St. Petersburg, Russia:

Panorama of St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg offers a lot of interesting things to do: sightseeing, performing arts, theaters, sporting events and much much more. Upon arrival, it is immediately apparent that St. Petersburg is more modern or “Europeanized” than most of the other Russian cities I’ve visited. The city is a culmination of architecture stemming mainly from the extravagant Tsars and Tsarinas demands to have a city comparable to that of all the great cities of Europe. Often times, Tsars went to these other European cities, took some ideas and brought them to St. Petersburg.  At one time, roads were demolished and canals were dug so that part of St. Petersburg would be similar to Venice.  Personal Versailles style palaces were built throughout the area. St. Isaac’s and the Kazan cathedrals were built in similar styles as St. Peters basilica in the Vatican City. Many interiors, furniture and artwork were modeled after the famous architects and designers of Europe.  Traditional Russian structures still stand, though, and are prevalent especially when observing churches.

There is a lot to discuss regarding St. Petersburg, so I decided the best way to preserve the memory of the city would be to write about each individual day I was there (if I did anything interesting that day).  This will include any tours I went on and any random thoughts of interest I had while exploring the city alone. Let’s start:

Friday, May 13^th - City tour by car, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, Peter and Paul Fortress

This was the first day in which I actually did anything of interest. I arrived early on Wednesday (around 2am) and went directly to sleep. Thursday I went to the Kazakhstan embassy to begin the process of receiving a single entry visa, but that was fairly uneventful. Friday was the beginning of my true adventure. I met my tour guide (Irina from Insider Tour) at the hotel and we began the adventure by car. Immediately we began to see different large estates of past royalty or noblemen of Russia. It is very interesting because if anyone had any type of influence in the city, a palace was built for them (literally, a huge palace!). Not only this, but most Tsars or members of the royal family had secret lovers for which they built palaces for. I’m not sure how they remained “secret” when they were randomly given a palace to enjoy, but this is evidently the story. St. Petersburg was originally built on a marsh and now contains 44 islands and hundreds of bridges within its city limits. The feel is similar to Paris, since both cities have major rivers running through them near to their main streets.

We drove our way through the city and stopped at some interesting places. A Tsar purchased some Egyptian sphinxes which are the oldest statues in the city to date (around 4,000 years old) and a battleship from the First World War has been restored into a museum. Many of the old palaces have now been made into government buildings (the equivalent of the Congress and House in the US), universities or academies (there are over 100 in the city), or museums (such as the maritime museum, museum of curiosities, agricultural museum, etc.) and these can be seen scattered throughout the city. We finally arrived at our first destination, St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

St. Isaac's Cathedral

St. Isaac’s Cathedral is no longer used for services to date and has been restored to its original grandeur.  This makes it for a great tourist stop. Inside, there is a model of how the giant marble pillars were put into place when the palace was built. An interesting system of terraces, pulleys, and man power were used to create this building. This would be a great stop for any International Engineer students in the future ;). Many of the artworks were created using tile mosaics due to the humidity of the area and the poor result of paintings on plaster (which is a traditional technique for artwork). The first ever process of electrotyping was used to create the statues in the main rotunda, which allowed for them to be extremely light weight.  One of the mosaics created appears white, but no actual white tiles were used. The mosaic used a similar concept to that of how a newspaper makes the letters look black (even though we all know they don’t use black ink!); by using primary colors placed closed together, the area appears white. The cathedral has a lot of ingenuity and is a must see to any tourist visiting St. Petersburg.

Mosaic with "white"

We eventually made it out of the cathedral and drove over to Hare Island, the home of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The fortress was originally designed to protect the city from any traffic through the river. Unfortunately, the engineers discovered the original design did not allow for cannon fire to traverse the whole river, so the engineers had to artificially expand the island so that the fortress protruded far enough for full protection of the city. The island also has a helipad and is centrally located, so whenever anyone of importance needs to make it to the center of the city in a hurry, they are flow my chopper to the island and drive from there (due to extremely heavy traffic congestion). I was fortunate enough to witness the arrival of a mysterious man in a $400k Bentley! There are some interesting buildings on the island, but the main feature of the fortress is the cathedral within it. This cathedral is the final resting place for almost all of the Tsars of Russia including Tsar Nicholas II and his family, which was the last royal family before the Bolshevik revolution. The interior is decorated with bright colors, which always is interesting to see, but most everything was painted and very little artwork exists. We departed the cathedral and the island and moseyed our way back to my hotel for the evening. What an interesting first day of tours!

