St. Petersburg, Russia

Another short trip, just over night, and we were in Russia about 5:00 a.m. this Sunday morning.  Since we’re spending the night, it’s another day in Russia on Monday.  It’s hard to believe, but I’m actually in Russia, the largest country in the world with a population of 141+ million people.   Russian is the official language but there are several others spoken, including Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Uzbek, Armenian,  Azerbaijani and Georgian.

The capital of Russia is Moscow, but it was St. Petersburg until World War I, and that’s where we docked.  What we have here is another Venice of the north (remember Stockholm?) because it is 10% water.  There are 300 bridges and 21 of them are draw bridges.  It was established by Peter the Great and named after his patron saint.  The name was changed to Petrograd in 1914 when Russia went to war with Germany and they wanted a more Russian sounding name.  Then it was changed again to Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924.   The citizens returned the name to St. Petersburg in 1991.

The Church on Spilled Blood

 which was built on the place that Alexander II was assassinated.  

It  seems that as an afterthought it was also to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  (Churches here are all Eastern Orthodox.)

Cathedral of St. Isaac - Supposed to be 4th largest in the world.

Fortress of Saint Peter and Paul - Which includes the Church Spires

Marble Palace

that Catherine the Great had built for her lover.

The Hermitage Museum - One of the 8 Buildings

The Hermitage Museum - Entrance

The Hermitage Museum was started by Catherine the Great to house her own art collection and give her the privacy she wanted to enjoy it.  Got it?  Hermit:  be alone, away from people, etc.  The original building is now called the Small Hermitage and it has been joined with 7 other buildings to house the now 3 million item collection.  That means that if you spent one minute looking at each item in the museum, for eight hours a day, 5 days a week, it would take you 1,050 weeks or 20+ years.  Of course you could work at it around the clock and then it would only take just short of 6 years.  Keep in mind that I was there for a total of 3 hours.  It includes paintings by Da Vinci, Rafael, Monet, Rembrandt. Renoir, Picasso and hundreds of others.

Some added observations:

I did not get to see the Peterhof Palace and I’m sorry about that.  It is a beautiful palace with exquisite grounds with stunning fountains and gardens.  Peter the Great had it built in an effort to rival Versailles and I have heard that it certainly does.

It was interesting to me that the tour guides in Russia (of which I had two different ones) did not speak at all about the present day way of life in this country, but instead concentrated on the wonderfulness of their historical sights.  The guide today though left us with this tidbit:  “While in Russia, don’t be rushin’.  Take your time.”

And finally, the best WiFi connection of the whole trip has been here in the port of St. Petersburg.

Michael’s Castle/Engin