Saint Petersburg

St Petersburg, May 31st, 2010.

Well St Petersburg claims to have weather rather than a climate and the usual forecast is changeable! However we were lucky and had quite a lot of sunshine and it mostly did not rain while we were outside.

Many streets and the waterfront are lined with fine 18th C buildings painted in pink, yellow and green.

The 900 day seige of Leningrad when about one million civilians starved to death affected nearly every family. A huge new cathedral has been built in their memory - all from private donations. Before the revolution there were 600 churches in St Petersburg. During Soviet times they were reduced to only 8, but now there are nearly 300.

All the Czars are buried in the church of St Peter and St Paul. All the tombs are the same - plain white marble with a gilded cross. I found the chapel where the last Czar and all who were murdered with him at Ekaterinaburg in 1918 are buried very poignant. Not only the remains of the family, but also the doctor, the nurse and the servants are here.

Cathedral of the Resurrection, better known as the church of the Spilled Blood, built about 1900 on the spot where Czar Alexander 2nd was assinated in 1881. During Soviet times it was used to store vegetables!

A wedding in St Petersburg

Fast foods are here in St Petersburg

St Isaac's Cathedral.The massive 100 ton granite pillars withstood the Nazi bombardment.

Part of one of the beautiful mosaics in St Isaac's.

How to describe The Hermitage. The size and the opulence are overwhelming. When I saw the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace I thought them impressive, but the Hermitage makes them look likea country cottage. On the other hand, perhaps that is part of the reason England did not have a revolution!

 Of course the paintings are also fabulous. Room after room of French Impressionists, as well as 2 Leonardo da Vinci and 14 Rembrandts. I did not think I liked El Greco, but his St Peter and St Paul was memorable.

In the18th C black servants were expensive and rare, so the Hermitage Theatre would have had doormen like these. We saw Giselle in this intimate theatre which seats only 220. We were only about 4 metres from the conductor.

 

We went by hydrofoil to Peterhof, Peter the Great's Summer Palace on the Gulf of Finland
 Acres of Gardens and many many fountains

May 27th was St Petersburg's 307th birthday and there were flags everywhere.

 Not far from St Petersburg Catherine the Great also had a Summer Palace which was left a ruin in 1945. Stalin ordered its restoration in 1948 and it is still continuing. First, the artists had to be trained. The amount of carved and gilded wood carving is mind boggling. The Amber room alone cost 13 million euros ($20m) to restore. This is the Throne room. The President and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church were to host a reception.

Ceiling in Catherine's Summer Palace. Linden is the only wood suitable for carving

What was this broken down truck doing in the grounds of Sts Peter and Paul Fortress?

 

Matroshka dolls

 

 Sunset after 11 p.m. in the City of White Nights