St Petersburg or Leningrad as it will always be to me

 

This is a long blog item. The short version is we have stayed in St Petersburg for 11 days and loved it.

Peter the Great

Well we have reached St Petersburg and staying at the Babushka House Hostel in downtown St Petersburg. The Sampan trip was great with the train reaching 200km per hour and only 3.5 hours to get here.

Last time I was here we were restricted in what we could do and see. However, this time we have been walking everywhere. My first visit to the Hermitage was 2 hours running through the halls with the guide pointing out art works and facts in broken English.  This time we started with 2 days at the Hermitage.   

The place is fantastically restored so the interior is lavish and well decorated with majestic room sizes and tapestries and paintings of a scale that could be the wall of the average home. 

The Winter Palace and Hermitage have been combined to create a wonderful museum not only of the Tsars and how they lived, but more importantly the art collection that have had obtained over the years, plus a bit of Soviet pilfering from WWII to bolster up the collection. 

Not many places you can stand 2 feet from a Leonardo Da Vinci Madonna with Child and Madonna with Child and Flower. They had whole rooms full of Matisses, Rubens, Monets and others that added to the richness of the place.

Have done a number of planned walks that have gone to other areas of interest. We viewed a number of churches on the way that don’t get a mention in the guide-books, but have beautiful icons and art in them. Visited Saint Isaac’s, which is a museum now, but was the number one church of the day and was amazed that the Soviets took 40 kg of Gold and 2000 kg of silver from the place. It has been restored and looks wonderful, but must have looked even more spectacular when it was pre soviet. Also visited Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood at the site of where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated and Kazan Cathedral in Nevsky Prospekt, which was the main church used for the armed sevices.

Have been to a number of smaller palaces and castles and any city would be proud to have one of them, but here there seems to be hundreds and most are museums. They have some good ticket deals to see a number of places on the one price so we have been going to a lot of the smaller places. The Museum of Peter the Great was surprised to see us and had to turn the lights on for us (it is in the Hermitage complex, but has its own entrance). The strange thing is that every Museum has mature ladies sitting in the rooms watching you. So it was quite strange seeing them get into position for two people to go through a 10-room museum. Needless to say Michael sticks his head over the rope barrier and sets of the alarms, which attracts a Russian glare.  In fact, he has either set off the alarm or been told off for doing something wrong in every single museum in Russia.  I no longer walk beside him for fear of attracting the wrath of the security guards!

Also went to St Catherine’s Catholic Church that has reopened, but is not as grand as the others and they have left a number of altars damaged to show what happened to the church under Soviet rule.

A puzzling question is why the Soviets did not tear them down, especially the Spilled Blood, but used them as storage centres and let them fall apart. Our night guide indicated that a lot were also used for the Anti Religious museums like St Isaacs.

Church of Spilled Blood

Bumped into our Canadian/Australian couple and had drinks with them. They headed off to Tallinn in Estonia last Friday. They have made it sound interesting so we thought why not be adventurous and head off to somewhere different and we can start our European leg there.

Visited Yusupov Palace, which again was a wonderful laid out interior, with private theatre and art gallery before being taken over by the Soviets and joined to the Hermitage collection. It is also the place of Rasputin’s demise, where he was poisoned, shot and beaten to finally die drowning in the Neva River.  They do a daily tour in Russian only and don’t upset the ticket lady, by asking if there is an English tour.  The people in front of us made that mistake and got shouted at! Did you know the lead singer of Boney M died in St Petersburg on the same day and month as Rasputin and we have heard the song played in many cafes and restaurants.

Also visited St Michael’s Castle where the builder was paranoid of being assassinated and built the place to protect himself. He only lived 40 nights there and indeed was murdered. Saw the Marble Palace which was just a gift from Catherine Great to a relative, which was wonderful and Stroganoff Palace and another 5 palaces along the way.

Spent one day walking and visiting the Dostoyevsky Museum, which is located in the apartment where he lived and wrote his final work, the Brothers Karamazov (which coincidently I am reading at present). We also walked the famous 730 steps Raskolnikov took in Crime and Punishment to the pawnbroker’s apartment and to other places that were in the various books and part of his life. Also went to the cemetery where he was buried (Tchaikovsky is buried there too). Michael has become an expert on Dostoevsky without reading any of his works.

Dostoevsky Memorial

Visited St Peters and Paul fortress and the Aurora ship that signaled the start of the revolution and which was deliberately sunk by the Soviets in WW2  to stop the Germans bombing it during the siege of Leningrad. It was refloated after the war. They say 1 in 3 buildings were destroyed during the siege. Michael also says it explains the lack of squirrels as they were eaten and we had to go out of the city to see some.  I am not sure if he is making that up.

Aurora Ship (Christine notice the Samsung sign)

Visited the Russian Museum, which houses Russian Art from the start of Russian history. There was some lovely folk art there.

Managed to squeeze in a serious and studious trip to the Vodka Museum with samples to try.  It actually was an informative afternoon finding out about the periods of Russian prohibition. 

 

  James Vodka in an AK 47 Bottle and gun case -  try and get this through customs

We then visited a Soviet Doughnut shop (Pyshechnaya) that Putin has ordered not to change. The recipe has been the same since 1958, so has the interior. V. Putin was an ex-St Petersburg boy and this was one of his favorite places. What do you expect from a KGB agent? The service is pure Soviet delight - you receive pre-mixed sweetened coffee and one style of pastry thing that masquerades as a warm gooey doughnut from a waitress that does not acknowledge your existence. No please or thank you is required and the serviettes are cut butchers paper. All this, for less then 100 roubles ($3.00) for 2 coffees and 5 donuts. Have been back a number of times to soak up the ambiance.

 

Food has been fine as Russian cuisine is not known for its style or panache. The influence of Sushi is big, but we have found a local Russian Cafeteria style place that we can point to the food and use single words of chicken, beef or fish. We have been there that often they have even given us a discount loyalty card. They like their salads and soups, but keep sneaking fish into them.

Haylie, with all this culture that you would enjoy, they also have a cat museum  and café with cats wandering around. Unfortunately Paul they still love pigeons and go out of their way to feed them.