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Published: June 25th 2017
Geo: 59.939, 30.3158
As a final stop, our boat with it's very non-Russian, Russian crew (ie smiling & friendly) pulled into port and effectively became a floating hotel for the four days we were going to be in St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). I don't know if St Petes is the most heavily renovated city in world history but it has to be close. The tragic siege of the city by Nazi Germany during World War II left the place pulverized- it is clear that Hitler's intention was to utterly destroy the city and its population. According to a directive sent to the German Army Group North, "
After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban center. Following the city's encirclement, requests for surrender negotiations shall be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for our very existence, we can have no interest in maintaining even a part of this very large urban population.". The two-and-a-half year siege caused the greatest destruction and the largest loss of life ever known in a modern city. On Hitler's express orders, most of the palaces of the Tsars, such as the Catherine Palace, Peterhof Palace, Ropsha, Strelna, and other historic landmarks located outside the city's defensive perimeter were looted and then destroyed, with many art collections transported to Nazi Germany. The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment (during this time 260 Leningraders were found guilty and put in prison for the crime of cannibalism). Economic destruction and human loss in Leningrad on both sides exceeded that of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's something of a miracle that the city ever recovered.
At the time of the war St Petes had already been relegated to a secondary status as the humourless bolsheviks had already decided that the former home of Russian Tsars was far too grand to serve as the communist capital, so they changed the name to Leningrad, and moved the furniture and everything else back to
Moscow. As mentioned, Leningrad had a relatively short and very troubled life. In 1991 in a referendum that was dangerously democratic and fair, the local population was asked if they wanted to change the name back and, surprisingly, they said yes, and, even more surprisingly, the vote was allowed to stand (notwithstanding current moves to change the name to Putinsplace).
The name change was entirely appropriate given that St Petersburg was, and always will be, a Tsar town. It was founded by the first Tsar, Peter the Great, and although largely imitative of the great European capitals of that time, it quickly grew into a magnificent, palace-filled city that had earned a spot at the dining room table.
With our fellow Blue Groupies, we saw all of the major sites including the renovated Peter & Paul Fortress and Cathedral, the renovated Perterhof Palace, the renovated, St Isacc's Cathedral, the renovated Catherine's Palace & Park, the world famous Hermitage Museum, and so on. All were spectacular and beautiful in their own right but my personal favourite had to be Yusupov Palace. The palace's last owner was the eccentric Prince Felix Yusupov,
a high-society darling, and at one time the richest man in Russia. More important than being the extravagant home of another excessively rich guy in a land of peasants, the palace basement is the place where Grigory Rasputin was murdered in 1916 (if you were a disco queen like Marlene S you might remember the name from the 70's song by Boney M). There seems little agreement on whether or not Rasputin was a docile, semi-religious pacifist who had healing powers, or a womanizing, evil puppet-master responsible for all of Russia's problems, but you have to sit up and take notice when a gaggle of murderers had to poison, shoot with three different guns, stab, beat, and drown the guy before he would expire. The murder theory I liked best had the British responsible because Rasputin was trying to convince the Tsar to pull Russia out of World War I.
DH's highlight in St Petes was a trip to the Russian ballet but because of a relatively obscure Canadian law that bans anyone who has recently participated in a hockey melee from attending and/or participating in a ballet, I was unable to go. DH now wants to add a Grand Jeté
to the pole dancing routine she and Christine L picked up in Vegas.
We found that St Petes was harder to like than Moscow, but that might have a lot to do with our lack of peak-season travel experience in Europe. Our guide kept telling us that the tourist traffic was way down because of the Putin Games but I haven't been pushed around that much since DH decided we were buying a house in the countryside and adopting a rescue dog. The crowds were often badly behaved, incredibly noisy, and, all too often, obsessed with 'selfies'. Apparently the city is now a well established cruise ship stop which dispenses thousands of day trippers- most of the sites we went to had competing herds of flag-led tourists all vying for prime viewing spots. And contrary to the strict law and order image Russia might have, St Petersburg is crawling with thieves who seem to operate with significant police indifference (probably too busy adjusting those hats that are far too big for them). St Petes might have been a very regal and noble city but I kept getting the sense that I was in a really nice looking
Walmart store just before Xmas. We started out our St Petes experience thinking that we would need to come back just to wander many of the streets we had driven past, but by the end of our stay we had decided that four days was probably enough.
With the increasing belligerence of Russia which has resulted in significant loss of life in neighbouring Ukraine, it was hard to tour the country without feeling somewhat guilty. We did meet some great people along the way and hopefully they start to reign in their fearless leader.
Special Note: In my last blog I erroneously assumed that everyone knew who Pavlov's dogs were so as a community service I'm including the following link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning .
In short the Russian scientist Pavlov discovered classical conditioning by observing a dogs response to food expectation. Unlike the drooling response to the actual presentation of food, which is an unconditioned reflex, drooling in expectation of food is a conditioned reflex (as in learning that a boat intercom buzzer usually means mealtime for instance). Classical conditioning is often used to treat phobias, anxiety and panic disorders and has nothing to do with age. I mentioned our quickly-learned, conditioned drooling response to the boats intercom buzzer which usually, but not always, preceded an announcement of one of the 3-5 meals per day (which after months of sketchy meals for us was a welcome break, if slightly over-the-top). This blog is written with a healthy dose of irreverence which may, or may not cause offense on occasion, but if you want to engage, at least get your facts straight. I am many blogs behind and don't have time to explain the bucketloads of humour included in each entry.
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Marlene S.
non-member comment
There are millions of those in Alaska too! All Russian influence....