Still not Finnished with Russia

Still not Finnished with Russia

Saturday, June 8

This morning, Anastasia started to make a special traditional breakfast for us.  The dish is made with cottage cheese, raisins, eggs and other ingredients. The cottage cheese here comes in plastic bags, not hard containers. She had too late of a start, but the next day we enjoyed something that was a cross between pancakes, soufflé and cheese cake – not overly sweet, but very tasty.

Sergey drove us to the place where we would be meeting Irina and the Swiss folks for a boat ride.

There was a lot of beautiful architecture visible from the place where we met the boat.  Ardith convinced Jim that it was best to only include one photo from there in this blog. 

One of the labels St. Petersburg tries to pin on itself is Venice of the North. Perhaps this was started by Peter the Great.  There are a decent number of canals and rivers here, but it doesn’t rival Venice in the sense that waterways are the primary transportation corridors.  Our ride went through several canals, out to the main branch of the Neva River and back to canals.

When we were on the Neva, we had a great view of Peter and Paul fortress.  This was built by Peter the Great starting in 1703 for the purpose of defending the new city against the Swedes.  The Swedes were defeated before the fortress was completed.  Its major function for most of existence was as a high security prison.  A host of “celebrity prisoners” spent time there starting with one of Peter’s sons and including Dostoyevsky, Gorky, Trotsky and Lenin's older brother.  There are many other building in the fortress.  Jim toured it on his earlier visit.

As we turned from the river back into the canals, we passed Peter’s Summer Palace, a tiny place compared with the huge Winter Palace – the main building of the Hermitage.  Poor Peter had to survive with only 14 rooms.

Also sharing the Summer Gardens with the Summer Palace is a tea house.

We thoroughly enjoyed the wealth of lovely buildings and parks along our ride.

Following the canal ride, we were scheduled to see St. Isaacs Cathedral.  When Ardith and I were by here earlier, we were too tired to go in and were a bit short on time.  

It is supposed to be one of the 2 most beautiful churches in St. Petersburg.  Both are essentially just museums now, rarely being used for services.  When we got there, there were long lines.  Irina disappeared for a while, attempting to make arrangements. While we were waiting for her, bus load after bus load disgorged their masses of people.  There were at least 3 cruise ships worth of people here, including one named Albatross.  That seemed quite ominous.  We saw at least 50 buses empty out. 

When Irina returned to us, she said it was impossible to get a small tour group in within the next several hours, but the 2 of us might be able to get in as individuals.  The Swiss folks were just going to go eat and return to their rooms.  We decided to avoid the masses and walk toward the other alleged super-beautiful church.  We looked at restaurants along the way.  Jim convinced Ardith that she would like the food in one that had a lot of Armenian dishes on its menu.  He had been to Armenia and loved the food.  The restaurant’s interior looked very much like ones Jim had visited in the city of Gyumri. Ardith (and Jim) though the food was great.

There was a lot of interest as we strolled along canals.  In addition to the many wonderful buildings, we observed an artist painting a view from one of the canals.  

We passed a shop that had some sets of the famous Russian stacking dolls – matryoshkas – in its window.  Ardith really liked the biggest set but realized that it would be too big to carry home.  We went into the shop and asked if they had a smaller set that was similar.  The shopkeeper showed us a set of about 7 or 8 dolls that wasn’t as nicely done as the ones in the shop, but cost about $900.  Needless to say, we don’t have that extra weight to carry.

We also saw several girls wearing wreaths of green leaves on their heads.  We assumed it was for some festival but we will share the details later.

We approached the Church on Spilled Blood, also known as the Resurrection Church of Our Savior, from opposite sides of the canal.  Ardith wanted to minimize walking, Jim wanted to maximize picture-taking potential.

When we got to opposite sides of the church, Ardith saw a very long line.  Jim saw Ardith and motioned for her to come where he was.  There were only 3 or 4 people in each of the lines for tickets.  When we got in we were awed by its splendor.  

There is no painting on the walls – everything is covered in mosaics or carved stone.

