Trip to St. Petersburg with Liberty, September 2011. Part 1. Hotel "New Peterhof"

The first time, back then in Leningrad, I was in 1989, when I was 11 years old, and for the most part I remember that trip with the film "Assa", for the premiere of which we went to the cinema late in the evening, an unusual metro, in which, unlike In Moscow, access to the tracks is closed by doors, but most of all I remember the trip because I could eat servelat unlimitedly, which I loved very much and which at that time was real, not like the current one and we ate it only on holidays :) Then we took it with me as a dry ration during trips to museums, and I also remember that my brother fed me overcooked "Doctor's sausage" for breakfast - then it was believed that this sausage was made exclusively from toilet paper and even cats disdained to eat it :) Well, of course, of course The Kunstkamera made an impression on me, but most of all I remember visiting the Hermitage, or rather the wild fatigue from its endless floors, halls and art galleries and the fact that there was nowhere to sit and relax. Since that time, I have developed a strong dislike for this kind of museums. I just want to say to those who have small children - parents, do not take them to early age to large art galleries, otherwise you’ll lose interest in them for the rest of your life :) (But now I’ve sat down from the bottom of my heart .... and there is an acute desire to stand and wander :)) In general, as you probably already understood, from that trip I have left in more gastronomic than cultural-historical memories :).

Since then, many years have passed, Leningrad has long been gone, but there is St. Petersburg, and I wanted to visit this city again, especially after the colorful celebration of its 300th anniversary.
And then, at the end of August, quite unexpectedly, I was invited to go to St. Petersburg and join a group of wheelchair users, the trip for which was organized by the Liberty travel company: http://www.libertytour.ru/ At first I refused, because. my whole vacation was already planned, but then I remembered that Sapsan goes to St. Petersburg and I can go there for the weekend if I go from Moscow by train, which leaves daily at 19:45 and arrives at 23:30 and return back on Monday early in the morning by taking the train, which leaves at 06:45 in the morning. Travel time takes only 4.5 hours.
I was even glad that I wouldn’t have to apply for any visas and go anywhere in Moscow traffic jams, because I didn’t have to. I just wanted to buy a ticket on the Russian Railways website: http://ticket.rzd.ru/isvp/public/ticket. But it wasn’t there, I couldn’t find information on the site on how to guarantee to buy a ticket for the only wheelchair-friendly seat on the Sapsan train. A place for the disabled is located in the 6th car, which can be seen on the diagram. I had to call the unified information center of Russian Railways, which told me that tickets for seats for the disabled can only be bought at the box office of the Leningradsky railway station, upon presentation of a certificate of disability to the ITU.
But even here it turned out to be not so simple, because without me they didn’t want to sell the ticket to my mother, but after persuasion they did sell it, but they didn’t go back to St. Petersburg, they said that you can only buy it back in St. Petersburg (this is taking into account the fact that I will be there at half past eleven at night and how it is with the accessibility of the station - there was no clarity). After another consultation with the help center and another trip to the station, I managed to buy a return ticket as well. And there is no talk of any discounts, I just wanted to buy a ticket at the usual price, but for a seat intended for a disabled person. And that's at these prices. It's easier to fly by plane.

Sometimes you just want to look into the eyes of these specific people who come up with all these procedures for purchasing tickets for seats intended for the disabled and ask: Why???!!! Didn't your mother breastfeed you as a child (as they said in one good movie)?

It’s even interesting, soon the Olympics will be, and after it the Paralympics, and some foreigner will want to visit Moscow after Sochi, and then St. Petersburg. And how will this unfortunate and miserable foreigner, whom God did not make the happy owner of a disability certificate from the Bureau of Medico-Social Expertise (ITU), buy a ticket for Peregrine Falcon???

Well, now about the trip itself.
After late Friday night I arrived at the Moscow railway station in St. Petersburg, Igor (representative of Liberty) met me and took me to Peterhof, which is located 40 minutes from St. Petersburg, to the New Peterhof Hotel. I'll tell you straight up that it's not the best. best location for a hotel, taking into account the fact that every day I had to spend 40 minutes on the way there and back one way.

