The church on the spilled blood
The cruise company tells you many horror stories about clearing Russian immigration. In our experience they are telling a lie, since it was a very easy process this morning. We were out with some of the early tour groups, and waited in line for not more than 20 – 30 minutes to go through passport control.
Alla tours representatives arrived right on the scheduled time and met us outside the terminal where most of the Alla participants were waiting. Our private guide, Albina, met us and took us to our car and driver. She did an excellent job of describing to us the sights which we saw today.
Ceiling in the Hermitage
“Overwhelming” would be the one word which best described our reaction today. We started in the Hermitage, which has a magnificent collection of art, especially for the two centuries starting from the 1700’s. However the rooms in which the art is displayed must be some of the most luxurious rooms ever built. I took as much time photographing beautiful ceilings and arches, as on the pictures hanging on the walls. There were also beautiful mosaic tables, so finely crafted that you can hardly see the joints between the stones. The peacock clock is a spectacular piece of beautiful engineering (and it still runs, but only for about two hours on Wednesday evening).
Ceiing in the Hermitage
Gilded chairs in the Hermitage
After about two hours in the Hermitage we had lunch in a Russian restaurant. I had a cabbage soup Shchi and Enid had pelmeni, a kind of stuffed dumpling like ravioli, but better.
Church on the Spilled Blood
We went to the Church on the Spilled Blood where Tzar Alexander II was assasinated in 1881. The church has the typical onion domes of Orthodx churches, but not all of them are gilt. Several of them are covered in coloured mosaics. The interior of the church is almost entirely covered in mosaics, pictures of stories from the Bible, and icons of the saints.
Gilt icon stand in Peter and Paul Cathedral
From here we went to Peter and Paul fortress, which includes the cathedral where the Romanoffs are buried. The gilt work in this church is almost beyond belief, it is so staggeringly beautiful. Interestingly the last Russian Tzar Nicholas II (and the rest of the family) is not actually buried in the church, since he had abdicated the throne before his execution, and so was not a tzar at the time of his death. The entire family was reburied in the 1990’s in a room attached to the end of the church, but not in the main building of the church itself.
The Hermitage from the Neva River
Finally we concluded the day with a one hour boat ride through the canals of St. Petersburg and on the Neva river. There were so many tour boats out on the water that it was a miracle none of them collided. Travelling on the water is an interesting way to see the buildings of the city, and it gave a good perspective on where they are located (actually all of the buildings we were in today are quite close to each other, though you generally can’t see one from the other).
As we travelled about today we saw at least six weddings taking photographs. Our tour guide said they always want to get their picture taken at the nicest spots. Today was a Tuesday, but our guide said that some bureaucrat tells people on which day they will get married. She was surpirsed when we said most people in Canada would get married on a Saturday.