The iconostasis (wall of icons that separates the main part of the church from its holiest place) was designed in wood, then redone in stones. 

The church was built on the spot where Tsar Nicholas II was assassinated in 1881 and serves as a memorial to him.  During Soviet times, it was used as a warehouse for vegetables and artists props.  When they became aware that it would be a good tourist attraction, they spent 27 years restoring a church that took 24 years to build!  The audio tour we listened to said that most of the icons were lost during Soviet times.  Our suspicion is that they were purposely destroyed. 

After visiting the church, we headed to the Metro.  Our next destination was Sergey’s apartment.  Jim wanted to get pictures of several of the Metro stations, Ardith was tired and wanted to go straight back.  Much to her dislike, we separated.  When Jim was here before, it was illegal to take photos.  There were several signs then indicating not to and he was scolded once for an attempt, so gave up then.  Now there are no signs and a lot of tourists are taking pictures. The major stations in the city center are quite beautiful.

Much of the art is glorifying workers.

The Metro here is built very deep into the ground.  The newest station is the deepest in the world – about 350 feet below ground level. In the DC Metro, people who are not walking on escalators are supposed to stay to the right, walkers to the left.  The same is true of down escalators here, but Jim only saw one person walking up an escalator here.

There are timers at the head of each track showing how long it has been since the last train departed.  At peak times, Jim observed just under a minute and a half between trains.  Very few people rush to get to trains because the next one is coming soon.

Jim went from train to train on 2 lines to get to stations that were noted to be attractive.  When he stood in one car with his camera dangling from his neck, a burly guy with his wife sitting next to him started talking to him in a loud voice,pointing at the camera.  Eventually, Jim got the idea that the guy wanted him to put his lens cap on to assure he didn't take pictures of them.  Jim hadn't even lifted his camera in that car. 

It would be really difficult for a wheelchair bound person to navigate the system.  The ramps here (and in some commercial buildings) are just pairs of steel beams.  There are no elevators.

 

When Jim got back to the apartment, Ardith was fuming.  She had turned left instead of right when getting out of her train and went out the wrong exit.  Since she hadn’t explored the neighborhood on foot, she had no idea where to go.  Luckily, we had driven by the fountains in the morning, so she knew she wasn’t far off, but was quite fearful since she spoke no Russian, thought she had no rubles (she forgot she had some), didn't have a cell phone to call Sergey,  and didn’t know where she was.  She walked a few blocks the wrong way and didn’t recognize anything.  She did remember that Sergey’s was almost right where there was a bus to the airport. She went back near where she had exited the Metro, and asked someone about that.  She ended up going in one end of the Metro station and out the other (two blocks away), spending an extra token.  When she came out she recognized where she was and where to go.

The reason we were going to Sergey’s was that there was going to be a party with singers who had been to our church before and who most likely will be there in the fall.  In addition to Alexander/Sasha, there were 2 Annas, one of whom had stayed at our house several times.  We will call her Anna 1. She has a brother in San Francisco and visited him several weeks following her last tour with Lyra that ended in California.  This summer, like last, she will be helping her mother remodel her house in Belarus. They had paid a contractor to do work, but he did a shoddy job and they are succeeding doing most of the work themselves.  We were impressed that such a feminine young woman would enjoy construction work.  

 

Anna 1, Ardith, Anna 2

Anna 2 is an accountant when she isn’t singing.  She has a husband and daughter and stopped singing for a while to be with them.  After a year and a half, her husband approached Sergey and begged him to take her on tour because she said that without music her life was empty.

Anna 2’s daughter had been in the hospital for eye surgery and was having more procedures done.  Ardith had brought several small angels from the US as gifts for special situations.  The angels come from the place where she volunteers making stained glass angels to raise money for cancer research.  She gave each of the Annas two angels. Anna1’s mother had had cancer.  The other angels were for the Annas themselves.

We had a great time with food and drink, then Ardith went to sleep and Jim off to process picture and write.

Sergey and Irina