St. Petersburg, Russia
On the 4th of July, we docked in St Petersburg (spending Independence Day in Russia was an interesting twist), which was the highlight of the cruise. Saint Petersburg is Russia's second largest city, with a population of 4.7 million perched at the eastern tip of the Baltic Sea and the Neva River. The city was formerly known as Petrograd, and later Leningrad. The Historic Center of St Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments are UNESCO world heritage sites. However, due to plans of the city to build a 403m high Gazprom skyscraper , UNESCO is considering to withdraw this listing. Most of the citizens dispute against the plans, but local authority stays deaf to them.
Our stay was for 2 days. We had tried to book tours for both days, but the tours booked up fast, and our desired tour for the second day was already filled. it would have been to the Peter and Paul Fortress. This is where the all of the Romanov Czars of Russia from Peter the Great (bar two or three) are buried. However, we did get our first choice, which was a full day tour of the Hermitage Museum and the Church of Spilled Blood. We were told to be prepared for long lines and uncomfortable bus rides. Fortunately, the immigration lines getting off the ship were not that long and our bus had AC. Additionally, it was Sunday and there was not much traffic on the streets. Our tour guide said that there are only 60 sunny days per year and we were lucky enough to get one – which turned out to be a good omen for the day. St Petersburg sits on 47 islands. There are four main rivers in St Petersburg - two “male” and two “female”. It is considered to be the Venice of the north. But instead of gondolas, hydrofoils are used to transport people. It was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, but actually named after St. Peter. There are 320 bridges in St Petersburg. The bridges on the Neva River are actually draw bridges and open two times in the evening to let boats pass. The city is filled with brightly covered buildings so that people do not feel depressed. The sailboat is the symbol of the city.
We went first to the Hermitage museum, one of the top museums in the world - right up there with the Leuvre and the Prado. There are 500 rooms, over 100 staircases, almost 3 million pieces of art, and the largest collection of paintings in the world. If one were to stand just 30 seconds in front of each work of art, it would take 6 years to tour the Hermitage. Fortunately, we had a tour guide to show us the highlights. Additionally, the museum opened an hour early just for the cruise passengers.
5 buildings comprise the Hermitage:
1. Winter palace - where Catherine the Great lived
2. Small hermitage
3. Large hermitage
4. Theater building - we did not visit
5. New hermitage
The tour went through the rooms below. This listing probably won’t make any sense, but is more to aid in my recollection of what we saw.
• Waiting hall
• Hall with vase
• Throne room
• Temporary exhibit of Pablo Picasso
• Coat of arms (of Russian provinces) hall
• Gallery of war of 1812 - portraits of Russian generals. This room was interesting because the columns were made of fake marble. The interesting thing is it was actually more expensive to produce fake marble than to bring real marble from Italy. The reason for using fake marble was that it was in style for things to be something other than what they appeared to be.
• Throne chair hall - most important visitors invited to this room. Patterns on the ceiling were reflected on floor, except for the double headed eagle, which is the symbol of Russia. This is so the double headed eagle could not be walked on. The double headed eagle signifies two rulers - God and the czar.
• Apollo room
• Gallery
• Special collection of impressionists called hidden treasures. This was a private collection stolen by Russian soldiers. It was later turned in, but the original owner was never identified.
• Minister corridor
• Pavillion hall – contained the very elaborate peacock clock as well as a mosaic based on one uncovered in Rome – it took 4 men, 6 years to duplicate the Roman mosaic. Note: there are two types of mosaics: Glass - roman style, Stone - florentine style)
• Italian art - extensive collection 30 rooms - venetian gallery
• Small field marshall room - 2 works by leonardo di vinci
• Passageway based on room in Vatican painted by Raphael - got permission from Pope to copy it - took 28 artists 6 years
• Raphaels room - many ceramic pieces by Rahael. Two paintings by Raphael, one of which is the “Holy Family” containing a beardless St. Joseph. Another interesting piece is the “Crouching Boy” by Michaelangelo.
• Spanish gallery - second largest collection in the world after Spain itself.
• Collection of Rembrandt - 28 paintings – most important is the “Return of the Prodigal Son”.
• Tent hall - houses the collection of art that started the Hermitage. 228 paintings - Dutch artists - collected by Catherine the Great.
