We met Caroline, Chris and Cameron as planned, and then went to face the Russian immigration authorities. Fortunately it all went off without a hitch - a lot of people had already left the ship, so the queues weren't too long, and we were soon in the cruise terminal waiting for our guide - Elina. She showed up a couple of minutes late which had us all a bit concerned, but then we were off. We're docked at the new cruise terminal in St Petersburg which is quite close to the city.
First we had a short drive around to see the some of the main sights while Elina explained what we were seeing. I had read some stories about the history of St Petersburg, particularly about Peter the Great who founded the city (and was by all reports an amazing person) as well as Elizabeth and of course Catherine the Great. I also discovered some new names - for example I had not previously heard about empress Anne the Ugly, but I found out about her and some others as well during the course of the two days. Anyway, my point here was that I had read about a number of these places and it was really interesting to actually see them.
Our first main stop was at the Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral. We saw the tombs of the emperors starting with Peter the Great and also started to learn just how overwhelmed we were going to be with both beauty and information.
Tomb of Peter the Great and some of his immediate successors. I can't really say descendants because Catherine the Great wasn't Russian at all - she was the German wife of Ivan III who overthrew him and became empress in her own right!
Just an idea of the sort of beautiful detailed work we saw in so many places.
The tomb of the last czar - Nicholas - his wife Alexandra and their children. Of course, they weren't interred here until quite recently. Unlike all the other tombs, there are also servants buried here - people who were given the chance to leave when the czar and his family were about to be murdered, but chose to stay and were also killed.
This is a replica of a small sailing boat that Peter the Great found when he was quite young, and discovered that he loved sailing. This led him to be so keen to get access to the land where St Petersburg now stands (which was Swedish at the time) so that he could have access to the sea for the Navy he was planning to create.
The outside of part of the Peter and Paul fortress.
We then walked to the Artillery Museum, which of course was on the tour for Paul. Elina had a really difficult job here, as we had booked a tour with an expert from the Artillery Museum, but she didn't speak English so Elina had to translate, and the technical / military terms weren't her strength. Fortunately her driver came with us - a very nice Indian man with an excellent command of English and Russian, and he helped quite a bit. The lady who ran the tour was quite scary - she carried a pointed cane and we were all quite certain that we'd be holding our hands out for punishment if we got out of line!
The museum has more than a million items and I think Paul could have happily spent a week there. Or more!
They sadly said that they have no tanks or ships or aircraft but I'm pretty sure it's not for lack of desire. However they have almost anything else you could want to see, from medieval right through the more recent wars to relatively modern missile launchers for example (including one that they proudly said would still work as long as some gasoline was put into the tank!). As well of weapons of all shapes and sizes they also have many paintings and statues.
The guide - the lady from the Artillery Museum, not Elina - made it very clear what she thinks of the current situation in the Ukraine. She was talking about defeating the fascists in WW2, and then moved straight from that discussion to talk of the fascists running the Ukraine. From her perspective, the Ukraine is full of Russians whose rights are being trodden on (she didn't mention the reason that there are so many Russians there of course!) - at one point she talked about Russian veterans who defended the Ukrainians and now aren't even allowed to speak Russian. To be very honest I'm glad there were no Americans in our group because I suspect that the discussion would have become even more pointed!
I don't have enough internet access here to post even a small proportion of the pictures Paul took but here are a few:
This last one is from their displays of AK47s - apparently the creator of them lived in St Petersburg and used to come to the museum regularly. This is where Paul created havoc - he was holding an AK47 and comparing the weight to a tommy-gun he had held, but the Russian lady thought he was saying that it was a tommy-gun and became most offended. The next 6 things she pointed out in the museum were tommy-guns!
After this, we went to lunch. Elina offered to take us to any sort of restaurant we liked, and we asked her to help us try traditional cuisine. So, today, she took us to a restaurant that specialises in Georgian food. Paul and I shared an entree which was something like a folded pizza or calzone perhaps, but with fairly light pastry and filled with lots of a local cheese - a little like mozarella in texture - and boiled eggs. Yum. Then we both tried a sort of dumpling for our main course - again, quite nice but I couldn't eat it all.
After lunch, off to the Hermitage Museum. I don't even know how to start describing it - 5 buildings all joined together, former homes of the czars, and containing the most amazing works of art - and of course the buildings themselves are beautifully built and decorated. We had all started to flag by about 4pm, and the building of course was fairly warm and very very crowded. So, in the end we cut it a bit short and skipped a few painters - I think we went from Rembrandt straight on to the impressionists and then finished up for the day. Here are a couple of photos but really there's no way to do any of it justice in a photo.
One of their da Vinci's
The same painter did all the portraits in this room - there are dozens of them. He was quite good at painting heads but the large painting above got him sacked as he really made a mess of the hand and arm.
Throne Room
I was very tired by the time we got back to the ship, and I had a pounding headache from not drinking enough water. We went back to the cabin and crashed - Paul woke me up at 6:30pm and again at 8pm - we then staggered up to the buffet, ate something, and then crashed for the night.
One interesting point - when Elina picked us up, she was wearing a coat and was horrified to see us all in short sleeves. It was about 12 degrees but of course Paul and I are still acclimatised to the Canberra winter, and Chris, Caroline and Cameron live near Manchester and so also thought the temperature was just right. By the next stop, we were all standing in the shade whenever we got a chance and Elina was still complaining about the cold!
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