EuroTour 2010, Day 34, St. Petersburg

Our last morning in St. Petersburg.  Today is the relaxing day, when we take a canal cruise and basically sit all day.  At the end of the canal cruise will be the Church on the Spilled Blood, which may not sound relaxing, but might be.

Breakfast with the cruise ships lined up like cars.

Let me briefly explain something.  Normally Barbie and I arrive in a European city, we do a little research, and we decide what to see.  Since we were seeing St. Petersburg from a cruise ship, and since the Russians have strict policies and advisories about where you are allowed to go, we chose to go on the same shore excursions that my parents had chosen.  It was a great decision, and we have seen great things.  However, we did not realize that St. Isaac's Cathedral, which dominates the St. Petersburg skyline, was not on the list.  And everywhere we go, we have seen its golden dome in the distance, taunting us.  Therefore, since the point of the Waste is for you to feel like you are traveling with us, St. Isaac's shall tease you today.

There it is, taunting me.  Books tell us it is both the fourth largest cathedral dome in the world and the tallest, as it begins atop massive granite pillars.  Pillars so large that when the cathedral was being built in the early 1800's, special ships and a railway had to be built to carry the 120 ton pillars from Finland.

Taunting.

Taunting.

Yes, every Soviet-era car that I see will be photographed.  These cars are kind of cute, and knowing that every car in the country looked like this leaves little question why there was money available for nukes and a space program.

Insults and curses throughout the world are likely to be in English.  I did not tell you that outside the Hermitage a guy who held out a guide book for me to buy shouted something at me that rhymed with, "Stuck flu!"  You know, I bet if a university student based his master's thesis on a study to discover the phrase that is understood by the most human beings on Earth, I do think it would be that expletive from American English.

We climbed aboard our canal cruiser and the tour began.

Taunting, even while we are on the canal.

Soviet era architecture.

Tsarist era architecture.

See the kid waving?  On this first bridge, I thought, "Hey, that's cool, a local kid waving to the tourists."

On this second bridge, we all became aware that this young man was going to jog alongside our boat and wave to us from every bridge.

By this bridge, everyone on board was discussing how much they were going to tip this kid.  

There he goes, running alongside the boat.  By the way, the passageway ahead connects buildings of the Hermitage Museum, which sit on both sides of this canal.

At this point, I was calculating in my head how much cash this kid is going to make from our boat.

The best shot I have gotten of the Peter and Paul Fortress.  For the record, it began as a fort to seize and hold the area for Peter the Great.  Then, when a fort was no longer needed, its thick walls made it an ideal prison.  (Among the early inmates you would have found Peter the Great's son, Alexey, and centuries later Dostoyevsky, Gorky, Trotsky, and Lenin's older brother, Alexander Lenin.)  Buried in this fortress you will find all the Tsars, from Peter the Great onward.

A nice look at the Hermitage, with the Old Hermitage on the left and the Winter Palace in the center, with St. Isaac's taunting us on the right.

Double-self-portrait, courtesy of the forward facing camera.  Note that a hydrofoil stops right in front of the Hermitage.  And that St. Isaac's is lined up accidentally exactly between our touching heads.  Taunting.

There is the bridge boy, earning a living with his feet and hands.

The Cruiser Aurora.  How important is this ship?  Built in 1900 for the ill-advised Russo-Japanese War, in October 1917 its crew revolted against their upper-class officers and placed them under arrest, took the Aurora to the Winter Palace, and fired a blank wall from its forward gun, a signal for their fellow revolutionaries to enter the Winter Palace and remove the provisional government.  This was the October Revolution.  The Russians refer to it as the world's mightiest ship, because it brought down a government by firing a single blank.

We were told that the building THERE with all of the antennas is the building that was referred to during the Soviet era as, "That building."  Because it housed the KGB, and speaking those initials out loud was a sure-fire way to end up in the gulag.  

It is amazing that the Soviet Union lasted for 70 years.  I learned on this trip that Lenin himself expected the Bolshevik's tenure to barely last.  In fact, he said that if their reign lasted 100 days it would be a victory.  If you want to be fascinated, look up the process whereby the Bolsheviks ended up in power.  The Revolution in Russia took place in two parts, the February Revolution and the October Revolution.  In February 1917, the revolutionaries removed the Tsar and attempted to set up a constitutional democracy.  In October 1917, the Bolsheviks, a minor party with a few thousand supporters, managed to take advantage of the provisional government's lack of quick action and used the armed forces to seize power, leading to a five year Russian Civil War that eventually gave birth to the USSR in 1922.

