Saturday began with a bus ride into Saint Petersburg for more sightseeing. We visited the Peter & Paul Fortress, within whose walls is the Peter & Paul Cathedral. Peter the Great and all the Russian emperors and empresses are buried there, including the last of the Romanovs, Nicholas and Alexandra and their children – well actually the remains of the last two children have only recently been identified and will be buried there next year.
Elaborate Russian Orthodox churches and cathedrals make up a significant fraction of things to be seen in Russia. We also spent time at St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The dome of St. Isaac’s dominates the Saint Petersburg skyline – it is the largest church in the city – and it is decorated with a huge amount of gold (about 200 pounds of gold leaf – that’s a lot of surface area!), huge mosaics, lapis lazuli and malachite, and – as in all Russian Orthodox churches – lots and lots of icons.
After lunch we were supposed to take a hydrofoil ride to Peterhof – the summer palace of Russian royalty, but there was an economic conference in Saint Petersburg and the hydrofoils were banned from the Neva River as a security measure. We went to Peterhof by bus. I was a bit disappointed, as I’d been looking forward to the hydrofoil ride. But Peterhof was definitely not a disappointment. There are around 150 fountains on the grounds and dozens of gilded statues. Consider that this entire area was laid to waste in 1944 by the retreating German Army after the 900-day Siege of Leningrad (the Soviet-era name for Saint Petersburg). Many of the sculptures and fountains had to be recreated from photographs. My favorite fountain, and one of the oldest, has four bronze ducks on a rotating frame. Water squirts from their mouths, and somehow the water makes a quacking sound. It’s not a big fountain, and it’s not centrally located, but it’s my favorite. This fountain was saved from being despoiled by burying it under a pile of dirt.
It occurred to me that if Peterhof were in the United States, it would probably be an adults-only attraction. Many of the statues have “naughty bits”, and the perverts who govern us would either drape the statues, alter them (heaven forbid), or restrict attendance. How sad!
On Saturday evening, during dinner, we left Saint Petersburg and sailed up the Neva River toward Lake Ladoga, the largest lake (by area) in Europe.
Elaborate Russian Orthodox churches and cathedrals make up a significant fraction of things to be seen in Russia. We also spent time at St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The dome of St. Isaac’s dominates the Saint Petersburg skyline – it is the largest church in the city – and it is decorated with a huge amount of gold (about 200 pounds of gold leaf – that’s a lot of surface area!), huge mosaics, lapis lazuli and malachite, and – as in all Russian Orthodox churches – lots and lots of icons.
After lunch we were supposed to take a hydrofoil ride to Peterhof – the summer palace of Russian royalty, but there was an economic conference in Saint Petersburg and the hydrofoils were banned from the Neva River as a security measure. We went to Peterhof by bus. I was a bit disappointed, as I’d been looking forward to the hydrofoil ride. But Peterhof was definitely not a disappointment. There are around 150 fountains on the grounds and dozens of gilded statues. Consider that this entire area was laid to waste in 1944 by the retreating German Army after the 900-day Siege of Leningrad (the Soviet-era name for Saint Petersburg). Many of the sculptures and fountains had to be recreated from photographs. My favorite fountain, and one of the oldest, has four bronze ducks on a rotating frame. Water squirts from their mouths, and somehow the water makes a quacking sound. It’s not a big fountain, and it’s not centrally located, but it’s my favorite. This fountain was saved from being despoiled by burying it under a pile of dirt.
It occurred to me that if Peterhof were in the United States, it would probably be an adults-only attraction. Many of the statues have “naughty bits”, and the perverts who govern us would either drape the statues, alter them (heaven forbid), or restrict attendance. How sad!
On Saturday evening, during dinner, we left Saint Petersburg and sailed up the Neva River toward Lake Ladoga, the largest lake (by area) in Europe.
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