| | Sep 5, 2009 - Saint Petersburg | (click to enlarge)
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 | Church of Spilled Blood
| | mosaic walls inside church
| | mosaic of baby Jesus, my favorite Jesus
| | Palace Square
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 | The Hermitage
| | Alexander column in Palace Square
| | grand staircase in the Winter Palace
| | ballroom
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 | canal and bridge near our hotel
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| | bride getting soaked
| | cathedral inside Peter & Paul fortress
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 | | | | inside the cathedral, resting place of the Russian Tsars
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| Arrived in Saint Petersburg yesterday afternoon after getting up at the crack to catch the train in Helsinki. It really is a different world here. On the train, the Finnish conductor's were friendly, laughing and joking with us. Just checked our passports and moved on. As soon as we crossed the border into Russia, the Russian conductors got on and were strictly no-nonsense. They walked through with stern faces, taking our passports en-masse to check and make sure none of us were terrorists or something. We weren't allowed to take photos of them, the border, nothing. The landscape outside the windows was a big change too. Finland, like Scandinavia is very clean and organized. The train passed through neatly organized neighborhoods and suburbs of Helsinki, farms and and forests as we passed through the Finnish countryside, but after we crossed into Russia, the scenery changed - crumbling factories and ugly, concrete apt. blocks covered in graffiti.
Our local guide met us at the station and ushered us into a bus for a quick tour of several sites before dropping us at the hotel. We went to the Peter and Paul Fortress, where Tsar Nicholas and his family are buried and the "Church of Spilled Blood" - an ornate, Russian Orthodox Cathedral where tsar Alexander II was killed by an assassin. I've seen a lot of cathedrals, but man, this one takes the cake. The interior is almost completely covered in bright mosaics. I've never seen anything like it, and the photos I took don't come close to doing it justice. I was blown away.
Our hotel is just a few block away from the Hermitage museum, on the edge of a canal, and close to everything. This morning we got to sleep in a bit, then met another local guide, Olga, who was incredible. She took us over to the massive Hermitage, former winter palace of the Tsars, now one of the most incredible museums in the world. The place really was impressive; there are works by Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Michealangelo and Picasso to name a few. Olga took us on a 3.5 hour tour of the highlights, then we had the rest of the day to wander on our own.
It's been raining non-stop since we got here, which adds to the mood of this place. While walking around it's evident that at one time this was a grand city, but most of it seems pretty run down and falling apart. The gray weather seems to add to a feeling of uneasiness I've had since arriving here.
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