Saint Petersburg
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Published: April 19th 2020
Peter the Great
The founder of Saint Petersburg.A birthday and Christmas present to my mum had been a trip to St Petersburg, and in September 2019 we finally went there. Since I did not want to fly my mum by herself, I had caught a train from Dortmund (where I live) to Stuttgart (where she lives) a few days prior to our trip, and then we flew from Stuttgart together. The flight was a convenient afternoon flight via Riga. We had dinner on the plane, which turned out to be a good thing to do since we waited in immigration for at least an hour. There were huge crowds of Chinese tourists arriving, and we would meet lots of Chinese throughout the whole trip. Finally, we made it through immigration and caught a taxi to our hotel,
Alexander House, a beautiful boutique hotel located on Kryukov Canal embankment, not far from the famous Mariinski Theatre. Every room in the hotel is named after a city and is decorated in the style of the respective city. We had room “Delhi”. Since it was late, we went to bed and had a good night’s sleep in order to be prepared for the next day.
We started our first day in
St Isaac's Cathedral
Not far from the statue of Peter the Great and the gardens of the Admiralty. this amazing city by visiting its founder Peter the Great, or to be more precise, his statue, sitting on a horse close to the river Neva, looking westwards, and, instead of holding a sceptre in his right hand, making a gesture of protection. He founded the city because he wanted to be closer to the west and built it on swamp land, not an easy task. But he must have been a true visionary, as we learned during our trip to the city.
We passed a large building consisting of two identical halves. It used to host the Senate in one part and the Synod in the other. The latter was Peter the Great's creation. It was a second chamber of Parliament made up of bishops instead of nobles, but led by a worldly leader so that Church would be subject to the worldly power.
We moved past St Isaac's Cathedral and the pretty gardens of the Admiralty and soon arrived on the large square between Hermitage and Palace. Hermitage consists of several parts. There is Winter Palace, a baroque style building painted in blue and white. There is Old, New, and Small Hermitage, and there is Hermitage
Winter Palace
Part of the complex of Hermitage. Theatre. On the other side of Palace Square, there is a crescent building with a gate in its centre, and this building makes the square look huge and magnificent. In the centre of the square, there is a statue of Tsar Alexander II, who was assassinated in 1881.
We bought tickets for a guided tour of Hermitage, and since we had almost two hours until it would start, we continued along Millionaya Street towards the east. The name of the street originates from the fact that a lot of rich foreigners used to live there. We passed Marble Palace, which is more spectacular than it looks: its facade consists of 20 different types of marble. We continued to Mars Field. From there we walked past Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, a cathedral dedicated to Alexander II., and then in a loop back to Hermitage.
Hermitage is absolutely stunning. The building itself, or rather, the different buildings themselves, are huge and wonderful. The entire complex consists of around 1,000 rooms in different styles, all of them beautifully decorated. The museum hosts some 2.7 million exhibits (!) from all over the world, lots of paintings and sculptures, but
The Peacock Clock
An absolutely stunning piece of handicraft, on exhibit in the Hermitage Museum. also ceramics and other handicrafts. Of course, only a fraction of these items is on display, and even for these one would need years if one wanted to see them all. We took a 90-minute guided tour and admired pictures by Da Vinci, Tizian, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt, just to name a few of the Renaissance painters.
The two works by Da Vinci, “Litta Madonna" (some experts doubt that this was really painted by Da Vinci) and “Benois Madonna”, are simply amazing. It seems that the Madonna and Child are completely unaware of anything that is happening around them, they are completely focused on each other.
I love Rembrandt’s works. He has an amazing way of playing with light and shade. We spent some time in front of the “Return of the Prodigal Son”, where the light in the centre of the picture draws the spectator's attention to the main scene, the father welcoming his son back home. However, in the shade there is a circle of people surrounding the main characters, and the circle opens up towards the spectators so that one feels like being part of the scene.
