So This is Russia...

There was no way for me to be prepared for Russia. I was excited, I devoured books on Russian history, I scoured the Internet, reading about St. Petersburg. But once I finally got there, I was thrown off course. Did I like this place? Was it beautiful? Was it run-down? Was it frustratingly backward?

St. Petersburg, I have decided now (after quite a few days there), is a city of contrasts. It is stunningly beautiful and woefully decrepit, is filled with shining examples of the world’s greatest architecture and art and with rows of gray, Soviet-built, pre-fabricated panel buildings. Mercedes line the streets mixed with boxy old cars from the 60s and 70s that I can’t even name. Huge monuments to the tsars and Romanovs inhabit the same city as statues of Lenin and dedications to peasants who died en masse of starvation or war or just plain cruelty. The people are dour and tight lipped, they are wry and funny, they are pick-pockets, they are beautiful, they are supremely educated, and some of them, yes, are Mafia.

So this is Russia…
The Baroque Winter Palace of the Romanov family, probably the most famous building in St. Petersburg. Now it houses part of the Hermitage, one of the largest and most impressive museums in the world.




This is the General Staff building, which is across Palace Square from the Winter Palace. Very beautiful building.
Jack chasing the pigeons.






These statues are part of another of the Hermitage's buildings. I was extremely impressed by them.


My first glimpse of St. Isaac's Cathedral, which towers over the city.
St. Isaac's has one of the largest domes in the world. It is covered in 100 kilograms of pure gold and is visible from the Gulf of Finland.

This is a city of palace-lined waterways. You can do a lot of river cruises, including White Night cruises, in this city that never sees darkness in the summertime.
This is the palace where the notorious Rasputin was murdered.
This is what all the signs look like. As I'm sure you can imagine, they're very, very helpful.

The Admiralty, which was originally where ships were built in the city. However the shipbuilding was moved because the noise was disturbing the royal family in their nearby Winter Palace.

The St. Petersburg opera house & ballet.
The cruiser Aurora. A blank round from this ship signalled the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917.

This large palace belonged to the Stroganoff family, a family wealthy enough to employ the same architect who designed the Winter Palace. Their kitchen was the birthplace of the famous dish, Beef Stroganoff.
YAY, we're in Russia! Behind of us is the Church on Spilled Blood, built on the spot where Emperor Alexander was injured in a bomb attack in 1881 and later died. It was built by his family in memory of him. It is supposed to be covered in more mosaics (inside and out) than any other church in the world.

Markets!