2777 Trip Tale: St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg

After a wonderful visit to the Hermitage Museum and its art shop on Tuesday morning July 18, we ate lunch at a nice restaurant--fish soup, salad, and salmon with slivered almonds. Then our G-6 (three couples from the USA) headed for St. Isaac's Cathedral with our guide, Veronika. Really, it is almost more than the eye and mind can take in during such a brief period. St. Isaac's was built between 1818 and 1858, by the French-born architect Auguste Montferrand and is one of the most impressive buildings in St. Petersburg. Definitely see this if you are planning a trip. The communists closed it as a house of worship (can hold 14,0000) and reopened it as a museum, but it is a church again. What look like paintings are actually very detailed mosaics, and the columns are made of malachite and lapis lazuli. Although I don't think our guide was particularly observant, she always referred to the cathedrals as being "of our faith," probably not considering the Baptists and Pentecostals who are evangelizing there authentically Russian.





The architect's model. Although he lived his professional life in Russia, he was not Orthodox, so could not be buried in the cathedral as he had wished. Our guide told us his wife took the body back to France.

We returned to our hotel about 4:30, rested, had dinner at 7 p.m., and then attended a folk dance performance in the hotel's theater. A very full day indeed!

Trip Tale: The Hermitage

It seems that everyone who visits St. Petersburg goes to the Hermitage. And it is fabulous. The crowds are incredible--I'm sure you could spend weeks there, and we only had about 1/2 day. However, if you are really interested in art and have limited time, I'd go for the Museum of Russian Art, Государственный Русский музей. The Hermitage is European art, but the other is Russian art, and much of it you've probably never seen, not even in art books or classes. There was a huge display of Soviet era art, both the public and the underground. That's where I spent most of my time. It was incredible. It's also the only place I lost my husband, so Gloria and I spent a lot of time wandering the halls looking for him. We were finally all reunited back at the hotel. We couldn't take photos in there, but here are some from the Hermitage.



I'm not sure how she did it, but our guide slipped us in with no wait, and then we started at the end and went the other direction to avoid the biggest crowds.

Me and two other ladies in the Hermitage



Hermitage
St. Petersburg
Russia

Trip Tale: St. Petersburg, The Peter and Paul Fortress

When Peter the Great of Russia decided he needed a city on the Gulf of Finland he built a fort to fight off the Swedes, the enemy of the day. Later when Sweden lost The Finnish War to Russia, Finland became a Grand Duchy of Russia, gaining its independence in 1917. This fortress (Петропавловская крепость) was begun in 1703 but served also as a prison. In the middle of the fortress stands the impressive Peter and Paul Cathedral, the burial place of all the Russian Emperors and Empresses from Peter the Great to Alexander III and recently the remains of the last tsar, Nicholas II and his family and entourage, who were murdered by the Bolsheviks were also interred there. Other buildings in the fortress include the City History Museum and the Mint, one of only two places in Russia where coins and medals are minted. It is located on an island, Zayachii Ostrov.

The cathedral



Tsar Nicholas II family

Trip Tale: Kalinka, Kalinka

A Russian chorus and folk dance troupe performed in our hotel's theater in St. Petersburg. Our tour guide had offered to set something up for us, but Gloria spotted a notice that one would perform in our hotel. Seven buses brought cruise ship tourists, but the hall wasn't filled. The performance was lovely, and we didn't even have to leave the building. After dinner in the hotel dining room at 7 p.m., we just walked up a flight and enjoyed the fabulous talent of this group with a live orchestra.


Калинка, калинка, калинка моя,
В саду ягода малинка, малинка моя,

Под сосною под зеленою
Спать положите вы меня.

Ах! Сосенушка ты зеленая,
Не шуми же надо мной!

Ах! Красавица, душа девица,
Полюби же ты меня!

folk singers
St. Petersburg, Russia

Trip Tale: Our tour group, The G-6

It's not clear what happened to the rest of them, but by the time we got on the Sibelius train from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, there were only six left of the original tour group. The G-8 had caused some shuffling of hotels and tourist sites, so I suppose the others decided to go another time. The six of us had a terrific time and were great companions. Both of the other couples had been touring Scandinavia, although not together, and like us, decided they'd rather have a little help with Russia. We called ourselves the G-6 since the G-8 was meeting in the city at the same time. This way we could all have a window seat in the van, and could all hear our guide. The other two couples, Betty Lou and Barry from Seattle and Gloria and Doug from Cape Cod, had much more travel experience than we did, but we were all novices in Russia!

At the Hermitage

In our hotel dining room

Nordic Saga Tours

2726 Trip Tale: Russia, first views

We met our trip companions, Gloria and Doug, in Helsinki at the beautiful train station designed by Eliel Saarinen. Martti and Riitta gave us big hugs and repeated the warnings about the dangers we would meet and we boarded the train for Russia on Monday of our second week. The Finnish countryside was beautiful, tidy and meticulous as our Sibelius train neared the border with Russia near Vyborg (which used to be in Finland). Even if it hadn't been announced in three languages we could tell we were in Russia by the smartly uniformed border police and the corresponding crumbling buildings.

But if the Russian countryside was gray and forlorn, the outskirts of Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad, formerly Petrograd) were almost horrifying after tidy, dynamic Finland which has so overpowered its former enemy in everything but military might. From 1917 to the break up of the USSR in the early 90s, the people have suffered the worst form (well, not as bad as North Korea) of totalitarian despotism. And for years before that regime, it was the Tsars and serfdom with not a lot of the population in the middle ground.

The cheaply built high rises of the Soviet era we saw in the distance were in various stages of decay, depending on their ages which ranged from 10-40 years (I'm guessing). Our guide who met us at the train with our other companions, Betty Lou and Barry, told us that after the revolution in 1917 the homes of the rich were broken up and the rooms were given to the poor--sometimes six families sharing a bath and kitchen. But even 90 years later, it is still the same in many housing area with several families sharing a bathroom and kitchen. Housing is very difficult to find.

Now in the post-soviet era, crime families have taken the place of the party and the criminals who ousted the Czarist system. One can only pray for the Russian people--that this will be a temporary phase on their way to a republican form of government.



The G-Eight Summit was meeting in St. Petersburg at the same time, so our talented van driver had to take many detours and we sat in a lot of traffic (although not as bad as Washington DC) as traffic was being rerouted so the visitors would see the restored areas with good streets. My husband with a new digital camera was giddy with snapping photos, so a lot of the pictures of our first day look like this.

Other entries about the Russian leg of our trip
Our tour group, the G-Six
Peter and Paul Fortress
Hermitage
St. Isaac's Cathedral
Russian Folk Singers and Dancers
Tsarskoe Selo
Tsarskoe Selo, pt. 2
St. Petersburg by canal boat
Church of the Spilled Blood