Hotel "New Peterhof":

The main entrance, where the hotel lobby is located:

Photos of room 3212, where I lived (the room is located on the 3rd floor):

There is no desire to criticize the hotel, because to tell the truth, I liked it, but since I undertook to write a report, I must be objective. Here are photos of the bathroom, made in the "best traditions" of our reality. As you can see in the photo, there is no handrail on the wall on the left, where I would like it to be, and on the right there is only a mount for it, but there is no handrail itself either (although I don’t really need it here, because from this side you drive up in a wheelchair and the handrail hinders more than it helps). The sink is too low and you rest against it with your knees:

It's even embarrassing! It can be seen that the hotel is new, that everything is done well, but where it concerns the disabled, it is done crazy :(

Here is a photo of the soul - a similar situation. Everything seemed to be done in a civilized and beautiful way, but at the bottom there is a rather high side, through which it is difficult to move on a wheelchair especially when it's wet:

At the same time, in another building, in another accessible room, everything seems to be done correctly, as can be seen in the photo posted on the hotel website, in any case, there is no side there.

Only breakfast was included in the price, while lunch and dinner are quite expensive, and within a radius of several blocks I did not find a single affordable store or restaurant.

If you plan to travel to St. Petersburg on your own, then this hotel is unlikely to suit you, because. it will be very expensive to travel by taxi for 40 minutes to St. Petersburg and back, it’s easier to immediately find a hotel in the city center.

Near the hotel there is Holguin Pond, around which you can stroll in a stroller (it was already quite cool for swimming, so I have not tested the pond :)):

And right next to the hotel, across the road, there is a very beautiful church of Peter and Paul:

In which you can go on a kind of ramp, but only with very strong outside help.

In the next report, a story about Peterhof. Trip to St. Petersburg with Liberty, September 2011. Part 1. Hotel New Peterhof

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About Us

Travel company for the disabled "Liberty" - the first travel company in Russia for people with disabilities handicapped. Ideas about tourism for the disabled in Russia have been in the air for a long time, but no one has yet taken up their implementation. This is due to the incredible difficulties that the travel company cannot solve on its own.

Digging "Liberty" is an energetic team united by one idea. The founders of our company include the St. Petersburg Regional Public Organization of the Disabled and the creators of the city socio-political newspaper for the disabled “We are part of society”.

One of our goals is to promote the idea of ​​city accessibility. You can, of course, wait until St. Petersburg changes itself and meets European standards. But, unfortunately, due to the peculiarities of the mentality, the principle “until the roasted rooster pecks ...” will operate for a long time, and meanwhile, time passes, and Northern Venice remains a city whose beauties a wheelchair user can only read in books .

The correspondent of "Sankt-Peterburg.ru" met with the founders of Russia's first travel company for wheelchair users and found out that there is a business that does not feed, but warms the soul. During the existence social projects of our portal "Letter to the Governor" and "Citizens advise" thousands of people have already contacted us. In the first project, Petersburgers complain about their problems and ask for help; in the second, they give their advice, usually of social significance. Reading letters from citizens every day, we had the idea to find people in St. Petersburg who do not advise, but are already making the world a better place.

We decided to start with representatives of the social business, who, it turned out, can be counted on the fingers not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Russia.

Found your niche

Classmates Natalya and Maria from school dreamed of their own business. The fact that, having opened their own business, the girls will be able to open the whole world for someone, their friends could hardly have imagined then.

The idea to organize trips for people with disabilities appeared a long time ago, "suddenly" and "quickly".

“I have an economic education, Masha has a philological one,” says Natalia. “We both had experience as guides; starting our business, we wanted to stay in tourism, but at the same time find our own niche in order to withstand competition.”

A niche was found unexpectedly - the girls still recall with indignation the picture they saw in the past, how a disabled person in a wheelchair is "shoved" into an ordinary tourist bus.

“We realized that it shouldn’t be like this,” there were no questions left, the girls began to act.

“Then, years later, rummaging through the subconscious, we compared that both of us had spinal injuries in deep childhood: Natalya had a sports injury, and I fell off the sled,” says Maria.

Without the help of the state

“If we knew 8 years ago that it would be so hard, we probably would have been scared,” the friends admit. “But now we can’t imagine ourselves in another.”

Travel agency "Liberty" was established in 2004 as a limited liability company. In the all-Russian modifier of economic activity, where each enterprise is marked by the type of its business, the concept of social entrepreneurship in general and "tourism for the disabled" in particular does not appear. In the committee for social policy, as it turned out, do not even know such a term. In Russia, social entrepreneurship is not fixed by law, which means that Russian "good businessmen" do not have to wait for support from the state, as is customary in the West. No interest-free loans, no incentives for renting premises, no other assistance.