An absolutely amazing piece of art (that we
Chapel
... in Hermitage Museum. simply had to go back to after our tour had ended) was a peacock clock, consisting of a golden peacock, cock, owl, dragonfly, and a few squirrels and snails, all of them populated around a golden oak tree. Once a week, on Wednesdays, the clock is switched on. Then the peacock opens its tail, the owl starts spinning its head round, the cock crows. The clock itself is hidden in a mushroom, with a dragonfly on its top spinning round as seconds pass. It is hard to describe, but there is
">a video of it on YouTube. I could easily have spent an hour there just discovering new delicate details. I was so fascinated by it that I lost sight of my mum and went searching for her in the huge building. When I could not find her, I became increasingly desperate. She had no phone with her, and I had no idea where in the many, many rooms I would be able to find her. Luckily enough, she had gone back to the entrance and waited for me there. Otherwise there would have been no chance for me to find her again.
After we had found each other again, we went over to
The modernized part of Hermitage Museum
... located in General Staff Building across the square from the old Hermitage. General Staff Building on the other side of Palace Square where the works by modern painters were on display. First, we admired the combination of old and modern architecture in the building. The old parts of the building are now covered by a modern glass roof, and a flight of stairs leads into the first floor of the building. I was absolutely amazed by the sheer number of works by Picasso, but also by Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Gaugin, van Gogh. In the end I had the feeling that I could not take any more pictures in. What a treasury!
We had dinner in a nearby restaurant called “Terrassa”, located on the 6th floor of a building and thus offering a great view of Kazan Cathedral, the art nouveau tower of Singer House, and Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in the distance. It was particularly charming that we could see the light change while it was getting dark. The choice of food in the place was huge and what we had was excellent, but it was pricey, considering normal prices when you dine out here.
The next day we started with a visit to the Church of
Evening panorama
View from the terrace of restaurant Terrassa: Kazan Cathedral, the art nouveau tower of Singer House, and Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in the distance. the Savior on Spilled Blood. It was erected in Russian style in the late 19th century as a memorial for Tsar Alexander II who was assassinated in 1881. In the church itself, the spot where the Tsar was assassinated is marked by a pavilion made of black marble. On the swampy ground, this required considerable effort, but his son had insisted on this feature. The walls of the church are covered with elaborate mosaics. The outer walls depict scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. On the pillars, one can see the saints on whose shoulders the church rests, figuratively. Moreover, a few precious icons are on display.
When we caught a taxi back to our hotel, it was pouring down with rain, and it still was when our tour guide picked us up for a trip to Tsarskoye Selo half an hour later. Tsarskoye Selo, or Catherine's Palace, was the summer residence of Catherine the Great, and is located in the town of Pushkin, about 30 km south of St. Petersburg. It took us about an hour to get there, and when we arrived, the rain had almost stopped.
The place was extremely crowded, but thanks to
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood I
A cathedral dedicated to Tsar Alexander II who was assassinated in 1881. our guide Irina we could pass the line and go straight in. In the hallway we had to wait because visitors are allowed going through the rooms in batches only. Otherwise it would be way too crowded. I was amazed by the splendour of the rooms. The big halls were all painted in white, with rich golden decorations. There were big windows and mirrors so that the halls looked bright and huge. There were ovens made of white and blue Dutch tiles. The smaller rooms all had different tapestry and different wooden floors. Precious furniture and fine porcelain were on display.
We could also see pictures of the imperial family. Catherine the Great spent a lot of time here. She was a strong and determined woman. Born a princess named Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, she was married to Tsar Peter III, baptised in Russian-Orthodox faith and given the name Catherine. She found her husband was weak, insane, and unable to rule the country, so she had him assassinated and became the ruler of the country herself. For this reason, she never had a good relationship with her son Paul, who hated her for having killed his father.
However, she started a lot of important reforms. She was also interested in art and started collecting pieces of art from all over the world, thus laying the foundation of what we can now see in the Hermitage. A few years ago, I read a biographical novel that gave me an impression of how her life could have been. She must have felt very lonely in her position in spite of all the opportunities of creating something lasting and realising her vision.