Peter and Paul's Cathedral inside the Peter and Paul's Fortress

 Saturday, May 14^th - Alexander’s Palace, Pavlovsk Palace, Catherine’s Palace

These palaces are outside of the city about 30-45 minutes, so I began the day being picked up by the driver and tour guide from my hotel. The drive out to the palaces was quite interesting as we saw several interesting palaces and memorials along the way. The most notable was the memorial which was put in place for where the frontline of the Nazi’s was stopped during the Second World War. This should tell you that the palaces were under Nazi control for several years, and obvious damage was done to all of the structures. Bombs were placed in most palaces and fires were set to all structures. With this said, Russia has done a great job of restoring most of the damage and many of the palaces are almost completely restored.  Both Putin (prime minister and former president) and Medvedev (current president) are originally from St. Petersburg and have apparently squeezed any extra money to use it towards restorations of the city.

We first arrived near Alexander’s Palace. The palace is mostly restored and is currently used as a museum of some sort. We didn’t walk through it, as it wasn’t a main target or ours for the day. We did, however, walk around it and through the gardens. The building is the classical style of the time and most of the palaces have some similarity to this one. The interesting tidbit about this building is that it is where Nicholas II was staying/hiding when he was captured by the Bolsheviks during the revolution. This ultimately led to his family being killed and the end of Tsars in Russia.

Alexander's Palace

 Through the Alexander’s Palace gardens, the back entrance (main entrance during the Tsar era) of Catherine’s Palace can be reached. We entered through here and began our tour. The palace was used as a residence and a reception for Tsars and Tsarinas which makes this palace bigger and more glamorous than many of the others which were used as only reception buildings and not as primary residences. This palace was used only as the summer home and the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg was the primary winter residence. The building itself is not a museum, only a palace in which tourists can walk through and admire. Many rooms are fully restored, gold and all. Most of the rooms are very impressive with wonderful wooden inlaid floors and precious stones throughout.

Catherine's Palace from the park entrance

 The most famous room within the palace is the Amber Room, which was constructed 100% with amber from the Baltic region. The room was completely pillaged during the war and only pictures which were taken before the war were used as reference when reconstructing the room. The estimated value of the original room is between $150 to $250 in today’s currency. The restoration stalled due to some problems with the financing of the room. Ultimately, the room was finished due to several millions of dollars in donations from Germany and German companies (in an effort to dissolve any political tension).

Unfortunately for me, the trees and flowers were still only budding so the garden was not so impressive.  The garden was still pretty neat, as it features a granite bridge and a Turkish Mosque which was used as a bathing house to insult the Turkish (as Russia was at war with Turkey and won most of the battles). There is also a castle-like structure which was used as a stable as well as a mini-palace which was used as a bath for the ladies. All in all, the palace was pretty awesome and is a definite must-see.

Mosque and Bridge in the Catherine's Palace Gardens

The final main stop of the day was to the Pavlovsk Palace which is just up the road from Catherine’s Palace. This palace is not nearly as impressive, but is still pretty neat as the architecture and layout of the building is in a semi-circle, which is very unique. The palace features the same thing as most palaces: gold, marble, expensive furniture and paintings. My favorite part of the palace is probably the picture of Cupid who looks like he is shooting at you regardless of where you stand! We didn’t have time to walk around the gardens, but they also looked quite nice. The gardens are fairly open and would be great for an afternoon stroll, but aren’t as impressive as some of the other palace’s gardens.

