Wednesday, September 14, 2011

St Petersburg (aka Leningrad) Russia


Sunday 29th and Monday 30th St Petersburg

Since a visa is required to visit Russia, we take the ship’s city overview, with free time and the Hermitage museum tour. St Petersburg is a beautiful city, built along the Neva River with 66 canals and 300 bridges. Peter the Great built the city in 1703 and hired French and Italian designers to give the city a very un-Russian appearance. All the buildings are in stone and have majestic columns with grand stone carved facades. It is probably one of Europe's most artistic and beautifully built cities

In the free time we buy a few souvenirs and eat a nice Russian lunch (Borski soup, pork schnitzel and Hebckoe beer). We also visit the cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan (she is reputed to have miraculous powers) with a grand interior. To the Winter Palace and the Hermitage Russia’s premier collection of art (over 60, 000 exhibits). We spent two hours walking through about six of the more renowned galleries – Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci (a beautiful Madonna and child), Raphael, Spanish and Italian painting and 14 sections of French impressionists. The sensory input is stunning but overwhelming. To really appreciate this museum, one has to see it like we see the Metropolitan in NY, a few galleries at a time and again and again. Not only has the Hermitage spectacular paintings, but the rooms themselves are works of art with lavishly painted and decorated ceilings and walls

In the evening we attend a Russian folklore dancing and singing – heady stuff with an army choir and soloists and about 16 young men and women cavorting in rigorous Russian, Cossack and gypsy dances. The men particularly showed amazing leg and body strength, indulging in impossible gymnastic feats of athleticism

I spend the Monday in seeing the Cathedrals of St Petersburg. First we see the St Peter and Paul Cathedral, built by Peter the Great in the early 1700’s the official burial church of all the emperors of Russia. Then we visit the Church of the Spilled Blood (commemorating the assassination of Alexandria II who was canonized as a martyr) which has 7000 square meters of mosaic figures on its walls with alters of Iconostasis (an astounding sight that left me in open mouthed awe, muttering ‘My God’). It cannot be described and has to be seen to be believed .

Finally we visit St Isaacs Cathedral (relatively new 1818-58) a Greek orthodox church. It has innumerable columns of malachite and the entire surface and dome are covered in real gold (40 kilograms of gold - imagine the value at today’s $ 1800 an ounce – there being about 35 ounces to a Kilogram). The church was built and paid for by the Romanoff family, was badly damaged during the revolution and then restored at a cost of 17 million roubles ($ 5 million). An apocryphal story of Russians adopting a religion is they rejected being Muslim as it did not allow them to drink vodka; rejected Judaism as it would take too long to convert their people and the Greek orthodox was least intrusive (the names of Constantine and Nicholas are the remnants of the Greek connection)

St Petersburg was called Leningrad during the revolution, and had its name restored during perestroika. Many of the palaces and museums were also restored to their former glory instead of being used as barracks and hostels. I feel that the Russians were happy to have their city renamed and restored, but, other than the guides, we met none of the local people so cannot gauge their happiness. The guides seemed very pro new regime. St Petersburg is the most majestic and glamorous city that we have seen in Northern Europe. It also seems very affluent

An enjoyable evening show of trapeze and acrobatic performances by a young couple

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