The Day I got Pickpocketed

The Day I got Pickpocketed

St. Petersburg, Russia, Asia

Today started out like a lot of other days on this trip. I woke up at my hostel, had a quick bite for breakfast, got ready, and went out to start exploring a new city. I met a group at 10:45am for a free walking tour in front of the Hermitage museum. I met our tour guide Anastasia, took a few pictures, and she started giving her spiel about the city. We took a short walk down a small alley to go to the New Hermitage, and that’s when it all went down…

A guy in a green t-shirt came up to me and was trying to give me postcards. I said I didn’t want them and he kept insisting and saying he wanted us to come to his souvenir shop. I kept saying no and he got more and more aggressive. He started pulling at my shirt and grabbing my arm. I finally pushed him away and had to say “get off me!” just to get him to leave me alone. The whole thing took maybe ten seconds and as soon as he walked away, the two Aussie guys in the group turned to me and said “what the hell was that about?” I was glad to see that I wasn’t the only one to notice how over-the-top he was being. We kept walking another ten seconds and as soon as we got to the New Hermitage building, I went for my camera in my bag, and it was gone.

I told the Aussies my camera was gone and I ran back to the square and about half way to where we started the tour I realized that there was no way the camera could have fallen out of my bag. Then the green t-shirt came to mind. I ran back to the group and told Anastasia to call the police because I would need to file a report. As soon as I said that, I saw green t-shirt go around a corner at the end of the block. I ran around the corner and grabbed him and demanded he tell me where my camera is. He immediately started swearing at me (in English, which was nice of him) and kept saying “I don’t have your camera, I only have postcards.” He was still being really aggressive. Quite a few expletives were exchanged and I told him there was no way I was letting him go until the cops came. Finally his friend came around another corner up ahead and walked toward us…with my camera in his hands.

His friend tried to tell me that he “found” my camera in the square and that two black gypsies took it. After I got the camera back I realized that the friend was probably the guy that took my camera from my bag in the first place. While green t-shirt was distracting me with his postcards and arm-grabbing, his friend was reaching in my bag and taking my camera. I can’t believe they were able to do it so easily. I sometimes have trouble getting the camera out of my shoulder bag myself, but they managed to do it without me even noticing. As pissed off as I was about it, I have to give them credit. They are very good at what they do. It just sucks that what they do is so crappy.

I knew there was nothing to cops could do about it at this point, so the guys just walked away, and I tried to calm down a bit. I went back to the group and we continued on with our tour. I can’t believe that the scenario that I have read about and seen on so many TV shows actually happened to me, but it did. I consider myself incredibly lucky that I managed to get the camera back, because that would have put a real damper on St. Petersburg. But as it turned out, I had a great day in St. Petersburg and met a few new friends.

Our tour of St. Petersburg was good, but not great. We lucked out with the weather and the whole morning was beautiful with some sunshine and everything. When we finished the tour around 1:30pm, I went out for lunch with the two Aussies (Ben and Sam) and an Israeli guy (Dean) from our tour group. We went over the river to check out the fortress, and then as we were heading back to the city center, the rains came. It started chucking it down, a lot. We found some shelter and hung out for a bit before deciding to go find a bar to wait out the rain.

We went to a few different bars and then parted ways around 9:30pm. The other guys were talking about going out tonight, but I wasn’t really feeling it. I had an adventurous enough day and didn’t feel like pushing my luck any more by going out again. I grabbed a pizza on the way back and have been chilling at the hostel for the night. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for poor weather again so I think I’m going to spend the day in the Hermitage museum. With my camera. And it won’t be leaving my sight. Thanks for the lesson St. Petersburg.

 

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