Consider the idea that Russia might have been a constitutional democracy beginning in 1917, and think about what parts of European and Global would have been different.  I think that the correct answer is Everything.

Yesterday I hoped for a hydrofoil-in-action-shot and today the patron saint of iPhone photography delivered.

In the center of this pic runs a young St. Petersburgian in white and orange, readying himself to smile and wave at the tourists.

The Bridge Boy, as my mother referred to him.

Ponder this one; hundreds, maybe thousands, of pictures are taken of this kid every day.

You figure four or five canal tours per day, with forty or so tourists on each, times ten or so bridges...

... this young man makes a few hundred bucks per day because he can jog and wave.  He might be the first local I have seen in St. Petersburg with a smile.  And if you did some conservative math, you would estimate that his picture is taken more than 100,000 times per year.  (It would be more, but I figure during the winter nobody comes to St. Peteresburg.)

The Church on the Spilled Blood.  Peter the Great wanted his new capital St. Petersburg to be European, not Russian, but 160 years after his death Peter's heirs built a church that is as Russian as a building can get.

Officially it is the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood.  In 1881, Tsar Alexander II was murdered by a terrorist's bomb on the exact spot where this church was built.  Tragically, Alexander II was personally inspired by the enlightenment ideals of his time and was instituting reforms to the Russian Empire.  Because of his death we will never know how far he would have taken them, but it is not inconceivable that he might have transitioned Russia to a more democratic system which also maintained its monarchy, like many other European nations at that time.  After his assassination, his younger brother took over as Tsar and reversed all of Alexander II's reforms, clamping down harder on the people in revenge for his murdered brother.  Yet again, Russian history is a series of moments when things nearly turned for the better, yet turned for the worse.

Getting married today?  Why not take some wedding photos with the Church on the Spilled Blood behind you?

Inside, the Church on the Spilled Blood is remarkable  Every square inch of it is decorated with mosaics from the New Testament.  Simply remarkable.  It took 24 years to complete, and during the Soviet era was allowed to fall into disrepair.  It took another 27 years to refurbish, making it look today as it did when it was new.

A upwards panorama, to give you an idea of the scale of these mosaics.  There are five domes, and inside each dome is a representation of Jesus.

I found this one to be particularly Sci-Fi.  God is blowing rays of light from his mouth, forming a halo around Mary's head.  Perhaps this is how the immaculate conception was achieved?

This dome features a representation of Jesus in his early teens, which is very rare in art.  In case you never noticed, Jesus is either a baby or a grown man in art, which makes sense as those are the parts of his life in the Christian bibles.

Barbie noticed this, mentioned it to me, and now I shall share it with you.  Everywhere we go in Russia, women pose like models.  They do not just stand and smile; they act as if they watch those reality shows about how to become a model and pose as if this shot is going to get them into magazines.  That said, if I had this young woman's email address and showed this picture to a friend at a modeling agency, maybe they would fly her to New York.  Because the average Russian teen should, in fact, be modeling.

That is the very spot where the bomb went off that took the life of Tsar Alexander II, reformer and enlightened thinker.  The revolutionary who set the bomb likely had no idea his actions would set back democratic reform in his country, perhaps permanently.

Back outside, I wanted to share this picture with you.  This is Russia.  The state that this building is in represents, to me, the state that this city is in.  It could be beautiful, it should be beautiful, but it is not.

On the bus ride back to the ship…  closer than ever...  taunting.

I thought I would share with you some Rubles.  This is around three point three bucks.

We had a late breakfast just before the canal cruise, and grabbed lunch at the grill the moment that we returned to the ship.  Note that I have a chicken burger with bleu cheese, as well as a hot dog with ketchup.  We have passed through Russian customs for the last time and life is excellent.

At the Church on the Spilled Blood, we ran into an excursion from another cruise ship that was, clearly, one hundred percent gay men.  After a fun chat, we learned that the cruise ship we have seen in more than a few ports is an exclusively gay cruise with 2,000 passengers.  Barbie and I both figure that the night life is tad more exciting on their ship than ours.

Panorama of St. Petersburg naval yard.

You cannot tell unless you right-click-open-in-new-window, but the ship ahead of us is passing through a very small opening between artificial breakers.

