Day 54. St. Petersburg, Russia

Arrived in St. Petersburg last evening and checked into the Nevsky Forum Hotel. Not as luxurious as the Metropol in Moscow, but kind of funky, and located right on the main drag, Nevsky Prospect. We headed up Nevsky, getting our first view of the fondanka embankment...





...one of the main canals flowing through the city, and famous for four horse statues at the four corners of the canal's intersection with Nevsky...





We were also impressed with this building that we passed...





...which we later found out had been a house built for one of the dukes, but is now used as government office space, and they have an occasional concert here. The decorative buildings are quite plentiful here! We also passed the main Russian Orthodox Church in St.. Petersburg...





...which is currently looking a bit dilapidated, but is undergoing renovations...would be great to see it when they are done So, on to find a cafe for dinner...the most memorable part of the dinner was that we tried our first glass of Russian red wine...and decided to stick with the Chilean Malbec instead :-).

This morning, we headed up Nevsky to go to the Hermitage Museum, also known as the Winter Palace for the Russian tzars, built in the mid 1700's.





It is huge footprint along the Neva River...





...and along palace square on the opposite side..





....but what we realized when we went inside was that there was a huge open area in the center, with each of the four sides of the building only being about 100 feet deep. The column in the middle of the square is one solid piece of red granite and is the highest monument of its kind at 46.3 meters high It took 3,000 men 3 hours to lift it into place.

We spent about four hours in the museum, looking at the current exhibit of paintings loaned by the Prado Museum in Madrid; the opulent interiors of many of the rooms...












...rooms full of impressionist art by Matisse, Gauguin, Monet, etc.; the largest collection of gold in the world; etc. We noticed while viewing the art inside that something was going on in the Palace Square below...











...and decided to go down and check it out. We quickly realized that they were holding a practice for the May 9th Victory Day celebration to be held in the square. They had the entire square guarded and blocked off...





...as the troops prepared to pass muster...





It was quite impressive with a huge band and thousands of soldiers from the different branches of the military...





























....including an impressive female corps...





All seemed to go well, except maybe for the musician in the band who seemed to have lost his tuba?...





The practice lasted about 1-1/2 hours, and then......they all lined up to do it again!! We headed back...it was time to think about dinner!

We did find out later that the actual Victory Day celebration is for invited VIP guests and TV only, so it was quite a treat to get to see the practice! There weren't many people there, as they had not announced the practice, and had blocked off many of the surrounding streets...it was mostly just people who had been at the museum....so we had a great vantage point!

So...where for dinner....we chose the Palkin Restaurant which had received excellent reviews by other travelers....and it was great. A bit expensive (but Russia is quite an expensive place...dinners have been about $100 each!!...and this one was the top of the line as to excellent food, service and of course cost).

Tomorrow, more sightseeing and opera at Mariinsky Theater!

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Location:Nevsky Ave,St Petersburg,Russia

Days 52/53. Moscow, then on to St. Petersburg

Easter Monday....we headed out to the State Historical Museum adjacent to Red Square (a couple of other museums that we were interested in seeing were closed on Mondays :-(. The Historical Museum was in fact a disappointment, as we felt that it focused on the wrong things, and did not really adequately address the history of Russia. Oh well.

We then walked up one of the main drags to a famous Food Hall (grocery store), which was housed in an opulent building.....






While gawking at the interior, we also picked up some snacks for the train ride tomorrow. Walking back, we discovered a pedestrian only side street which was pretty interesting with theaters and outdoor cafes...lots of pedestrian activity....we will go back there when we return to Moscow next week.

We went to the Savoy Restaurant for dinner, which was ranked #1 in more than one guide book. It was a beautiful, old style place, we enjoyed our food, and they had live music, but it was very expensive and we were the ONLY ones there. We couldn't figure out why...maybe because it was Monday? It was weird. Afterwards, we walked over to Lubyanka Square to see the old KGB building....it was an ugly concrete building and was definitely eerie....


I think I read that there were more floors underground than above ground. So we hightailed it away from there and back to red square for one more night view of the square...I'm not sure this has the same impact as if you were here...


One more walk over to Red Square in the morning of Day 53, where a church service was getting underway in front of the Kazan Cathedral...


