This is part of the “Places That Changed Us” series, a compilation of 20 trips that have had a lasting impact on the Matador Network team. To see the other 19 places, click here.
I have no recollection of how myself and two other barely-20-year-old French university students chose St. Petersburg, Russia, as our travel destination one summer. But the next thing I knew, Dorian, Pierre-Yves, and I were sitting around Dorian’s parents’ kitchen table carefully filling out visa applications. We opted to travel from Paris to St. Petersburg by train, stay two weeks exploring the city, and then do the same trip in reverse. Because we had a very limited budget, we rode in a rustic three-person sleeper cabin both ways and stayed in a three-person youth hostel room during our time in St. Petersburg. But what could have been an uncomfortable, friendship-breaking experience turned out to be what bound us to each other for life.
