Russia Volunteer Project Story

Peter and Paul Fortress
by Kathleen Cheong

Being an impressionable first timer into the world of volunteering and workcamps, I found myself in the midst of the northern summer volunteering at Peter and Paul Fortress workcamp in St Petersburg, Russia.

It certainly didn't disappoint, July was a sensational time to visit St Petersburg especially for its long summer days - the sun skids along the horizon around 11pm before bumping up to daylight again around 2am. The city was simply stunning, rich in history and thick in its cultural heritage. The streets are lined with Neo-classical buildings and pockets of marketplaces of merchants advertising their goods and sketch artists selling their crafts. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, there is an obvious imbalance of the extremely wealthy and the impoverished - from beautiful people wearing Prada clothes parading down Nevsky Prospekt (main street downtown) to the tired-looking old ladies selling strands of wilting vegetables outside the main market just to survive. St Petersburg is a paradox of the high-end culture heritage and its post-Soviet economic instability.

Our volunteering position gave us a valuable insight into the city. Our program /privilege for volunteering gave us opportunities to partake in cultural excursions to places like the Hermitage, Russian Museum and around the fortress itself; but our livelihood (managing 10 USD per day for 12 people) was a challenge and gave us an understanding of the daily lives of some locals.
The 12 people in our group included 10 internationals and 2 Russian camp leaders, the internationals covering various radii of the European continent as well a Canadian and myself. The age ranged from 19 - 32, everyone had a different agenda for being here, but despite this, we all got along like a house on fire. This was further fuelled by our nightly activities and sing-a-longs led by the guitar-playing Frenchman in our group.

The location of our accommodation was very convenient. We were accommodated in an adequately maintained 3-bedroom apartment at the workers´ quarter on the fort itself. Not bad considering that we had tight night security (visitors were not allowed on the island past the opening hours so we had the fort to ourselves form dusk to dawn), a working bathroom, a kitchen, a ´private´ beach and the cathedral as part of our backyard! It was an exciting feeling knowing that we were living in a place that is part an important part of Russian history.

The Peter and Paul Fortress was built by Peter the Great to fend off the invading Swedes in the early eighteenth century, but it never served its original purpose. The Swedes were quickly defeated, and the fort was instead used as a prison for most of its life. As 2003 marks the 300th anniversary of the fort, it is currently undergoing major renovations and our work was partly archaeological, mainly manual labour. We spent many solid hours during our two-week workcamp digging holes in the garden of the cathedral, trying to locate the previous drainage system and original design layout. We were more successful than we'd first thought, and the gratitude of the co-ordinator of the renovation programme was enough to make our digging a worthwhile exercise.

To seize the opportunity of volunteering, live the life of a local and see St Petersburg in a way an ordinary traveller would not have, have left me wondering if this was the start of something interesting.