When you are on a cruise ship, it is physically impossible to not take this shot a few times.  You look at it and you think, "I have to take a picture of this."

Since we are totally off the dining schedule, Barbie and I strategized after our late lunch at the grill that we would hit the Silk Road sushi bar around 30 minutes before they close, figuring that we could get two seats.

A complimentary on-board sushi bar?  Why are not we not eating here every night?

I missed taking pictures of the first two plates, which were Barbie's yellowtail with jalapeno (hold the jalapeno) and tuna sashimi.

My order of octopus sushi and tempura shrimp roll.

Eel sushi and eel rolls.  Eel, eel, eel, and eel.  We love the eel.  Why do we not come here every night?

We were fairly full, but I ordered the, "House Special Roll," because you should always order the House Special, even though we had no idea what would be in it.  It turned out to be tuna, salmon and I think some shrimp with rice, inside a cucumber roll.

We finished up with some toro, or fatty tuna, for dessert.

Until tomorrow...

EuroTour 2010, Day 33, St. Petersburg

A second day in St. Petersburg, a second all-day excursion.  Today will not be about art.  It will be about Empire - a word associated with Star Wars a bit too often.  There are Kingdoms, and there are Empires.  The Tsars of Russia started with a Kingdom, expanded it to an Empire, and then, like most Emperors, were murdered by their own soldiers.  Something to remember if you ever find yourself on an Emperor's throne.

A simple breakfast.  If you are going to get judgmental and say, "Look at that.  Mister Healthy Fruit Plate is getting his bacon going on."  Well, yes, I am.  Between us, the fruit on land is a tad better than the fruit that one finds on board.  And bacon tastes good.

I thought maybe you would want to see the breakfast buffet.  Now you can truly be dissatisfied with the monotony of my breakfasts, considering the choices at hand.

St. Petersburg Canal, Candid.  August, 2010

I know, the worst picture to make the blog.  Ever.  Why did this picture not become black and white?  Because this is not a candid of those people.  The arrow asks you to turn your attention to the memorial inside the roundabout.  This is a memorial to the victims of the Siege of Leningrad.  A proper explanation would go on for about an hour, but here are the essentials.  Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression agreement.  Stalin thought, "Hitler has a whole lot of fronts in this war, no way he brings us into the fight."  Hitler looked at Russia's border with its lack of defenses, and saw a fast victory.  

The people of St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad suffered immeasurably during the war.  The Siege of Leningrad began on the summer solstice, June 22, 1941.  Considering Stalin's lack of preparation, Hitler expected the same swift victory that welcomed him in many other parts of Europe.  He attacked in the summer and likely saw himself walking through the Hermitage in the fall, picking artworks to go on display in Berlin.  The people of Leningrad mobilized immediately, digging ditches and throwing up a fierce defense.  The elderly and young fled, leaving those able to fight behind.  As the siege extended into winter, Germany's troops managed to block the rail lines, cutting off the people's access to food and heating oil.  While Nazi artillery pounded the city, peaople were both freezing and starving to death.  More than a million perished.  Somehow the city held on, keeping the Nazi war machine to the suburbs.   

While this was happening, Moscow nearly fell to the Nazis.  Stalin's blunders nearly lost the capital, but Hitler's blunders proved to be greater.  After securing Moscow and Stalingrad, the Red Army arrived to liberate Leningrad in January 1944.  The siege lasted 900 days, the longest siege of any city in history.

So, you see, that memorial deserves more than a drive-by, even though that is all it gets.  That memorial honors those who were truly the first to stop Hitler.  If they had not, history would not be the same.  In case it is not at the forefront of your mind, D-Day was June 6, 1944, six months after the Siege of Leningrad ended.

It is not easy to move from the Siege of Leningrad to the palaces of St. Petersburg, but that is what we have to do.  In fact, that memorial stands where it does because that is the line the Nazis never crossed, meaning that our tour bus has just crossed into the territory that the Nazis did occupy.

The gate to Catherine Palace.  Catherine the Great built this palace for herself, not liking the place that Peter the Great had built on the Batlic's shore.  Apparently she preferred woods and lakes to the sea, and a new palace was necessary.  The life of an Empress can be so hard.

Barbie welcomes you to Catherine the Great's little home away from home.

You might recall last year that I would take pictures of street performers and refer to them as beggars with an angle.  For example, a street violinist would be a beggar with a fiddle.  I have noticed in Russia that they have official beggars posted in key places.  Ah, Russia.  In some ways you are still a unicycle riding bear.

