St. Petersburg

Thursday, May 15th

This will be the second day of our VERY ACTIVE tour of St. Petersburg.  Julia was here bright and early to start our day.

We continued on our drive around St. Petersburg.  Julia is so full of information that is hard to absorb it all!

A little enclosed courtyard...quite beautiful.

CHURCH OF THE SPILLED BLOOD

Our first actual visit this morning was at the Church of the Spilled Blood.the church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. And was dedicated in his memory.

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

                                             Xpam Cnaca ha Kpobm (Russian)

Mosaics in the interior

Piece of the ground where Tsar Alexander II was 

                                                                           assassinated has been preserved in the church

THE HERMITAGE

Our next stop was a whirlwind tour of the Hermitage.  It is impossible to see much in the short time we have but at least we got a taste of this magnificent place.It was Catherine the Great who was responsible for creating the celebrated State Hermitage Museum within the walls of her glorious Imperial residence, the Winter Palace . At the time of her death the collection contained nearly 4000 paintings. Today, there are more than three million items making the The State Hermitage Museum (Gosudarstvenny Ermitazh) one of the largest and most prestigious museums in the world. Visitors can be forgiven for being unsure where to begin, coronation carriages, the Malachite Room, centuries old porcelain and antiques, Faberge, Rembrandt, Raphael, DiVinci, Michelangelo, and Van Gogh, Matisse, Renoir, Degas, and Rodin, and all that just for starters. It can take a complete day to see the highlights, but investigating every corner in each of the five linked buildings could take years.

Madonna with a Flower (Benois Madonna) Leonardo da Vinci

Madonna Litta Leonardo da Vinci

The Raphael Loggias is a reproduction of Raphael's celebrated Loggias, erected in the Vatican Palace and painted by Raphael and his pupils.

The Hermitage Cat

Madonna and Child (Madonna Constabile) Raphael

Crouching Boy. Michelangelo

ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL

The church on St Isaac's Square was ordered by Tsar Alexander I, to replace an earlier Rinaldiesque structure, and was the fourth consecutive church standing at this place. A specially appointed commission examined several designs, including that of the French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand (1786–1858), who had studied in the atelier of Napoleon's designer, Charles Percier. 

The cathedral took 40 years to construct, under Montferrand's direction, from 1818 to 1858. To secure the construction, the cathedral's foundation was strengthened by driving 25 000 piles into the fenland of Saint Petersburg. Innovative methods were created to erect the giant columns of the portico. 

During World War II, the dome was painted over in gray to avoid attracting attention from enemy aircraft. On its top, in the skylight, a geodesical intersection point was placed, with the objective of aiding in the location of enemy cannon.

With the fall of communism, the museum was removed and regular worship activity has resumed in the cathedral, but only in the left-hand side chapel. The main body of the cathedral is used for services on feast days only.

Our last stop of the day was for "lunch with a Russian family".  This was an apartment of a couple who raised 2 children in this apartment which seemed to be less than 500 sq. ft! This couple were both engineers so this would seem to be a "upper middle class couple" by our standards.

Mike and Pam ready for lunch

Our hostess and Julia, our guide.  We had a very good lunch.  The borscht was delicious!!!  Of course, the vodka helped!!

The apartment was very neat and clean.  You could tell our hostess was very proud of it.

We returned to the Constellation after another long day.  At least, the weather was good today.  We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to St. Petersburg and saw so much.  Our guide was wonderful...our group..Linda, Jim, Pam, Mike and the 2 of us had a very good time.