...and where they were getting the stands ready, in the colors of their flag, for the May 9th victory day celebration...


...then we headed to the Leningradsky train station to catch our train to St. Petersburg and the Nevsky Forum Hotel. We will have one more full day in Moscow next week before Cynthia heads home, and I head on to Budapest.

But first.....six days in what is touted as "the Venice of the North."

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Day 51. Easter Sunday in Moscow

Happy Easter....


After breakfast with our daily concert of harp music (we loved this touch....the hotel also has a pianist who plays in the lobby in the afternoons), we ventured back to the metro to go to Old Arbat Street...




...the oldest surviving street in Moscow. It was the main route that was used to reach areas west of Moscow and the place where merchants gathered to sell their wares. It was also the route used by invading armies to access and then retreat from the city. This street was originally built mostly of wood and was burned by the Russians in 1812 when Napoleon was trying to seize Moscow, leaving the french with no food or shelter. So it has been entirely rebuilt with some Italian, some art deco, some soviet construction...


and some??.....(not sure,,,eclectic?)....


It is now a pedestrian walkway lined with shops and cafes...(Jim...your kind of cafe)...


We wandered up the street, enjoying the street music...


and the architecture....There were several theaters along the way, one of which had this ballerina in front...


And we did some shopping, of course...


(modeling our purchases in Red Square in our shirt sleeves!! It has been In the 60's here! Gorgeous weather!).

On our walk back to the hotel, we walked through a park where they had just planted flowers everywhere in anticipation of May day and Victory day...


Then we saw a crowd at one corner of the Kremlin wall, so we walked over to see what they were looking at. And it was the tomb of the unknown soldier...


...and the crowd was there to see the changing of the guard which happened about 3 minutes after we got there....



We stopped for a late lunch. Then after a rest, it was time for the premiere of the ballet, "Lost Illusions," at the Bolshoi theater.

It wasn't really in the old Bolshoi theater building as that building has been under renovation for ten years. It was scheduled to reopen in 2009, but that has now been pushed back to 2013 (we just read in Tuesday's paper that it will reopen this October?) There has reportedly been a lot of graft involved, and the renovation is expected to significantly exceed budget by about $900 million. It's apparently been quite a fiasco.

Meanwhile, they built a "temporary" theater next door in about two years time, which has a phenomenal and opulent auditorium (no photos allowed), which was where we experienced the famous Russian Bolshoi ballet. The ballet was actually one that had been introduced for a short time in 1936, but was quickly shut down to avoid the wrath of Stalin, who was cracking down on artistic endeavors at the time. So this was an important premiere in light of its symbolism. And it was a very good production too! The "people watching" was also an experience as many of the women were quite beautiful and stylish. We had hoped to read the reviews the next day, since the press seemed to be there for this premiere, but we were unable to determine where it might have been covered (in English anyway).

Back to the hotel afterwards for a wonderful snack in the hotel bar, and to bed, with visions of ballerinas dancing in our heads!

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Day 50. Easter weekend in Moscow.

Saturday of Easter weekend...Cynthia and I slept in a little bit, before meeting our English speaking guide, Ludmila, for our tour of Moscow. We were originally scheduled for a two hour walking tour, but we quickly accepted the extended option, requiring a driver. We started out by visiting Red Square, the most iconic building in the square being St. Basil's Cathedral...


This cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the terrible and was built between 1555 and 1561. There are nine small chapels inside under each onion shaped dome. It is customary to have an odd number of domes ... It can be 1...3...5...etc., but cannot be an even number, as this is bad luck. This cathedral was originally built with just 8 domes to represent each successful conquest by Ivan the terrible...the 9th dome was added later. Twice, this cathedral was ordered demolished...first by Napoleon, and then by Stalin. Luckily, neither attempt was carried out.

The east boundary of Red Square consists of the huge GUM mall, which I mentioned yesterday, while the west side is bounded by The Kremlin, surrounded by a red brick wall (it was a wooden wall when first built in the 12th century; the brick wall was built between 1485 and 1495). There are 20 watch towers interspersed around the perimeter....this one being the tallest was built in 1491 and was expanded to include the clock in 1625...


News reporters usually stand here, across the Moscow River, to report on events taking place involving the Kremlin...


