From Peter to Lenin

Today was another full day of sightseeing. I should be getting amazingly fit from all this walking. I woke up this morning, took a shower and greeted Irina in the kitchen. We had oatmeal this morning. It didn't quite taste like oatmeal back home, (we put chocolate chips in it ;) but it got the job done. Today, she is leaving to go pick up her son and mother from the Dacha so I should see those two tomorrow for the first time. It is odd living in someone else's house, but I also feel like I am getting a real perspective on what it is like to live here.

I left the apartment and headed to the почта, or main post office, near the admiralty building. I sent a few postcards and a surprise for Hazel. It was kinda neat and the interior was mid-19th century with a huge iron wrought sky light above the center letting lots of light through opaque panels. I tried to communicate a little with a few of the ladies working there and got what I wanted with what I could muster and good gestures. Funny thing: the stamps are not sticky. You have to go to a table and wipe the stamps on this sponge that has sticky substance on it. 

From there, I walked to the Peter and Paul fortress on the Petrograd side. The Peter and Paul fortress is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) sites in the city. Here in the early 1700s Peter ordered that a fortress be erected after he managed to beat the Swedes out of Schlisselburg further down the Neva river. The original fortifications were built of wood but Peter and successive generations built it of stone and granite. In the fortress is a boat house (where a replica of the first boat Peter used to sail can be see), the Trubetskoe bastion (which is where Peter's son died and the prison there housed many political prisoners in both Tsarist times and Soviet), a mint, an engineers house. Among other things, the Peter and Paul Cathedral is there. The cathedral was the traditional burial site for the Romanovs from Peter to Nicholas II. Inside, the interior was nicely decorated in gold and some other pastel colors. Six ton marble caskets house the bodies of great historical figures like Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Alexander the II (the Liberator), and Nicholas and Alexandra's family (the last Romanovs) throughout the small chapel. 

   The Peter and Paul Fortress (I took a helicopter ride to take this shot--kidding)

At one point, while I was walking around the fortress, I heard a marching band. I walked swiftly to the source and saw crowds surrounding a military band and a formation of soldiers lined up near one of the central bastions. After the band finished their song, the members simply stood there alongside the soldiers. Thinking that it was a waste of my time I walked away from the crowds still standing there to try to find tickets to get into the cathedral mentioned above. As I walked I hear a bomb go off. It spooked me and I turned around quickly toward the source of the explosion. However, when I looked at my watch, I realized that it was 12:00 and they must have done some kind of noon celebration. . .still it must have been a huge canon.

From there I walked around the Petrograd side and checked out various Soviet historical markers. I almost got lost in doing so. I saw the cruiser Aurora, which assisted in the 1917 Revolution, a monument to the Decembrists, and a monument to the victims of the Gulags, which oddly had only a few words and a simple boulder. I guess the creators were lucky to simply pass the censors. I then walked up Kamenoostrovsky Prospekt to check out the Yelizarov apartment, which belonged to Vladimir Lenin's sister and served as a hideout for Lenin during the years leading up to 1917 and a different apartment where a minority of the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks decided that they should prepare for a coup--a turning in point in the events leading up to the Revolution.

On my way back to Petrogradskaya metro I simply got lost. I probably spent 15 minutes walking in the wrong direction and passed several streets and buildings named after the great scientist Pavlov. Yes, the drooling dog guy. I retraced my steps, but as I got closer to the metro I still could not find it. I am glad I asked a local where the metro was because he told me that it does work "не работает" and kindly gave me directions to Gorkovskaya. I would have spent hours looking for that dumb metro. Sadly, this meant more walking. 

At about 6pm I walked to Gorkovska metro and took the blue line down to Moskovskaya station in the souther suburbs to see the House of Soviets. When I walked up from the metro, the surrounding scenery l made it seem as if the Soviet Union was still around: the square was packed with loiterers, fountains were flowing, a statue of Lenin stood over the square, and freezes on the building illustrated the Communist parties achievements.

My last stop of the day was to visit St. Isaacs cathedral, back in the heart of the city. This cathedral, the fourth built better fits the classical European style of the surrounding city. Unlike, the Church on Spilled Blood (see my post from yesterday). I purchased a ticket to the cupola and exhaustedly walked up several hundred steps. The view of the city from the top was rewarding though! The ocean wind felt fresh and the sun was still high due to the city's White Nights.

    The view from St. Isaac's Cathedral

I had dinner at the Peterburger cafe and got to choose an assortment of Russian things that I know are edible and good. While I ate I watched Moscow's ЦСКА play St. Petersburg's Зенить, a fun rival soccer match, on TV.

   Tasty Russian Cuisine