Ohh Russia, where to even begin. Russia was pretty much everyones favourite stop on our trip. I think there are multiple reasons for this: First of all, it's really awesome just to be able to say you have been to Russia. Secondly, we had two days in Russia so the first day didn't feel nearly as stressful or rushed and we were able to return the next day. Thirdly, we had a private guide with our own private transportation that completely took care of us! Our guide was Julia and she did a fabulous job showing us around St. Petersburg.
Now to begin in Russia. This was the only place where we had to go through passport control to get into the country. Our guide had pre-arranged our visas and we stood patiently in line to see if they would let us in. After we made it through the passport control, Julia was there and waiting for us to start our tour. We boarded our bus and headed into the city. First we stopped along the river where we got our first glimpses of St. Petersburg. At this stopping point there was a statue of a leopard with wings. Supposedly, if you put your hand in his mouth, patted his head, and whispered in his ear, all your wishes would come true.
From there we headed to another picturesque stop to get a view of the city, the Hermitage and Winter Palace. It was so cool to stand there and think about all the major historical events that had taken place right in this area. We were only able to enter our first destination at a specific time so we used a little of our down time shopping. It's good that we did because we didn't get much time to shop! When it was time we went on to St. Peter and Paul Cathedral. This Cathedral is where many of the Czars of Russia are buried. The amount of gold and ornate craftsmanship in the church was amazing. I have to say that Russia is very fond of gaudy. Russian Orthodox churches do not believe in the use of musical instruments and this church had a little space where we were able to listen to an example of the singing you would hear in the church today. It was very impressive. Outside on the grounds of the church was a statue of Peter the Great. Beau was able to sit on his lap and gain some wisdom.
Up next, we hopped on a boat and started across the water for Petergof. The journey on the boat was about 30 minutes but if we had driven there it would have taken 1.5hours! Our driver drove while we road the boat and toured the grounds. The Petergof palace and garden is known as the Summer Palace and our guide called in the Russian Versaille. The grounds were spectacular with amazing fountains, gardens, and forest. One of the fountain areas was made with trick fountains set to get off with weight. I'm sure we only saw a small fraction of the gardens. It was the type of place you could spend a couple of days exploring and/or relaxing. Again, notice all the gold! We didn't go into the palace here because Julia said it was very similar to the next palace on our tour.
After the gardens, we had to drive a decent ways back towards the city to get to Catherine's Palace. We stopped for lunch along the way at was supposed to be a traditional Russian restaurant. Our food overall was very good with some interesting additions like Beat soup. They were really great with Jake and gave us all kinds of foods to feed him. I even ended up eating some of his!
Once we had refuelled, it was time to head off for our tour of Catherine's palace. On the itinerary was a walking tour through the gardens but on our way there it started pouring down rain so we opted for a brief tour in the van and then to go straight into the palace. Even though we went "straight in" we still had a decent walk in the rain and most of us were pretty wet! When we were inside, we had to check our coats and rain jackets. That area was absolutely insane!!! If you want to be a pickpocket, thats the place to be. The only way to survive it was to put our American bubble, wait in line, politeness aside and just push and fight your way through. I was really worried what the rest of our tour would be like after that but it was much better inside the palace but still crowded.
Catherine's Palace was destroyed in WWII but the Russians preserved many of the items inside of it by taking them to Siberia and hiding them. Immediately after the war ended, even though most Russians were starving and homeless, Russia began restoring the palace. Notice again the amount of gold and gaudy! The main attraction was the Amber Room which was a beautiful room covered in Amber! Of course, this was the only room that didn't allow pictures.
This was our last stop for day 1 of Russia. I think we were all on information overload and ready to get back for a good nights sleep.
The next morning our first stop was the Hermitage. We paid extra money to get early entrance and it was worth it! Even with the early admission it was still crowded but it was 10x more crowded when we left. The Hermitage is a huge museum with tons of artwork and artefacts. I'm so grateful we had a guide in the Hermitage because I would have either never made it out or left really quickly from being so overwhelmed. The museum just has tons and tons of stuff to see so it was nice to have someone point out the important points. The most exciting part to me is that the museum is housed partly in the former Winter Palace. The Winter Palace was the residence of Russian Emperors. Only a few rooms are still set up to resemble the Winter Palace as it would have been used. None of our family is really that into art so eventually I think we were already to get out of there and move on to something else. Julia even said "the happiest moment of most of my tour groups is when we enter the Hermitage, the second happiest moment is when we exit".
When we finally found our way out, we went on to tour St. Isaac Cathedral. This cathedral is very similar to other cathedrals seen around Europe. We spent a little time exploring and taking some pictures and once again were ready to move on. On our way to our next stop we stopped at a little bookstore to get a better look at yet another replica of something from other parts of the world. I felt like that was a lot of our tour of Russia. Our guide frequently told us that "such and such was made to replicate such and such". There didn't seem to be much originality in the culture. Even the Hermitage was filled with "this room is the French room", etc. So, here is a replica from Rome.
At last we made it to the church I had been waiting for, the Church on the Spilt Blood. I was excited to see this church because the outside is what I always thought about when I thought of Russia. The church gets it's name from the Czar Alexander II who was killed on a very spot inside the church. The church was then built around that spot to commemorate the death. During the communist era, all churches were shut down but instead of tear them down, they used them for other things. This church was a library, a morgue, and a storehouse. Obviously, they let most of their churches get into really bad shape during the communist era and they have had to restore them. The mosaics on the inside of this church were spectacular. All the pictures and designs you see on the walls are actually mosaics! The ornateness of their churches was truly amazing.
We left the church for our last stop in Russia, Yusupov Palace. This palace has really strict entrance times which our guide had pre-arranged and our tour was running a little early so we made a couple other random stops along the way to get in some more sights. At one point Bailey even took over the guide flower and pretended to be our guide. We stopped at yet another church, a bridge, and just some random sights.
Our last stop was Yusupov Palace. The first part of the tour in this palace was very small, interconnected rooms and we only had a brief time to be in each room. They only allowed one group at a time in each room which made the workers seem a little cranky but I think they were just trying to keep the efficiency going. Yusupov palace is where the assassination of Rasputin takes place. It was crazy to hear about the botched poisoning, the shot in the back that Rasputin survived, and even how the conspirators threw his body in the icy Neva River. In the exact rooms where this took place, they had the rooms set up like it was currently happening. After that portion, it just turned into another tour of another palace. It did have a little playhouse which was really cool. It would be a fun, intimate place to see a play. Luckily, this palace had a pretty good gift shop at the end to allow us to get in some last minute shopping in Russia!
While everything we saw as tourist were these over-the-top palaces and cathedrals, while driving it was easy to get a sense of a different side of Russia. Away from the palaces things didn't look quite so beautiful. As we were told, they do a good job of trying to appear as though they have it all together but it doesn't take much to see reality. I was amazed at the amount of just junk everywhere. Concrete pilled up on the side of roads, graffiti, buildings that looked in shambles, and public transportation buses that I wasn't sure how they were still running. All these things put together are why Russia is so fascinating.
