At the half way
point of our trip, we hit the most anticipated port. St. Petersburg. Because of visa restrictions, we had to book
the ship excursion rather than going out on our own as we’d done in all the
previous ports. There were also a list
of rules about three pages long on what to do, not to do, and when to do it (or
not do it!). As Adam mentioned earlier,
a few of our fellow passengers might have been slightly older than us and a
little more set in their ways, so these rules were repeated constantly in the
days leading up to arriving in St. Petersburg.
(Still we were shocked as the couple in front of us at immigration were
turned away for not having their boarding card!)
Reflecting back
now, I’m glad we were with a group for these two days. We had local guides for all our tours, so I
feel we still got some of the authentic experience (and every one of the guides
took us to a gift shop at the end of each tour, all of which I’m pretty sure
they were related to the owner), but we were kept safer. Adam & I can now boast that we’ve been to
a significant number of world capitals, Washington DC, London, Paris, Rome,
Barcelona (yes, I know that’s not the capital of Spain), Stockholm, etc. St Petersburg is the first one that really
made me nervous about pickpocketers and getting lost or robbed. I told this to my Dad and he commented that
he was surprised I didn’t seem nervous about the tube in London as
pickpocketing run rampant there (and it does).
Maybe it’s just what you get used to.
So we booked
every tour that we thought we could pack in (and probably would have done more
if they’d figured out a way to let us).
Our table group thought we were nuts.
Okay, even we thought we were a bit nuts. But we’re probably not coming back to St.
Petersburg anytime soon, so we needed to see as much as we could!
So here’s the
schedule:
Day One
8:00 am – 12:30
pm : Catherine Palace & Park
1:30 pm – 6:00pm
: Peterhof Palace
7:00 pm – 11:00pm
: Swan Lake Ballet
Day Two
9:00 am – 12:30
pm : Hermitage Museum
1:45 pm – 5:15 pm
: Church on the Spilled Blood
6:00 pm :
collapse into bed as the ship heads to Helsinki
The problem that
I didn’t anticipate that I should have was that the traffic in Russia is worse
than 635 from I-35E to 75 at 5:15 on a Friday evening. So instead of returning to the ship at 12:30,
eating lunch then returning to the tour bus at 1:30, we arrive back at 1:15 and
walked from one tour bus to another without sustenance or a potty break. Then instead of returning to the ship at 6pm
with an hour to grab a bite and change for the ballet, we returned at 6:40 and
again walked from one coach to the next (this time with the potty break)
without eating or changing clothes.
Needless to say that by the time we returned at 11:30pm (why is there
still traffic at 11pm??!), I was quite hungry.
And, lesson learned, I took a couple of rolls from breakfast packed in
my purse for day two!
I felt slightly
embarrassed by my American education when one of our tour guides was speaking
about the siege on the city during World War II where it was bombarded by the
Nazis for almost 900 days, supplies running short, water and electricity were
cut off and getting out of the city was not an option. Further subsequent research has revealed that
I did know about this, I just didn’t know that the city name at the time.
The city was
founded in 1903 by Peter the Great to be the capital of Russia and named St
Petersburg to sound more European and blend better into the German trading
routes. It has been renamed three times
since. First in 1914 at the beginning of
World War I it changed to Petrograd (apparently they no longer wanted to sound
German!) then in 1924 after the death of Lenin, it became Leningrad (ah ha! I
have heard of the siege on Leningrad!) then again in 1991 by popular demand
vote it reverted back to St. Petersburg.
Our tour guide said her grandmother’s birth certificate says Petrograd,
her mother’s and her’s say Leningrad and her daughter’s says St. Petersburg
despite all four of them being born in the same hospital.
Remembering then
all the destruction in the early 1940s, I was not quite as surprised to learn
that both Catherine Palace and Peterhof Palace were pretty much destroyed and
have been rebuilt. Neither are still in
use by anybody in power, so my assumption is pretty much they’re there for the
tourists. Despite that fact, they are
both amazing. Gold leaf everything,
inlaid floors, intricate plaster castings for wall art, and hand painted tile
fireplaces abound. My grandmother would
have never made it inside the palaces as she would still be wandering though
the 1400-acre gardens looking at the hundreds of thousands of shrubs, trees,
flowers, and grasses. Sorry Grandmother,
but even in late September St Petersburg was cold and the indoors took
precedence over the outdoors in my photos!
Photo tour of
Catherine Palace:
 |
| We even got to wear amazing booties over our shoes to protect the floors! |
 |
| There is something just barely out of place in this photo. What could it be? What could it be? |
Catherine Palace
was built for Catherine I of Russia in 1717 and served as the summer residence
of the Tsars. The impetuous daughter, Emperors
Elizabeth decided she didn’t care for her Mom’s outdated style (does this sound
like our bronze vs nickel discussions, Mother?) had the palace completely
rebuilt in a flamboyant Baroque style. The remodel took four years and used about
250lbs of gold to gild the sophisticated stucco façade. When Catherine the Great later inherited it,
she tried to tone down some of the opulence…you know by turning it into an art gallery
and adding Neo-classical statues in the gardens.
After Catherine
died, the other Tsars favored some of the other palaces and Catherine Palace
fell into disrepair. Then, when the
German forces retreated after the siege of Leningrad, they intentionally
destroyed the palace. Prior to the war, the Russian had removed much of the
furnishings and taken pictures of all the interiors so rebuilding to the
standards of the Catherine the Great standard was not too difficult (though
really expensive!).
And then on to
Peterhof Palace. Peterhof was built in 1714 for Peter the Great. Several guide books say it was built to
resemble Versailles. Our (Russian) tour
guide vehemently disagreed; saying rather that it was a completely Russian
design by Russian architects and Russian builders. Like Catherine Palace, Peterhof was captured
by German troops. Rather than just
destroying the insides as in Catherine’s case, they occupied Peterhof until
1944. In the few months that elapsed between the outbreak of war in the west
and the appearance of the German Army, employees were only able to save a
portion of the treasures of the palaces and fountains. An attempt was made to
dismantle and bury the fountain sculptures, but three quarters, including all
of the largest ones, remained in place. Needless to say, much was destroyed and
it was also restored significantly after the war.
We couldn’t take
pictures of the inside of this one. But
to imagine what it looks like, scroll up to the indoor shots of Catherine
Palace above and double the amount of gold you see. I know, not possible, but it is.
The gardens here
are even more intricate than Catherine Palace.
Each area is set out with a themed fountain and all of the foliage around
is reflective of that theme.
I particularly
loved the trident fountain. At the
center stands Rastrelli's spectacular statue of Samson wrestling the jaws of a
lion.
After fighting
through rush hour (or decade, it appears) we again switched buses and headed
out for the ballet. The theatre was
beautiful on the inside. Though, I’d
come to expect nothing but gold leaf from St. Petersburg. We had wonderful seats, on the floor just 10
rows back (we hope that’s what those tickets said, anyway!)
We finally made it back to the ship after 16 hours on shore & without a meal. The late night buffet that we'd been promised onboard was canceled due to 'a few people feeling ill'. More on that story to come...
No comments:
Post a Comment