After our tour of the palace we went into the park. It is laid out beautifully, with lakes and canals, fountains, little palaces and pavilions, flower beds, meadows, and woods. I can imagine the royal family must have loved it out there. We returned to our hotel full of impressions and things we had learned. After a dinner there we had another early night.
The next day, we went on a guided tour of Peterhof Palace, located in Petergof by the Gulf of Finland, about an hour’s drive from the city. The palace was built by Peter the Great between 1714 and 1723, inspired by the Palace of Versailles in France. During the tour we learned
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood III
View of the canopy. All the walls and the ceiling are covered with precious mosaics. a lot about Peter the Great. He must have been a strong and determined man with lots of different skills and abilities and a real vision of where he wanted his country to head. He became the sovereign of Russia in 1704 and its Tsar in 1721. He founded the city of St Petersburg in 1703 with the idea of westernising his country. The city, however, was just one module of the project. He also invited European artists and builders to the city. Moreover, he introduced western style fashion, and men were obliged to shave their beards off. Up until then, they had been wearing big long beards. Those who refused to shave had to pay a fine. Peter himself preferred a simple lifestyle. Him and his wife tried to spend most of their time in a one-storey pavilion with a direct view of the Baltic Sea. Peter helped with construction works (not only with the design and with supervising the works, but with actual manual work), and Catherine I, his wife, liked to cook herself.
Located above the pavilion there is the main palace. Its outside is coloured in blue and white and decorated with lots of gold.
Tsarskoye Selo I
Catherine the Great's summer palace in the town of Pushkin. The inside is splendid, with big windows, big halls painted in white and decorated with a lot of gold, and smaller rooms that all have different fine tapestry, beautiful wooden floors, and elaborate furniture. From the palace windows, one has a great view of the fountains below the palace and the Baltic Sea in the background. The fountains are an amazing piece of engineering. They work without any pumps, just by using pipes that transport the water downhill and by a schleuse. The park around the palace is laid out beautifully, with trees, flower beds, fountains, small pavilions, benches in romantic spots, and so on. We could have walked this park for hours, but eventually we had to head back into town after a quick late lunch and coffee in the cafe on site.
When we arrived back at our hotel, we caught a taxi to Fabergé Museum. There, the mundane shopping street Newskij Prospekt crosses Fontanka, one if the canals in the city, and it is a good spot for going on a boat trip. We boarded one of the boats and had to wait for about half an hour until there were enough passengers on board to
Tsarskoye Selo II
A ballroom decorated in white and gold with a painted ceiling and a delicate floor. That's why visitors have to wear overshoes. start the tour. The guide spoke Russian only, so we had to use our guidebook to understand what we were looking at. There were a few palaces and the Summer Garden, where the writer Pushkin used to go for morning walks. Then we went out on the river Neva, passed underneath Trotzkij Bridge, and saw the battleship Aurora. We also got a good view of Peter and Paul Fortress, which is located on Rabbit Island, a small island in the river Neva. We also got a great view of Winter Palace and Hermitage as well as St Isaac's Cathedral on the opposite shore of the river. All the golden roofs were reflecting the sunlight and looked most beautiful and splendid against the blue autumn sky.
When we got off the boat, it was dinner time. Irina had recommended Georgian food, so we went to a Georgian restaurant just a few hundred metres up Newkij Prospekt, called
Deda Khinkali. The waiter was super friendly and more than happy to make recommendations. We started with a small bowl of pumpkin soup. Then we had pastry with an excellent kind of cheese, one had the cheese on the outside and the other had
Tsarskoye Selo III
Dining table with an oven made of Dutch tiles in the background. it on the inside. Finally, we had dumplings filled with potatoes and mushrooms. These are traditionally eaten with one's hands. One grabs them by a piece of dough, turns them upside down, takes a bite, sucks out the sauce, and then continues eating them. The piece of dough that served as a handle is left over. We tried it and it was not hard at all. With the delicious food we had some traditional lemonade, dark green and containing a lot of anise. The food was tasty, but so much that we had no room left for dessert. We could only fit some tea in. Again full of impressions, but also full of food, we went back to our hotel to digest the day.