"The only ones who supported us at this level were the Our Future Foundation for Regional Social Programs - again non-profit organization. They scour the country for social entrepreneurship projects. And they have a competition every year. In 2010, we won the competition and received an interest-free loan. The administration found out about us by chance, representatives of the tourism committee and the investment and strategic projects committee approached us at an exhibition in Finland ... they needed advice. There has been no help from the state yet.

It all started with 10 thousand rubles. - the minimum that should have been on the account of legal entity to open your business. At first they organized only tours for foreigners around the city. There was no office, no transport.

Not cheap tourism

It is worth noting that tourism for people with disabilities is in itself more expensive than tourism "on healthy feet", since these are non-mass travels.

“If in ordinary tours the price is reduced due to the number of tourists, then we cannot take a whole plane or bus,” Natalya explains. “We either have individuals of 2-4 people, or mini-groups of up to 15 people. The costs are divided by 15 people, and not 50, as in ordinary tourist buses."

“If we work with Russians, we don’t earn a penny,” Maria admits. “We simply support this social direction. We earn on foreigners, here we can afford the market price. We exist for this money. and our partners, for example, we ask you to reduce the prices for accommodation or meals for excursions. Many go for it. For example, our regular partners provided us with free headphones for excursions."

With transport it is harder, discounts are knocked out with difficulty. And not from all.

“Now we have begun cooperation with ferries. Sometimes airlines (if you don’t contact them often) meet halfway. When we did our first tour to Paris, the Rossiya airline, especially because of our 9 wheelchair users, changed the plane so that we all fit in. And here buses have never provided discounts," says Natalia. "We have two minibuses. And now we plan to manage only with them. One bus was taken on a loan with interest and all the ensuing consequences in 2007. The second bus this year was helped by an international a pharmaceutical company. They found out about us from the Our Future Foundation and gave us the funds according to the estimate."

And here is a disclaimer. There are no buses specially equipped for wheelchair users on the market. Therefore, at first the travel agency had to buy a van, then look for a partner who would remake this van for the disabled (and this service, it turns out, costs more than the bus itself).

"On average, due to expensive imported equipment - specialized fasteners for wheelchairs and an elevator - a bus for the disabled costs 500,000 more than a regular one," Natalya explains.

“We cannot say that this business feeds us. With Russians and citizens of the former Soviet republics, we try to reach at least zero. Sometimes we pay extra ourselves so that the tour takes place,” Maria adds.

Until now, Liberty officially consists of two people, two organizing directors, the rest work on a contract basis or on a volunteer basis.

Twice as hard

Tourism for the disabled - it seems to be all the same: travel - hotel - food - excursions, but still twice as difficult. This entire chain must be accessible to a person in a wheelchair. Therefore, before each round, each intended place for a trip must be examined for the presence of ramps, specially equipped toilets, elevators and other things.

“Hotels with specialized rooms have appeared only recently,” says Maria. “Previously, only 5-star hotels had 1 room for wheelchair users. We have groups of tourists, we could not take a hotel for a tour. Then, about 6 years ago, appeared hotel Petro Palas with 12 rooms, now there are more such hotels, fortunately."

"Having chosen the intended place of travel, either one of us, or volunteers, or a hired person goes there, looks for a hotel, builds a route from available museums, etc. We draw up a plan, everything is measured with a tape measure, checked. And we understand, we can whether we go there or not."

At first, Liberty organized tours only for foreigners in more or less familiar St. Petersburg, then they "studied" Moscow. Then Novgorod, Vyborg, Golden Ring, Kyiv were added.

Now "Liberty" is preparing a legendary route for foreign tourists Transsib: St. Petersburg - Moscow - Kazan - Novosibirsk - Yekaterinburg - Irkutsk - Khabarovsk - Vladivostok.

