Eastern Europe - Day 6 - St Petersburg (Peter and Paul Fortress and St Isaacs Cathedral)

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This morning we decided to head to the Peter and Paul Fortress. The fortress occupys most of the Zayachyostrov Island which is opposite the winter palace. The fortress was founded in the summer of 1703 as the core structure of Peter the Great's new capital. Peter the Great moved the capital to the new city called St Petersburg as when he was younger, in the then capital of Moscow, he watched a streltsy (coup) take place which was led by his half sister in which many of his relatives and courtiers were hacked to death in front of his eyes. After this Peter didn't really like all of the intrigue of the Moscow court and therefore moved the capital to the new seat of St Petersburg when he took control of the country. The main sight in the fortress is the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Inside the Cathedral are buried all of the Russian Tsars (The Romanovs) except for two. The huge red and green tombs are the tombs of Alexander II, he has the green one - which is 5 tons of Altai jasper (the one that was killed and had the church of the spilled blood built for him) and his wife Maria, who has the red tomb which is made of 6.5 tons of rhodonite. The tombs took 16 years to polish by hand. The iconostasis in the cathedral was insane. There was so much gold that you actually can't describe it. It was probably the most over the top display of gold that I have ever seen.

While we were in the cathedral I managed to overhear an english guide explain to her group that Peter the Great had 2 wives. The first he ended up sending to a convent. Then he married again. But this wife was not your ordinary wife. He second wife Ekatrina was actually an illiterant peasant from Lithuania. What happened was she ended up coming over to Russia and being the lover of a number of Russian Generals. Then she must have fallen out of favour because whe was working as some type of maid when she was spotted by the Tsar who must have fallen in love with her and ended up marrying her. They had 11 children, only 2 of which survived to adulthood (both girls).

We also visited the Commandant's Residence which now houses a fantastic museum all about the history of the island and of St Petersburg in general. This museum was actually really really good and the fact that most of it was in Russian was actually a blessing as that meant that we didn't have to stop and read everything. If we tried to do that we would probably still be there. Apparently the first political prisoner to be held in the prison on the island was the son of Peter the Great, Alexis, who it is alleged was tortured and murdered here under the order of his father. Leon Trotsky was also held here in the wake of the 1905 revolution.

After a quick bite to eat at the cafe we took a climb up the Trubetskoy Bastion to take in the view of St Petersburg.

After wandering through the fort we headed off to take a look at St Isaac's Cathedral. On the way there we wandered past a huge old wooden ship that was parked up beside the river banks. We were wondering what could possibly inside the ship, we thought it might be a museum, a restaurant, perhaps a hotel but no in fact it was a gym. That's right the treadmills and cardio machines were on the bottom floor with the weights on the second floor and then there was a wee cafe on the third floor. It was a very weird thing.

St Isaac's Cathedral was stupendous. There is no other word to describe it. The inside of the Cathedral was just amazing. Totally OTT and gob smackingly gorgeous. The cathedral, is actually the forth cathedral to be dedicated to St Issac in St Petersburg. Apparently over 24 thousand wooden piles where used to support the basic structure of this, the 4th cathedral. The interior of the cathedral was decorated by some of the leading artists of the time. 43 types of stone were used in the interior including lapis lazuli and tons of malachite for the columns. Apparently this cathedral cost 10 times that of the Winter Palace and when you see the interior you can really understand why.

After visiting St Isaacs we were planning on going and taking a look at the Vodka Museum. So we walked all the way over there only to discover that all that remained of the building that used to house the museum was the retained facade. Everything else was gone, and in place of it was a large building site. I was a little disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing the vodka museum. But I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Tomorrow we have decided to be adventerous and head out to a village 25kms out of St Petersburg to take a look at the Catherine Palace.

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