This is still the official residence of the president (Medvedev? Putin? The lines of authority are currently unclear, commonly referred to by the locals as "the tandem")...Reporting live from the Kremlin, the globedotter and her colleague, Cynthia, who has just joined her for this report from the bank of the Moscow River!

The Kazan Cathedral...


And the Resurrection Gate..


...Were both destroyed by Stalin, but have since been rebuilt at the north end of Red Square.

We stopped off to see this sculpture Of Peter the Great.....



.....Which has an interesting story. This piece was originally Christopher Columbus, which the artist thought he would be able to sell to the United States for one of the anniversaries of his discovery of America. But....there were no takers. So he later changed the face of Columbus to be that of Peter the Great and sold it to his friend, the mayor of Moscow, to commemorate an anniversary of Peter's establishment of the Russian navy. However, there were still some obvious Spanish type carvings on the statue and the locals would really like to have it removed. Oh, for you chocolate lovers out there, the main Russian chocolate factory, Red October, is in the background.

We then headed further along the Moscow River to see the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which is the highest Eastern Orthodox cathedral in the world.


This was originally built in honor of the defeat of Napoleon in 1812, although it was not completed until 1883. Then it was dynamited in 1931 under Soviet rule, and just recently rebuilt and completed in 2000. We were able to go inside to the smaller chapel downstairs, but the upper chapel was closed due to preparations for the Easter service to be held later that day. (We were then able to watch that service, which was attended by both Putin and Medvedev, on TV later that evening). The chapel did not have pews, but rather people stand throughout the service.

Next, the Novodevichey Convent...


....which is known for having housed many women of nobility who were forced to become nuns, such as Feodor I's wife; Peter the Great's sister, after she tried to overthrow him; and Peter the Great's wife, when he was ready for a new "trophy" wife; etc. They were not forced to live as nuns in the strict sense, but were instead allowed to have pretty clothes and eat whatever they wanted....but they could not go outside the walls of the convent...so were basically held as prisoners.

Next to the convent is a cemetery where many famous people have been buried...not just political leaders, but artists, writers (Chetkov and Gogol for example), astronauts, etc. While we weren't that excited about visiting a cemetery, we did find the sculptured head stones to be very interesting....this one for Khrushchev...


...was commissioned by his successors by a modern artist whom he himself had banned. After viewing this burial site for Boris Yeltsin, featuring the Russian flag...


...his wife then appeared to pay her respects for Easter...


...so our one celebrity sighting.


She was accompanied by so many guards we couldn't count them.

We then viewed the sprawl of the city through a haze from Sparrow Hill, where you could see the CBD, which is now being built.....all at one time!!!....


...there has not previously been a CBD, but rather the city has suffered from a lack of urban planning and is just sprawled out in all directions. We wondered (as any commercial real estate professionals would :-) what impact this new construction would have on other areas of the city where we assume whole buildings will be emptied to fill these new buildings.

We then drove by the World War II memorial...


...they lost 27 million people in that war, all of whose names are inscribed on this memorial. (They are preparing for their holiday commemorating that war on May 9th). We then descended into the metro system to return to our hotel, while seeing the opulence within some of the stations....the marble, the chandeliers, the frescoes, the bronze statues, etc...









Even the platforms were opulent...



The nose of this dog (one of 88 bronze statues at this metro station) was worn to a shine from people rubbing it for good luck as they pass by, so Cynthia had to definitely take a turn....



Phew, a long and great day with our wonderful guide, Ludmila (we will get to see her again on May 4th, when we return to Moscow, and will do a tour of the inside of the Kremlin).

But....our day was not over...we then went to the Moscow circus...


It was interesting and there were some good acts, but we couldn't figure out why it is so famous, as it doesn't come close to the Cirque du Soleil performances that we've seen. But we couldn't resist the bronze statue of the founder of the circus....


...who we had learned about earlier in the day, as he was buried in the cemetery of famous people.

A great dinner at Il Forno italian restaurant (slow service), and on to our hotel to watch the Easter service at the famed cathedral we had seen earlier in the day.

A phenomenal day in the very European city of Moscow! -- not at all the dreary city we had both expected! (while there were some square concrete block buildings as we expected, there was also a lot of Italian architectural influence in the city).

Happy Easter, at the stroke of midnight!