• Collection of Antoine van Dyck and Ruben.
• Collection of French artists.
• Golden room - where royalty spent time chatting.
• Crimson room
• The dark corridor - collection of tapestries
• Rotunda room
• Cream room - Provisional government hid here
• Living room of Nikolaus the second.
After the Hermitage, we had lunch, which was fairly uneventful. We were hoping for something traditional, but instead ate what appeared to be a chicken cordon blue coming from the freezer isle of the local supermarket. Afterwards, we went to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (Spilled Blood Cathedral).
The Spilled Blood Cathedral is where Alexander II was assassinated by terrorists. The Church is prominently situated along the Griboedov Canal. The embankment at that point runs along either side of a canal. On March 13, 1881, as Tsar Alexander's carriage passed along the embankment, a grenade thrown by an anarchist conspirator exploded. The tsar, shaken but unhurt, got out of the carriage and started to remonstrate with the presumed culprit. Another conspirator took the chance to explode another bomb, killing himself and mortally wounding the tsar. The tsar, bleeding heavily, was taken back to the Winter Palace where he died a few hours later. A temporary shrine was erected on the site of the attack while the project for a more permanent memorial was undertaken. It was decided that the section of the street where the assassination took place was to be enclosed within the walls of a church. That section of the embankment was therefore extended out into the canal to allow the shrine to fit comfortably within the building and to provide space on the exterior wall for a memorial marking the spot where the assassination took place. Inside, an elaborate shrine was constructed on the exact place of Alexander's death, garnished with topaz, lazurite and other semi-precious stones. Amid such rich decoration, the simple cobblestones on which the tsar's blood was spilled and which are exposed in the floor of the shrine provide a striking contrast. The inside is covered floor to ceiling with 7000 sq meters of mosaic tile. The highest point of the church is 81 meters, because Alexander was assassinated in 1881. The second highest point is 62 meters, because Alexander was 62 when he was assassinated. Alexander II apparently did a lot for the country. One item in particular was abolishing slavery in 1861.
In the 1900’s, the Soviets started blowing up churches. This church was also slated for destruction. It was actually saved by WWII because the soviets needed to conserve their gunpowder for the war.
After the church, we passed by Palace Square with the Alexander Column, erected to commemorate the Russian military victory in the war with Napoleon. We also traveled briefly along Nevsky Prospekt, the main street of the city. We passed by Michaels Castle, where Czar Paul was assassinated. St. Michael's Castle was built to the south of the Summer Garden and replaced a small wooden palace of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Afraid of intrigues and assassination plots, Emperor Paul I didn't like the Winter Palace where he never felt safe. Due to his personal interest in Medieval knights and his constant fear of assassination, the new royal residence was built like a castle with rounded corners in which a small octagonal courtyard is located. The castle was surrounded by the waters of the Moika River, the Fontanka River and two specially dug canals (the Church Canal and the Sunday Canal), transforming the castle area into an artificial island which could only be reached by drawbridges. Ironically, Paul I was assassinated only 40 nights after he moved into his newly built castle. He was murdered on 12 March 1801, in his own bedroom, by a group of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen. We also passed by St Isaacs Square and St Isaacs Cathedral. It was built in 1818 and is a major attraction in the city. It is the third highest cupola cathedral in the world.
After the tour, we went back to the ship, got the kids out of kids corner and hung out by the pool the rest of the afternoon. We ate dinner together poolside and then at 6.15, it was time to get ready again - this time for a night of Russian Ballet. Everything we've read says it is a must see - so we went for it. It was a long time to leave the kids in the kids corner, but we did not have anything planned the next day, so we could make up for it tomorrow.
The bus ride to the theater was about 30 min and we passed a couple of sights from this morning like Nevsky Prospekt and Spilled Blood Cathedral. The theater was The Grand Palace Theatre on Italyanskaya St and was unimpressive, both inside and out. It was packed with what appeared to be 100 percent cruisers like ourselves. The performance was Swan Lake - ultimately, it was a good performance. The dancers were a little unsynchronized at the beginning. Once they started to feature their main performers, the show got tremendously better. The music was fantastic. The performance ended at 10.30PM and it was still light outside. They call the time now white nights because there are only a few hours of darkness at night.