To walk through Catherine Palace, you must put booties on your shoes.  By the way, I have no explanation for the lack of an apostrophe-s at the end of the word Catherine in Catherine Palace.  Must have to do with Russian grammar.

The main ballroom.  You have to look at the ceiling.  Then again, you have to look at the walls and the floor, too.  Baroque opulence at its height.

Guides always tell you how many kilograms of gold leaf was used in a room.  Honestly, it would mean nothing to me in pounds, either.  Suffice to say, I am impressed and repulsed at the same time.  Sure, Catherine worked hard to get to her position.  But to my USA mind, outmaneuvering your relatives to inherit control of an Empire is different than, say, studying hard and starting a company.  Then again, this difference might also lead to Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and 38 other billionaires recently announcing that they will give half their fortunes to charity.  I might propose the theory that the harder you work for it, the more willing you are to share it with the world.

The porcelain towers are actually ovens.  This palace has no central kitchen, instead opting for ovens in the rooms where food would be served. 

The gold is real, but if playing the Real or Fake game, based on the shape I would go with fake.

In this room, there was a portrait of Catherine the Great on wall to the right and of Peter the Great on the the wall to the left.  This Pano reverses the walls, twisting the perspective.  I imagine I just lost many of you.  If you understood, let me know.

On one of the walls we saw this painting that depicts Rome's Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine during what appears to be the 1700's.  No way to tell if it is accurate or not, but it certainly is nice to see the Colosseum surrounded by hills and pastures, even if this is fiction and the artist never visited Rome.

The flood of red light around Barbie comes from the red curtains in the window.  The color in the picture is not retouched at all.

This Pano is from a hallway at the end of the tour.  I have failed to tell you that the Nazi army used this palace as their headquarters during the Siege of Leningrad.  The painting on the left wall represents how the Nazi's left the palace after retreating, the right shows it restored.

A photograph of Catherine Palace's stairwell after the Nazi retreat.  It took over 20 years to restore this palace.

The back of the palace, facing the gardens and lakes behind it.

Ironically, Catherine built this palace and then did not like sleeping in it.  This building was built as her living quarters, while the palace was used for functions and hosting guests.

You know that I love Italy, but thank goodness we are finally in a country that knows how to garden.  The Italians just do not have the discipline for it.  The Russians do not lack in discipline.

This building is the Admirality, or boathouse, on one of Catherine Palace's larger lakes.  This Pano features two shots, 180-degrees apart.  The view of the Admirality, and the view from the Admirality.

If you ever find yourself looking at a statue and finding it uninteresting, get very close to it.  Perspectives matter.

Another view of Catherine Palace from its back yard.  (Secret parental shot, too.)

Of course Catherine placed her own Russian Orthodox Church into the corner of the palace.  How could she not?

We got back on the bus and before driving an our to Peterhof, the tour took us to this log cabin Russian restaurant.

Authentic Russian eats.

A sort of mushroom stroganoff.  I quite liked it, after adding some salt.

Warm beet soup, served to us in a kettle for self-service.  Note that mother is happy to serve us up.

The main course was this…  nothing like a mystery meal.  What is wrapped in the cabbage and grape leaf?  It is at least hot, which if you know me then you know the hotness is a relief for me.

Ground lamb and rice, I think.  It tasted just fine.  In fact, if you were very hungry, as I was, you might call it good.  Then again, I might never order this, but when presented with it without choice I cleaned my plate.

Dessert presents another mystery, though the yellow stuff is honey and you cannot go wrong with honey.

Lingonberry.  If you are cool enough to have seen  The Big Lebowski a few times, loganberry would make you think of the Nihilists at IHOP.

The lobby of the restaurant featured this waiter.  He did not move to quickly, but Barbie saw he felt ignored by everyone else and accepted his offer of a glass of vodka.

Me and my Russian bear friend.  (Once again included only for fans of The Colbert Report.)

Outside the restaurant, there was a sort of kiddie playground with chicken coops and a sort of Santa's village thingy.  This is a self-portrait with one of the wooden elf-dudes, taken with the iPhone 4's forward facing camera, of course.

Time to get back on the bus and take a nap, for we are an hour away from Peterhof.

You can clearly see why Catherine did not want to use this palace as her home away from home, and had to build a new one.

