St Petersburg: The River Neva, Palaces, Cathedral and Bastion.

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Day 2 St Petersburg



The Romanov tears from heaven have been wiped away and today the sun is shining.



The Hotel Rachmaninov has delivered a fullsome breakfast. Porridge is served in a pot in its own tartan jacket, hot water is from a 21st century samova ........ cheese, ham, eggs and salami kiss croissants, apples, granola with honey and yoghurt.



And, after research, it turns out that Rachmaninov, his good self, scaled the same steps to the 2nd floor as we did last night. In 1883 he lived in a flat in this block whilst he was studying at St Petersburg Conservatoire ........ an establishment he entered at the age of ten!



As we chomped on the first meal of the day we decided to walk a circular route to get an overview of the River Neva: The Admiralty, The Hermitage Winter Palace, over Dvortsovy and Birzthevoy Bridges to Peter and Paul's Fortress then back by Troitsky Bridge to the Summer Gardens, The Church of the Saviour of the Blood and the canal stalls that we missed last night because they had already closed because of the rain.



It's a bit like Stockholm down by the river, with elements of Copenhagen and other Baltic cities thrown in........ but also like Budapest, whose palaces line the waterfront, and the architecture is reminiscent of Eastern European capitals with its rendered brick edifices: Zagreb, Riga, Sofia, Belgrade and so on. And the bridges which span the river are decorated in Parisienne style street furniture ....... lamps like those on the Pont Alexandre, which confirms the French influence that I expected in Russia.

But, more than anything, the overall impression is of unmatched size and grandeur, above all the former named places.



When we reached the fortress we decided to visit St Peter and Paul's Cathedral, and the Trubetskoy Bastion.

First, the 1712 Russian Baroque Cathedral is topped by a graceful, slender spire of gold. Inside are the marble tombs of the Romanovs from the 1700s onwards . An impressive gilded iconostasis caught my eye...... it's different to the orthodox churches we've seen before in that it is an incomplete screen.... you can see an ornate structure built on the other side. 43 icons decorate the space.

It turned out that we had piggy backed on to a Spanish speaking guided tour by mistake. We went with the flow upon exiting the church and ended up in a side chapel where a sextet of male singers had been hired to deliver a sacred song. The performers' huge dynamic range from pianissimo to triple fortissimo produced a 'turn' that tugged at the heart strings. As we left we kept our heads down and no one seemed to notice or mind our intrusion.

The Bastion shares the same historical time span from 1718 until 1918, where criminals were imprisoned in a block basic cells for crimes against the state. Exhibition notes for the public were provided on the cell doors of many of the pre-revolutionaries who were incarcerated there in the late 1800's ...... Ironically some of the Romanov family were imprisoned here as well before being shot in 1918.



We ate corn on the cob for lunch and then scaled the roof top panoramic walk to view the Southern waterfront (the Gateshead side, as it were). There were a number of locals out in bikinis and bathers sunning themselves ..... there was even a couple swimming in the river.



The Summer Gardens boasted the biggest collection of Italian marble statuary in the world with 77 sculptures set in restored garden 'rooms' marked out by new hedging a straight pathways. The statues are now marble aggregate duplicates, these moulded from the originals which had been deteriorating in these modern times of acid rain and trophy hunting.

In the French Garden there was as an impressive vibraphonist who lacked only the flutter that electricity would have provided if he could have plugged in the device.



We bought our first set of Putin Russian dolls by the Church of the Sacred Blood. The area around this impressive multi domed building teems with life: buskers, portrait artists and souvenir stall holders. And here was our first Baltica beer in the sunshine.

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Photos

Bubblist at work...
All you need is Roman Amphitheatre and you might have a show, Chris Mc