Puttering around in St. Petersburg Part Shcheteri

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Serious talk with the doctor this morning. He feels that next Tuesday is the soonest he can let us go. And even that is not certain. Disappointing, but we have to be patient and stick with the program. On the positive side, the administrator Alex came by to get us to sign our visa extensions, which will be needed to exit the country. We have spare photos to give him--lucky, because Violet blanched when he whipped out his cell phone to take a picture of her. We're not at our best right now. Apparently I have to cough up the money for the visas myself.

My goal today was fairly ambitious: the Smolny Monastery in the far northeast corner of St. Petersburg. In this case, there is a strand of the spider web that leads right to it (Suvorovsky). As I walked along, one thing that occurred to me was that one of the attractive things about St. Petersburg is that, unlike many European cities where there is an tourist-oriented "old city" that has no relevance to everyday life, all these wonderful buildings in St. P. are thoroughly lived in. There are apartments upstairs, stores on the ground floor, and a bar in the basement.

Arrived at my main destination just as it started to spit rain. Just before the Smolny Monastery is the former St. P. City Hall. It still displays the hallmarks of the Soviet era: "Workers of the world unite!" inscribed on the arches forming the entrance, statues of Marx and Engels in the garden, and a famous statue of Lenin at the Finlandsky Train Station returning from exile.

I returned to the street and entered the Smolny next door. This complex was designed by Rastrelli, who was responsible for the Winter Palace and many of the other classic buildings in the city. It just takes your breath away: another pastel-blue baroque invention, as pretty as something created for a Disney movie. The centrepiece is the cathedral, but all the buildings that surround it subscribe to the same esthetic. I enter through a massive door that I have to really exert myself to open. I've heard that the view from the bell towers is wonderful so I buy a ticket to access them. And I start climbing. It's a long way, and the obviously original steps get smaller and steeper as I climb. At the halfway mark, I stop to take pictures of the already great view. At this point there is a passageway to the other tower. I keep on climbing to the top of the rightmost tower. It's quite windy and the drizzle lashes my face. I take pictures in all directions. Despite the gloomy weather, you can see a great deal of the city from here. I believe I can see the Michalovsky Palace and Resurrection Church from here and is that the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress? Descending, I take the passageway to the other tower and climb to the top. The view is similar, of course.

Leaving Smolny, I head west and encounter the Tavrichesky Palace. There's no mention of it in my guide books, but the Internet has told me that Catherine the Great built it for her lover Prince Potemkin. It is huge, with a Graeco-Roman feel, but still, of course, uniquely St. Petersburg-esque. It has an enormous garden behind it, with several lakes and bridges. I stroll around in the company of several families relaxing on a holiday. (Today, 4 Nov. is a relatively new civic holiday that replaces 7 Nov., Revolution Day.) There's a soccer field with a game going on. I search in the furthest corner because my map says there's a statue of Tchaikovsky there. I find it and pay my personal respects to this great composer.

I hasten homeward. The drizzle is turning into something more serious and I am eager to get back as soon as possible. Violet has asked me to buy a pack of playing cards and I'm looking for a bookstore, but the only one I find is closed for inventory. Arrive back at the clinic just as it really starts to rain. Whew!  

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