We docked at the St. Petersburg pier fairly early this morning and after a quick in-room breakfast, left the ship in the rain to meet our Red October guide. Since you cannot travel unguided in Russia and there were few of us with private guides, we beat the Oceania masses off the ship, which was nice since it took a while to get through passport control.
Our guide Irena was there to meet us with our driver Alexander, a big guy who had to crouch over to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling in the van.
Since we were a little early for the Hermitage, we stopped at a Russian Orthodox Church to pray for a stop to the rain. That happened, but only by mid-afternoon.
We were quick once again to appreciate the benefits of a small group tour as we whisked to the front of the line at the Hermitage and began our tour. From the moment one sets foot in the Hermitage, it is clear why a revolution was necessary in Russia. The main entry staircase was the height of decadence and it only got more so from that point onward.
Like similar palace museums in Europe, it’s difficult to decide whether to look at the walls, the ceilings, the floors or the paintings and sculptures. They are all equally spectacular works of art.
Although there were works by many masters including Michelangelo, da Vinci, Cezanne and Picasso, my personal favourite featured animals that had been the prey of hunters and had turned the tables on them by stringing up both hunters and their dogs. The section of the painting I’ve highlighted below, shows a goat in particular, doing the “happy dance”.
Following a quick lunch at the museum, we boarded a hydrofoil for a trip down the choppy Neva River to Peterhof, a summer residence of the Tzars. The sun started to break out at this point, which made the viewing of some of the one hundred fountains in the gardens more enjoyable.
Then we donned cloth booties for an interior tour. This place is serious overkill and the crowds here reminded me of Versailles, which is not a good thing. But, other than some German tourists, everyone was fairly orderly and the tour flowed as well as could be expected.
We then drove back to St. Petersburg where we were given a driving tour of the old town. There are thousands of absolutely gorgeous buildings in this city. I don’t remember this from Leningrad of 1978, so they’ve been clearly working at it.
The main drag of St. Petersburg is Nevskiy Prospekt that boasts the most high-end stores and hotels.
Although St. Petersburg and I guess Russia in general has cleaned up substantially in their post communist years, there are still lots of subtle reminders of days gone by, like the abundance of over-the-hill Ladas still on the road.
We got back to the boat around 6:30 after a fabulous first day and had an equally fabulous meal tonight in Red Ginger, the ship’s Asian-styled restaurant.
Tomorrow, we see more of St. Petersburg, including the Church of the Spilled Blood.
It is now Sunday June 18 – Father’s Day – and we’re still in St. Petersburg. After another early breakfast, we headed towards Pushkin and the Summer Palace of Catherine. Because we’re always on time, we made our first stop at a typical Russian grocery store. Guess what? Superstore, Walmart, Auchan, whatever you want to call it – the store, products and prices were very familiar to us. So, the Russian are NOT starving and not short of any consumer goods. And according to our guide, if there’s a Russian Mafia problem, they’ve exported it. It doesn’t exist in Russia.
In Pushkin we saw more of the Tzarist decadence at Catherine’s Palace. This place like a lot of the surrounding area of St. Petersburg was razed by the Nazis and has had and is still having extensive renovations.
The photos below show the restoration of the Grand Dining Room and the state it was in following the departure of the Nazis. They are very careful to refer to the nasties that were done to them as by the Nazis, not the Germans - a fine line I know, but an important one if you don’t want to hate the Germans forever.
On the way back into St. Petersburg, we were reminded that the Nazis were held outside St. Petersburg – then Leningrad – for 900 days. Of course they still did serious damage to the city with artillery, but they never actually made it beyond this Memorial on the outskirts.
Our next destination was the Resurrection Church on the Spilled Blood, which has the classic Russian Orthodox cupolas. The entire interior of the church has been restored with every surface covered with mosaic artwork.
Although there is clearly much prosperity here, reminders like the local bus below make you realize that they still have a ways to go.
For lunch today we ate in a typical restaurant, not for tourists. We had salad, borscht, a kind of sausage tortellini and apple strudel. It was great!
Our last activity in the city was a cruise of the canals and the Neva, Fountain and Moshka rivers. This afforded us another fabulous view of St. Petersburg buildings and bridges. The cruise took us as well, past the battleship Aurora that was significant in the beginning of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
For the passengers on the canal boat, a young Russian boy who ran along the canal beside us and showed up on every bridge passed under, entertained us. Needless to say, by the end of the cruise he got some nice tips.
So, for us, this was the end of Russia and everyone found it amazing. Our two day private tour was especially wonderful, in part because we lucked out and got a great guide, but more so because we didn’t have to follow the hordes. We learned a lot about the Tzars and in particular, Peter the Great and it is little wonder that the Tzarist lineage has been erased.
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