The next morning, we went to Peter and Paul Fortress on Rabbit Island. It is the original citadel built by Peter the Great between 1704 and 1740. Originally its purpose had been to protect St Petersburg from attacks by the Swedish, but it never served this purpose. Thus, it was turned into a prison, mainly for political prisoners. Nowadays, Peter and Paul Cathedral in the citadel are the burial place of tsars from Peter I
Tsarskoye Selo IV
Another beautifully painted and decorated room with an oven. All of the rooms have different tapestry. to Alexander III, except for Peter II and Ivan VI. Moreover, the remains of the last tsar Nicholas II and his family, who had been shot at the end of the First World War, were re-interred there in 1998.
In the former Commandant’s House, there is an exhibition of life in St Petersburg between 1703 and 1918, displaying different areas of life: fashion, work, travel, shopping, and living (including different types of rooms like kitchen, dining room, bathroom). It was interesting to get an impression of what life must have been like for different social classes and different professions in the old days.
The weather was horrible. It was cold and rainy, and walking around the courtyard was not fun. Thus, we only went through one of the gates facing the River Neva to get a glimpse of the other side of the river with Hermitage and Winter Palace. We had a quick lunch in the cafeteria, then went into a museum displaying china, and then left the fortress. We did not bother calling an Uber because there was a taxi waiting right opposite the exit. We jumped onto it and rode back into town. This was not
a smart thing to do, as we learned. When we had arrived at the metro station where we wanted to be dropped off, it turned out that we had to pay the equivalent of about 100 Euro. I had been completely unaware of that because we had made no bad experiences with the taxis and the Ubers we had used so far. But it seems that one needs to be very careful when just jumping into some kind of taxi.
Anyway, our plan had been to visit the metro. A good thing to do when it is pouring down with rain and cold. The St Petersburg metro is a piece of art. Its stations are as far as 100 metres below the earth. This was necessary because of the swampy ground that St Petersburg is built on. The stations along the red line are pieces of art. We started at Plochad Vostaniya and got off the train at each station to take a look around. Pushkinskaya has a portrait of the author, with Catherine's Palace in the background. In Technologitskeyi Institute there are portraits of 24 important scientists on the walls. In Baltiyskaya there is a picture of the
Tsarskoye Selo VI
Pavilion close to the lake in the park of the palace. battleship Aurora and mates ready for fight. In Narvskaya there are 48 reliefs of different job types on top of the pillars just below the ceiling. In Kirovskyi Sarod one can see reliefs symbolizing different types of industry. Finally, Avtovo, which is not far from the ring of blockade, is a memorial for those who defended the city against the German invaders in the Second World War. There is a colourful mosaic depicting Mother Home, and the pillars in the station are covered with a pattern made of glass that looks like gold. The metro stations reminded me of the ones in Moscow, and I also remembered a great science-fiction novel that I had read after my visit to Moscow: Metro 2033, where the Muscovites have retreated into the metro tunnels after an atomic war.
We rode the metro back into town and wanted to go to a restaurant recommended in our guidebook. When we arrived where the restaurant was supposed to be, there was nothing there. We were wet and cold, and so we called an Uber and went to a restaurant called
The Idiot. It is a vegetarian restaurant and decorated in grandmother style furniture, including bookshelves and
Tsarskoye Selo VII
Another pavilion in the park of the palace. This one was designed in the style of a ruin. everything. Finally, we could eat some Russian style food without meat!
After dinner, we returned to our hotel and spent one last night there. The next morning, we had to leave for the airport early to catch our flight back home. This time, everything went smoothly, no long waiting times. We got back home with lots of new impressions and ideas. St Petersburg is really an amazing city, with splendid sights to look at, a rich history, and super-friendly people. It is definitely well worth a visit!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
With Mom
What a great trip with your mom.Rich in history.