

all meals, wine and beer with lunch and

dinner, one excursion in every port and

onboard activities.138 747,

vikingrivercruises.com.au

Just before we reach Moscow, a Cuban friend who
lives in the Russian capital spots my Instagram feed
and messages to ask if I’m free for lunch at Beluga,
a recently opened restaurant in the Hotel National
on the edge of the Kremlin. So the next morning, I’m
a little bewildered by the Moscow metro after being
under someone else’s wing for 10 days. Twenty-five
minutes later, I arrive at a beautiful dining room with
a Baccarat glass bar and tables dressed in snowy linens.
A sullen waitress leads me to the table where
Armando, whom I haven’t seen in many years, is
pecking away on his phone. As befits the manager
of the Moscow boutique of a major Italian fashion
designer, he looks so smart that I can’t help but feel
hopelessly dumpy in my saggy jumper, windbreaker,
khaki trousers and deck shoes, the signature outfit
of most male passengers aboard theIngvar.
He eyeballs me appraisingly but kindly, and says,
“I’m going to make it better, my friend.” And he does,
when the waiter responds to his fluent Russian by
bringing us a feast for a tsar: oscietra grey caviar with
blini; Baltic herring tartare with marinated onions;
grilled artichokes with pressed sturgeon caviar;
salt-baked sturgeon with Abkhaz lemons and thyme;
smoked pike with mushroom sauce, shallot confit
and fried mushrooms – and there might have been
more if I hadn’t begged him to stop.
The thing is, I explain to Armando, the Russian
dish I knew I’d end up craving soon after returning
home is shchi, the famously homey, slightly sour
cabbage soup served with a big dollop of smetana,
sour cream. I’d eaten a bowl of it in a hole-in-the-wall
café the day I’d arrived in Saint Petersburg.
Armando raises his dark brows. “Seriously? Why?”
I doubt he’ll understand, but after my trip through
the heart of Russia, I couldn’t think of a single dish that
better expresses this great Slavic nation’s endearing
humility, ingenuity and tenacity, along with its
appetisingly piquant perspective on life. To boot, it’s
cheap, and it’s good for you. I knew I’d miss Russia.●

Clockwise from

far left: Beluga

restaurant;

smoked pike with

mushroom sauce,

shallot confit and

fried mushrooms;

Moskva river

and the Kremlin,

Moscow; Tamara

and her husband,

Nikolai; baked

goods on the

Viking Ingvar;

theViking Ingvar

by the Church of

Saint Dimitry on

the Blood, Uglich.