Pavlovsk Palace

Cupid from the left

Cupid from the right

On the way back to the hotel, we made a brief picture stop and a rest-stop for Tsar Catherine the Great for her treks back and forth to her palace. The rest-stop palace was destroyed and is not restored (I think it is used as a kindergarten now), but the church (Chesme Church) is worth the stop. It is not so commonly seen by tourists, I am told, but is very unique and certainly worth a visit.

Chesme Church

Sunday, May 15^th - Heritage Museum and Nevsky Prospekt

The day began with me meeting at Superman’s place of work (the Daily Planet), which is actually the largest bookstore in St. Petersburg. This road is called Nevsky Prospekt (prospekt means a long, straight road) and has several palaces and cathedrals dotting the streets. Our main goal for the morning was towards the end of the road and so we headed there first. After walking down the road for about 5 minutes and taking only a slight right turn through some giant archways, we arrived at our first destination, the Winter Palace aka the Hermitage Museum. The Winter Palace was the official residence for many of the Tsars and Tsarinas of Russia during the winter season and has since been transformed into what is known as the Heritage Museum. The museum complex is quite large, incorporating several different buildings connected via 18^th century skywalks. The museum starts off as more of a showcase of the palace with very view exhibits. What is shown at the beginning is a private collection of gifts or collections of the Tsars and Tsarinas including a large mechanized clock, large semi-precious vases, tables, statues, and many other items. The palace then steers you into rooms with paintings from famous artists such as DeVinci, Rembrant, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, etc. I won’t cover all of the exhibits, since there are over 3 million, but the museum features the world’s largest art collection, exhibits from ancient Egypt, a knight room, silver collections, tapestries and much more. The museum is Louvre-like in its collection, but is more like the Vatican Museum since the building itself is also an exhibit. Other than the Louvre’s underground castle, the exhibits are its primary focus.

The Winter Palace and main building of the Hermitage Museum

We stayed at the Hermitage museum for several hours but could easily have spent all day or several days there. We continued the day by walking along the Nevsky Prospekt in the direction of our first meeting point.  As mentioned before, there are several palaces and churches along this street. Among them is the Kazan Cathedral, which is modeled after the courtyard of Vatican City but is a fully functioning cathedral for believers. The building is quite impressive, but no pictures can be taken inside. Many people were there praying when I walked through and one of the most noticeable features of the cathedral is that there are no chairs. In the Russian Orthodox religion, believers must stand throughout the whole service. Only recently were chairs installed in the rear of cathedrals in Russia for the sick and elderly. This concluded our day.

Kazan Cathedral

 Monday, May 16^th - Russian Museum and Church on Spilled Blood

The day started by meeting at the same point as the previous day, in front of the bookstore on Nevsky Prospekt. Not far from here in the opposite direction as the Winter Palace would be our first destination, the Russian Museum. The Russian Museum was originally a palace for the Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of the royal family, but was converted in 1895 into a museum. Several wings were built onto the original palace in order to accommodate the ever growing collection. The museum started out as a private collection, but was greatly expanded when the communist government decided to nationalize all precious artwork (and place it either in the Hermitage or this museum). Today, the museum is the largest collection of Russian artwork and the exhibits are shown in chronological order. The first exhibits are 12^th century icons which once belonged to churches throughout the country. The influences of European painters can be seen along the chronology as many of the Russian ideas for art and painting were inspired by the famous artists of Europe. The paintings during the Communist regime were very interesting as well as a special exhibit which featured paintings of the leaders of the Soviet Union including Lenin, Stalin, Gorbachev and everyone in between.  The paintings of the USSR leaders were commissioned during their rule so the leaders were glorified in a perspective that is not currently held.

Russian Museum

We left the museum and continued just up the road to the Church on Spilled Blood. The reason for the name is that Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by a suicide bomber at this location. His blood was preserved on stones within the church for many years, but has disappeared since the communist regime. The church has the traditional architecture of Russian churches and resembles St. Basil’s Cathedral (in the Red Square) in Moscow. The interior, however, is extremely unique in the fact that the church walls are covered with over 7500 square meters of mosaic. The mosaic covers nearly every surface, extending from the ground to the peak of each rotunda.  The floor is also inlaid with marble and is a work of art in itself. The majority of the floor is protected by carpets, but the central part of the floor is open for onlookers.  This is a must see for anyone visiting St. Petersburg.

