St. Petersburg, Russia
On our arrival in St. Petersburg, our coach was waiting, and so was local guide and historian Timofey. Our first stop was the Peter and Paul Fortress, where Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg in 1703. The fortress's centerpiece is the Peter and Paul Cathedral, with its 402-foot tall bell tower and gilded angel-topped cupola.
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Next we visited the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, built where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in March 1881. The walls and ceilings inside the Church are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics.
We checked into our hotel, The Pushka Inn, located on the Moyka Embankment, and then gathered to walk to our group dinner at Arka (Арка) Bar & Grill. A vodka toast (or sip), a great dinner, and some wonderful entertainment from the Russian Folk Group Okolitsa capped off a truly magical day. Sandi even got to play the treschyotka!
The next morning we visited the Hermitage, one of the world's top art museums, containing more than three million exhibits. The Winter Palace, the main building of the Hermitage, was the residence of the Russian monarchs from 1732-1917.
Today the General Staff Building contains the Hermitage's vast collection of modern European art, much of which is made up of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, including major works by Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Gauguin, Seurat, Pissarro, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso.
The Winter Palace's enormous collection include works by Rembrandt, Raphael, da Vinci, Rubens, Titian and Michelangelo. The art was impressive, but so were the lavish interiors of the buildings themselves.
There are over 100 water fountains at Peterhof Park, all gravity-fed.
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Taking a hydrofoil, we visited Peterhof Palace, built by Peter the Great, and spent the afternoon exploring the expansive gardens and elaborate fountains. The most famous, the Grand Cascade, runs from the northern facade of the Grand Palace to the Marine Canal.
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The following morning we boarded a coach, along with guide Timofey, stopping first at the Siege Monument.
The Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad on Victory Square commemorates the heroic efforts of the residents of Leningrad and the soldiers on the Leningrad Front to repel the Nazis in the 900-day Siege of Leningrad during World War II. The sculptures represent soldiers, sailors and civilians who did not surrender despite hunger, cold and constant bombardment.
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Though nearly one million people died, the city survived and this monument was inaugurated on May 9, 1975, marking the 30th anniversary of that victory. The obelisk marks the spot where the USSR's mostly volunteer army held the line, facing Nazi troops. Below ground are 900 lamps, representing the 900 days of suffering, exhibits, and a stirring documentary movie.
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Tour group photo time followed by lunch at Sochi Restaurant.
We began our final tour day with a walking tour. Peter, an expert local guide, gave us such interesting insights into Russian architecture, history and culture. The Lutheran Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (left and below) was turned into an indoor swimming pool during the atheistic communist regime. It was restored during the 1990s and is again a house of worship. The Kazan Cathedral (below right), an active orthodox church today, was converted into the Museum of Atheism during communist rule.
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St. Isaac's Cathedral (below) is the largest Russian Orthodox Church in St. Petersburg, and the second largest in Russia.. Dedicated to the Patron Saint of Peter the Great and constructed under the direction of Tsar Alexander I, it was built between 1818 and 1858. The church was designed to accommodate 14,000 standing worshipers and the .interior is adorned with incredibly detailed mosaic icons, paintings and columns made of malachite and lapis lazuli.
(Above, left to right): Statue of author Alexander Pushkin; the glass roofed Passazh, a shopping arcade since 1846; Gostiny Dvor, a two-story marketplace built in the 1760s; statue of author Nikolai Gogol.
Our last group dinner was at Tarkhun (Тархун), a Georgian restaurant where the food was served family-style. Everything was delicious, the marinated vegetables, eggplant, stuffed grape leaves, and chicken with herbs and pomegranate seeds, but our favorite dish was khachapuri, a cheese-filled bread. We celebrated our many tour memories and honored our guide, George, as we all joined in singing, “Europe through the Back Door Blues”, with lyrics Rae had written.
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We said goodbye to some of our tour members at breakfast. Others were staying on in St. Petersburg, as we were. We took a guided tour of the Fabergé Museum, admiring the craftsmanship of Carl Fabergé, jeweler to the tsars, including items of enamel, silver, filigree and porcelain. One room was devoted to Russian icons, some of which belonged to the royal family.
Especially beautiful were the delicate Easter eggs made for the Romanov family, some with intricate mechanisms.
We visited the famous bookstore Dom Knigi (House of Books) on Nevsky Prospekt. The Art Nouveau building, known as the Singer House, used to be the Russian headquarters of the American sewing machine company. We had a lunch of blinis and pelmeni at Café Singer on the second floor. Of course, we had to spend time browsing the books afterwards!
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On our last day in St. Petersburg we took a self-guided back streets walk on Vasilyevsky Island, riding the subway and then strolling through neighborhoods outside the city center. We visited a farmer’s market and two churches: the lovely St. Andrew’s Cathedral, and Optina Pustyn, with its beautifully ornate interior. We had lunch in the adjacent café. In the evening we ate dinner at Yat Restaurant for the second night in a row. The cozy cellar atmosphere, friendly servers, and traditional Russian dishes helped us savor our final evening in a city we had come to thoroughly enjoy.
More delightful treats from St. Petersburg, including Rassolnik, a traditional Russian soup with beef and pickled cucumbers.
We flew from St. Petersburg to Frankfurt, staying overnight at the Mercure Hotel. The next day, we made the long trek home!
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