Have You Heard There’s a Rumor in St. Petersburg – Part 2

Alright team are you ready for St. Petersburg day 2? Where we last left off we had been dropped off at the ship for our night docked in St. Petersburg. In the last blog I mentioned one of the perks of going on a cruise to St. Petersburg was you didn’t have to get a visa if you did an excursion through the ship. That was also, however, a bit of an annoyance in the fact that even though we were docked in St. Petersburg we could not leave the ship for dinner. The food on the ship was delicious mind you but it does mean we didn’t get the chance to find some authentic Russian fare for dinner. Such is life.

The next morning we woke up early for another full day of touring. On today’s itinerary was the Peterhof i.e. Peter’s Palace outside the city limits. Our guide was all about finding efficiencies to get us into the Peterhof as quickly as possible so we illegally parked at a city bus stop at the top of the upper gardens. Then in almost military style she hurried us through the gardens yelling into our whisper sets “these gardens aren’t even impressive. To the line. Move move move!” Despite her efforts to move us along I did manage to take some pictures but to her credit these are probably the least impressive pictures to come.

As we waited in line for entrance into the Palace our guide gave us some juicy tidbits of history of Peterhof. Peterhof was built to outshine Versailles by Peter the Great and was later redesigned by Elizabeth (Peter’s daughter) in Boroque style ie the gold extravagance of Catherine’s Palace. Today only one room remains in style of Peter the Great.

The Peterhof became a museum in 1917 to show lavishness of the royal family to justify the revolution. In 1941 the Palace was occupied and destroyed intentionally by the Nazis. Similar to Catherine’s Palace, however, the art was removed before the occupation and statues from the gardens were buried throughout the grounds (by woman – you’re welcome world). The rebuilding of palace then began right after the war.

Walking in the Palace we were again surrounded by lavish gold furnishings.

We then got to see the thrown room which was actually a replica. All the circles on the floor lead up to the thrown which sat Peter, Elizabeth and Catherine the Great. At this point we were actually given quite a few interesting facts about Catherine. Catherine the Great (actually the second Catherine to sit on the thrown) was from Germany and was brought to Russia by Elizabeth. Elizabeth expected Catherine to be nothing special but she was cunning, smart and ambitious (not lost on me these are actually the names of my twin sisters). Catherine rose to the throne following Elizabeth’s death and sat on the throne for over 30 years, the longest reign of the empire.

From the thrown room we entered the white dining room which was originally gold but was painted white by Catherine when she was tired of the baroque style

Next was the only room original to Peter. It is made of all oak wood but only 8 of the original panels remain.

As we finished in the place our guide rushed us outside to witness the starting of the fountains in the back grounds. The fountains are THE thing at the Peterhof. There are over 150 fountains. The water from all the fountains comes from springs and force of gravity powers the display. The main fountain is known as the grand facade. The large fountain in the center is a symbol of Russia’s (Sampson) victory over Sweden (the lion). This was actually the only fountain that is not original as it was too large to hide before the Nazi occupation.

After the grand display we traveled around the grounds to enjoy the other extravagant fountains. The largest was a chess board inspired work. The original wood in the fountain actually rotted out and has since been replaced.

There were so many more fountains ranging in style and size.

Once we had our fill of fountains it was time to head back to St. Petersburg. Not by means of a boring old bus though, by means of hydrofoil. For those of you that don’t know what a hydrofoil is (I definitely didn’t) it’s a sort of boat that kind of hovers over the water as it cruises at high speed. Also lucky for you I have photos!

From the hydrofoil we saw the sites of St. Petersburg’s shores including a brand new building of a large oil company that already has certain jokes regarding its resemblance to a certain piece of the male anatomy (I’ll let you figure out which) and the stadium built for the World Cup that has what looked like giant spears shooting from the roof.

Once we were back in St. Petersburg proper it was back to a bus (boo) and off to lunch. On the way we saw the battleship Aurora. During the Russian revolution they turned the armed forces against the royal family and it was from this ship that a canon was fired to signal the siege of the winter palace and the beginning of the end of the Romanoff dynasty.

Post lunch we headed to the Church or Spilled Blood which could be mistaken for the well known St. Basels in Moscow probably because it was modeled after it. The history of the church is quite interesting. In 1881 Alexander the Second was attacked and killed on the canal by a bomb ( actually the second bomb that had gone off as he survived the first one). The attack was the 8th attempt on his life so you could say some people really had it out for the guy. His family commissioned a church to be built over the area where he was killed as a monument. As a symbol of the Russian royal family the church was closed after revolution and turned it into museum of revolution. Displayed were portraits of the people who killed Alexander the Second. Ultimately the Russian people wanted the church destroyed but they did not blow it up because they couldn’t do so without damaging the area. Instead, they planned to disassemble the church but then WW2 broke out. Amazingly the church survived the war bur they did find a bomb shell that went through the central dome inside the church that had not gone off so it’s a real miracle it’s still standing. Although maybe not for those who wanted it destroyed in the first place. After the war it was used as a storage facility. When they decided to restore it, the project took 27 years and the church finally reopened in 1998. More recently, they began to refurbish one of the gold domes with the intention to complete the restoration in time for the World Cup. When it became clear, however, they would miss this deadline all worked stopped and it remains under scaffolding today.

When we were standing outside the church yes it was pretty but honestly I was so overwhelmed by the number of people swarming around. According to our guide it’s St. Petersburg’s biggest attraction for tourists (unaudited). Looking at it I didn’t understand. It was cool but not biggest attraction in the whole city cool. Then we walked inside. Let’s just say the mosaics took 20 years and the result was pretty breathtaking.

They also have an alter piece made of Jasper marking the spot where Alexander was killed.

Once we had our fix of spilled blood (I’m punny) it was back to the ship – with some shopping on the way. So I’ll leave you with a photo of me modeling the hat we found in the shop (not purchased) and a photo of the cruise ship crew in their performance ware (full village people for YMCA). Until the next adventure!! Dasvidaniya!!