“This route is very popular among foreigners, many believe that at least once in a lifetime it is necessary to pass the Trans-Siberian Railway,” our interlocutors shared their plans. “We will travel by train. Russian Railways has trains with specially equipped compartments. There are not very many such trains, 40 pieces, each with one compartment.A list of these selected routes is on the Russian Railways website.Now, for example, a girl from the small town of Yaransk, Kirov Region, is coming to us on a Paris tour, we selected the Chelyabinsk-Petersburg train especially for her, at a very small station , where the train stops for only a minute, she will be lifted into a special car. It is necessary to warn that there will be such a passenger in the car in advance. Since disabled people rarely travel, these compartments are usually littered with things of conductors. "

For Russians, the most popular are budget tours around the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Of the "expensive" trips - the dream city of Paris (where, by the way, the group went last weekend), this year there was a ferry tour of St. Petersburg-Helsinki-Stockholm-Tallinn.

“Every year we offer 5-6 tours for Russians. This is very little, but we can’t get a group for more,” Maria admits. Italy and the Czech Republic did not take place."

"Russia is becoming less popular among foreign tourists," Liberty's directors admit. "Petersburg and Moscow are too expensive, and foreigners know little about other cities."

Checked for availability

Barcelona is recognized as the most accessible for people in wheelchairs, according to research by Liberty. Good level of availability in Germany, but there is no demand there.

“Everyone traditionally wants to go to Paris,” Maria admits. “In the French capital, not everything is simple, for example, the metro is not available for us, you need to know bus routes. There is a demand for Italy, it’s more difficult there, but we also do it.”

If we take Russia, according to research by Liberty, St. Petersburg turned out to be more accessible than Moscow.

“We have a lot of half-hearted, ill-conceived accessibility,” says Maria. “Many hotels, museums, transport are trying to be accessible, but they don’t know the standards. For example, one hotel announced that they have 25 available rooms. Not believing their luck , we rushed there, and only a huge iron ramp was installed there. The entrance to the rooms is 50 cm, a full person will not pass, let alone a stroller. They installed ramps in the metro, and they calmed down. Or there is an elevator in the museum, and to it leads the stairs."

Of the St. Petersburg museums, the Hermitage turned out to be the most accessible. Every year, Natalia and Maria bring tourists here for a classic sightseeing tour. But not everything is perfect here either. At least once a season, the lifting device at the ticket office breaks down, rare halls (for example, antiquity) are not always available, so be sure to call and clarify everything before going.

“Once or twice a season we go to the Museum of the History of Religion. There is a surprisingly sincere atmosphere. And, of course, a very important thing for us: a huge freight elevator. lifting devices. The lift in the Russian Museum broke down, now it is not accessible to the disabled," Maria lists the available places on her fingers.

It happens that, having seen how organized tourists "Liberty" move with their lifting devices, museums carry out "work on the mistakes" and become more accessible. The girls remember how long they went to Spas-on-Blood with their 40-kilogram aluminum ramp.

"The Savior-on-Blood is included in the program of a mandatory sightseeing tour, you had to carry everything with you," the directors of "Liberty" say. "After 5 years, they finally got their own ramp."

Or here's another example: "On the website of the Catherine Palace, they accidentally found a mention that they have an elevator. It turned out that the administrators themselves were not aware that they had it, it was not put into operation. The palace went to meet us and started the elevator. And it's not so easy. At first, each time I had to raise three departments of the Palace: security, technical service and administrators."

In almost all museums, everything changes every year: for some, something breaks, for someone, on the contrary, something appears, so research should be carried out annually.

So far, Liberty only works with wheelchair users. If a disabled person needs an escort, then he travels at the same cost. The whole family can travel with a disabled person. “If a disabled person does not need an escort and he believes that he can cope on his own, we do not demand,” the organizers explain. “We always clarify what kind of help they need, help with luggage, cut food or something else.”

Visas for the disabled

“Consulates claim that they make visas for disabled people free of charge. Accompanying people are always in question, although this is, in fact, a “free supplement to a disabled person” and should not be considered as an independent tourist,” explains Maria. we write a petition with a request to exempt our group from the collection, sometimes they meet us halfway.It happens that the consulate gives visas on such conditions only to disabled people of group I. I really want to say thank you to the consulates for issuing visas to our out-of-town tourists, that is, the same a girl from Yaransk does not need to go to the visa center in Moscow, we make her a visa in the North-West."

Concerts and dating

Demand creates supply. There were many "rockers" among the St. Petersburg wheelchairs, and then "Liberty" began to organize concert tours to the performances of rock bands.

“For one year we just didn’t get out of concerts,” recalls Maria. “For example, in the Ice Palace there is a special area for wheelchairs between the stage and the dance floor. We asked for free admission, for some time they came to meet us.”