Anecdotes Plus: Night shopping at Nevsky Prospect

April 2013

When I am on holiday I like to walk in the street and see every day city life, eat the normal food and see the people how to live and work, what they eat, how they dress, when they go to work. If I have time, I go to McDonalds and supermarkets and look at the prices, and see if there are any special items that you only available get in that country.

A book shop at the ground floor of this beautiful building,
St Petersburg 2013

Nevsky Prospect is a main street in Saint Petersburg, there is mix of modern and historical buildings. You can walk into these beautiful old buildings. One was a book shop, another one was a coffee shop. In the coffee shop window were several colourful attributive moving puppets that caught the eye. In the side street, I could hear people selling tickets for river cruises. I kept my head down to avoid eye contact with them, because I do not like buying things from hustling.

Natura Siberica, 108 Nevsky Prospect,
St. Petersburg, 2013 - www.naturasiberica.ru

To my surprise, I could not find a boutique selling clothes made in Russia. My guide told me they generally imported, but I found that their prices were higher than HK. The only locally made item I could find were skin care products, so I bought a bottle of hand cream, but have not tried it yet.

A night view of Nevsky Prospect, St. Petersburg, 2013

After eleven o'clock, the shops were nearly all closed, but the street was busy than ever. Some people were going home, others were finding food, and some were meeting friends in restaurants. The seats outside the restaurants were full, the heaters were all on. The customers wore red scarves, provided by the restaurants, for warmth.

The sky was not totally dark even after mid-night; it was like eight o'clock on a summer's day in HK, so I went window-shopping every night until late. Since quite a lot of restaurants stay open until late, I went into a pancake café, the prices were quite reasonable; a pancake was 37 roubles and a small pot of tea was 46 roubles. The food was delicious, it was better than the food at the hotel. Perhaps I was hungry or perhaps the café was just right up my street.