Church of Spilled Blood

After the church, we decided to walk through the gardens of the Russian Museum towards Saint Michael’s Castle. The castle was converted into the army’s main engineering university and has since been converted into a branch of the Russian Museum. We did not stop to go inside as it was closed at the time. We continued on and made another stop at the theater house which is designed as a palace. This area is also very near a Kroshka Kartoshka, which is a Russian fast food restaurant that specializes in something similar to a twice-baked potato. The customer can choose different toppings to put on the potato and enjoy the scrumptious delight for only a couple dollars.

Saint Michael's Castle

Tuesday, May 17^th - Yusupov’s Palace and St. Nicholas Church

The day began by meeting a new tour guide at the infamous meeting point and then taking a bus a few stops to our first destination of the day, the Yusupov’s Palace. This palace is different than previously seen palaces for two reasons: it belonged to a family of great wealth and not of royalty; and one of the most famous murders in all of Russian history took place here. The palace is pretty much the equivalent of a modern day mansion. The family passed down the palace for 5 generations, each generation collecting certain things of interest such as paintings or musical instruments. The coolest area is probably the private theater, which was host to many Tsars and Tsarinas over the years as they watched famous performs put on private shows. Regarding the murder, this is the place in which the conspiracy to assassinate Rasputin was carried out. Rasputin was the personal doctor to the eldest son of Nicholas II who had hemophilia. His story is quite interesting and worth a quick read. He was originally shot once, pronounced dead by a doctor but managed to crawl his way out of the mansion. He was shot again two more times, pronounced dead again, but when the autopsy came back, it was discovered that he died by drowning (which happened when the assassins dumped his body into the river).

Theater inside the Yusupov Palace

After leaving the palace, the new guide and I walked further along the road to the St. Nicholas Church. This church is painted in light blue with gold plated onion domes on top. The interior has two separate levels; the second was closed for us as it is only open for church ceremonies. The first floor is easily heated and used in the winter while the second story is used for services during the summer. This interior is really nothing super fancy, but is a good look into what an actual functioning Russian Orthodox Church looks like. We walked to the nearest bus stop and passed the only Synagogue in the city. This concluded the day.

Saint Nicholas Church

 Wednesday, May 18^th - Grand Palace of Peterhof and Peterhof Gardens

This was the final day of my 6 day tour and the only day in which the skies were not crystal clear. The day started out by being picked up by the new tour guide. I was fortunate to remember to pack an umbrella and made sure that I carried it with me on our tour as it had poured through the night and was still raining lightly in the morning. We made our way out of the city to the town of Peterhof. The trip took about 2 hours to get there even though the town is only 18 miles away from St. Petersburg. The area once had a total of 11 palaces, many of which have been restored since their destruction by the Nazi’s during World War II. Our focus was entirely on the Grand Palace of Peterhof, which was built by Peter the Great.  The palace itself is very nice, but not nearly as fancy as Catherine’s Palace which was visited over the weekend. The palace is most noted for its Versailles like gardens, which included fountains that did not use pumps. All of the fountains use natural hydraulics from natural springs over several miles away from the palace. The water flows through pipes from an elevated position and the pressure drop creates enough force to push the water through the fountains in majestic style.

Grand Palace of Peterhof

 We walked through the gardens and took several pictures along the way. There were originally no benches on the premises except for trick-benches. Stones were placed in front of these benches and if a visitor wanted to sit, they would have to step on these stones. Several of the stones would act as switches and if stepped on, would shoot water in the air and spray the victim. These trick benches still work today and children can be seen running and jumping on the stones. Another interesting fact is that Peter the Great did not sleep in the palace, but rather a very modest cottage near the shore of the sea (on the garden’s grounds). The palace was used strictly as a meeting ground for visitors for balls, performances, official government business, etc. After the tour of the palace and grounds, we returned to the hotel.

Children playing on the trick fountains

 This concludes my post about St. Petersburg. Thanks for reading!