August 26, 2013 – Baltic Cruise, St. Petersburg, Russia day 2 of 2

We once again get past the smiley Russian at passport control and head for our tour bus to visit Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin, the Peter and Paul Fortress, Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood and St Petersburg city tour. The lady at passport control never once smiled or changed expression while carefully checking our documents and visa.

Above, St Isaac’s church.

Peter the Great statue. How many Peter the Great statues can this city have?

Russian military headquarters when St Petersburg was the capital of Russia.

Above and below, Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood built on the site where Alexander I was assassinated. The inside of these churches are so elaborate with many icons. Guess they missed the part about the worship of graven images.

Below, Elaine in front of the Admiralty Naval headquarters and in front of the national military headquarters across the parade ground from the admiralty.

Above and below, another view of the Winter Palace/Hermitage.

Above, the column celebrating the Russian victory over Napoleon.

What a surprise, an advertisement for borscht.

Russian military personnel on their way to their duty stations.

Above, the lighthouses that used to have flames at the top on the island where the Nevis River splits in St Petersburg.

Elaine on the Neavis River looking toward the city of St Petersburg.

Old Russian whaling ship.

Above, river patrol headquarters. The site was used for watching defectors trying to escape into Finland during the Soviet communist years.

Peter and Paul Fortress was a fortress on an island in the Neavis River where the town of St Petersburg began. The Peter and Paul Cathedral is the resting place of all the Russian tsars.

Russian Military Museum where old armaments are displayed. Kids love this museum because unlike most museums where you are not allowed to touch anything, kids can climb all over the old field guns and armaments.

The Peter and Paul Cathedral containing the Romanoff Russian tsars.

The plain crypts above are members of the royal family that never served as a tsar.

Ornate interior of the cathedral.

Crypts with the double eagle emblem indicates a tsar. Here, Alexander II in the center white crypt. Note the new looking crypt to the right. It is that of the wife of Alexander II. She was a Danish princess who moved to Denmark at the time of the revolution. Her fondest wish was to be buried adjacent to Alexander. In 2001, the Russian government relented and allowed her remains to be returned from Denmark and interred adjacent to the crypt of Alexander II.

Elaborate interior of the church with the chandeliers and pulpit.

Above, the crypts of Catherine the Great, her son Paul and Peter the Great among others.

Catherine the Great’s crypt.

Peter the Great’s crypt.

This sign marks the chapel where the last Russian tsar was buried. The remains of Nichols and Alexandria, the last of the tsars were discovered after the fall of the Soviet era in 1991. An international group of scientists determined to a 99.9% certainty that the remains were Nichols and Alexandria and a special chapel was prepared in the cathedral as a final resting place. There are members of the extended family of the Romanoff's, but no one has made any claim to the throne. There is a minority of Russians who believe that a return to the monarchy would be preferable to the current rulers of Russia.

Above are the only two colored marble crypts in the cathedral. They are the crypts of Alexander I and his wife. Alexander I was assassinated on the site of the present Church of the Spilled Blood.

The “!” indicates a beginner driver.

Below, the battle ship Aurora. A gun fired from this ship marked the beginning of the Russian revolution. It was the signal for the Bolsheviks to storm the Winter Palace and begin the revolution. The plaque on the side of the gun marks it historical significance. The commander of the ship was a fervent communist and Bolshevik and sympathized with the start of the revolution.

Headquarters of the Russian Natural Gas company that makes the news periodically for threatening to cut off natural gas supplies to the Ukraine and other areas of eastern Europe.

More views of the Russian Armaments Museum that kids love to visit.

Below, views of the largest synagogue in St Petersburg. It is the second largest synagogue in Europe surpassed only by the synagogue in Budapest.

Below, the canals that run through St Petersburg from the days when the river was the main means of transport. There are more than 300 bridges in St Petersburg. The bridges along the main navigation route are opened each day at 1:30am and remain up until 5:30am so all the river traffic moves at night. Sections of the town are turned into an island when the bridges are open and it is said that men often call their wives and claim that they are caught by the bridges and cannot make it home until morning when they want to spend the evening with their girlfriends.

Cathedral of St Isaac, the National Cathedral of Russia.

All of St Petersburg has low profile buildings much like Washington DC in the US. There are also broad boulevards and the streets are laid out in a grid pattern similar to Washington DC.

A stop for souvenirs. Would you believe a “Madonna” Russian doll set. If you are not familiar with the tradition of the Russian dolls, there are smaller and smaller dolls inside each doll case so what appears to be one doll may actually be 20. The traditional dolls look exactly alike but the Madonna dolls showed different Madonna pictures on each doll.

More Russian water with dinner inside an art museum.

More views of St Petersburg on the way to Catherine’s Palace.

Below, billboards are starting to appear in Russia. They were unnecessary during the communist era when there was little to buy and everything was state owned.

More and more American products.

We arrive at Catherine’s Palace. Catherine liked the Winter Pace in St Petersburg, but in the supper she preferred to stay at this palace about 20 miles outside St Petersburg.

Front of Catherine’s Palace. It appears to be several buildings which it is because successors, especially Elizabeth, spent a great deal of money expanding the palace. How do you know when your palace is big enough or you have enough palaces? Remember, they already had Peterhof and the Winter Palace/Hermitage in St Petersburg and now they build another one. No wonder the peasants rebelled.

Above, Elaine welcoming you to her new home.

Every room more grand than the last one you were in.

Yes, it is real gold.

Above, a dining table built for Elizabeth I in the shape of a script “E”.

The floor is an equal work of art.

A close-up of the gold paint on this sculpture.

A model of the palace.

Main staircase.

Paintings of Nicholas and Alexandria the last tsar of Russia.

Outside pavilion near the palace.

A bride having her photo taken at the palace.

A choir practicing in the grotto where the acoustics are nearly perfect. Below, the palace gardens.

Above, the chapel at Catherine’s Palace and a map of the grounds. This palace was occupied by the German Army during the siege of Leningrad during World War II. There are many photos of the extensive damage done by the German Army when they pulled out in defeat on the eastern front. They took their revenge out on the palace. Rooms were burned, roofs were taken off and one room, the Amber Room where the walls are completely covered in amber (no pictures allowed in that room) was dismantled and taken back to Germany. The amber disappeared. Over a 12 year period the palace was lovingly restored in the 1980’s. A German company doing business in Russia contributed $3 million for the restoration of the Amber Room. It is located on the west side of the palace and the sun shines in upon the amber in the afternoon and the room almost glows. Thanks Russia for the restoration of the work of art.

Above, this field artillery piece marks the furthest advance of the German Army during the siege of Leningrad.

Back  to the ship after two very full and tiring days in St Petersburg. We got our exit visas from the smiley Russian lady and got back aboard the ship. In retrospect, I am glad we did not know about the visas because we took tours and saw more of imperial Russian and learned more history than would would have ever seen or learned on our own.