They did not allow photography inside, but this older palace features smaller rooms and less elegance than Catherine Palace.  So… imagine another wildly extravagant palace that is just a little less extravagant.

Peterhof was also left devastated by the war, but for a different reason.  Hitler was a tad arrogant, and planned a master party at Peterhof during the Siege, even sending out ornate invitations.  The Red Army got wind of this, and Stalin ordered massive bombing of the palace to prevent the party.  Ironic or not, nearly all the damage to this palace was inflicted by Russians over pride.

The reason we came here.  The back yard.  The Grand Cascade, to be exact.  This massive complex of fountains was built in the late 1600's, using the force of gravity.  Top that.

Forward facing camera, again.

The Grand Cascade draws the tourists.  Honestly, it is one of the most beautiful properties that you will ever see.  These fountains are surround by a massive garden complex with paths, statues, and the occasional fountain.  I do not know if it is possible, but I would suggest when visiting Peterhof to skip the house and just do the back yard.

The arrow on the left directs your eyes to the child playing on the storm drain.  The arrow on the right directs your eyes to the parents who do not notice their child on the storm drain.  This is dedicated to all my friends who are parents who would do better.  Like I always tell them, do not feel any pressure as a parent.  No matter what you do, there is always going to be someone doing worse.  Is that not what matters?

The ancient chess of dog and squirrel, played out in the gardens of Peterhof.

All visitors to Peterhof are required by law to take pictures from each bridge that crosses the canal to The Grand Cascade.  In Peter's time, there were no bridges, and he took his ship up the canal from the Baltic Sea.  Yes, this was his driveway.  In fact, Peter the Great was so fond of boats that he wanted Petrograd to be a city with only boats, not  horse carriages.  They did not start building roads in the city until after his death.

Another obligatory bridge shot.  This one shows you just how crowded the bridges get, and how hard I work for you, fighting the crowds on the bridges to get you the best possible sights.

We took a hydrofoil back to the cruise ship.  This is one going slowly, which is a shame.  A picture of one raised up from the water on its skis would be superior.

Remember the yachty harbor of St. Tropez?  I suppose this harbor is cruisy.  One might suggest that the popularity of cruise ships docking on the coast of St. Petersburg also betrays the truth about the city, which is that most anyone from the West would much prefer to sleep on the coast of Russia than to actually sleep in a hotel in Russia.  Every morning we show passports and have our visa checked as we cross out of the pseudo international region that is the ship and into Russia.  Based on all we have seen, this is the surest way to make sure that you wake up without a missing kidney.

Time for dinner, back on the ship.

Barbie began with the fresh artichoke with tomato-herb vinaigrette.

Jeff began with the fresh oven-baked lobster strudel with crayfish beurre blanc.

My lobster strudel was served with a caviar fork, which looks very much like a mistake at the silverware manufacturer but is in fact a compromise between stabbing and scooping.  And you thought the Colonel's spork was the first of its kind.

We both had the roasted butternut squash soup with toasted pumpkin seeds.  I should order ha Barbie orders more often.  It will save time on the Waste.

Barbie's main course; carrot risotto.

Jeff's main course; tiger shrimp on spaghettini.

Dessert gets a little out of hand again, and I once again give in and take pictures of the desserts my parents order.  I work on the assumption that you gluttonous Wasters love dessert.

Barbie and I both ordered the Bombolone, Italian mini brioche donuts.  This is hers, as she lacks the ice cream on top.

Mother's lemon tart.

Father's banana parfait.

Jeff's bombolone, with chocolate ice cream on top.

The most decadent dessert special of the night; "Peanut Butter, Banana, and Raspberry."  Banana bread, peanut butter granache, raspberry jell-o, vanilla ice cream, creme chantilly, chocolate party straw and cocoa wrap.

And someone ordered sour cherry sherbet as well.

You may or may not know that when Barbie and I stay i an hotel, and by my estimates that is one-quarter of the year, we refuse house cleaning service.  We keep it clean and place out things where we want them, and do not need anyone coming in to "straighten up" by moving everything around and causing us to lose track of everything.  and, really, do you need your sheets changed daily?  However, since we are at the mid-point of the cruise we relented and allowed our stewardess Christy from Peru to clean our room.  She did hide somethings from du, but she did a lovely job.  And…

Christy placed Tack the Tiger on our bed, to greet us when we entered.  He had been hanging out on Barbie's nightstand, so I found it especially cute that Christy moved him to the bed.

Until tomorrow...