From Russia with Love

The Church of Our Savior 

on the Spilled Blood

Built where Emperor Alexander II 

was assassinated in March 1881

Without family in Stockholm to keep us close to hearth and home, on Christmas Day we boarded a Rossiya Airlines flight to St. Petersburg, Russia for the holidays.  Helen had made our travel arrangements though a travel agency, Inventus.

Inventus was top-notch handling flights, hotel bookings and the processing for our Russian visas.  It was a marvelous adventure!

Inventus’ guided tours were in Swedish so we assembled our own tours.  The first was a six-hour personal city walking tour with a twenty-something English-speaking native named Eugene.  He showed us well-known tourist attractions as well as provided us a backstage glimpse of the city.  City natives, we learned, navigate the well laid out street grid of St. P by ducking into alleyways and courtyards.

Key, Lighter, Umbrella Service

Unseen from the main streets is another world of apartments and shops.  Our favorite shop - of a different era - was one occupied by a grumpy entrepreneur who replicated keys, fixed umbrellas and refilled cigarette lighters.

We visited the green and white Baroque style Hermitage Museum, also known as the Winter Palace, the residence for many Russian tsars.

Winter Palace/Hermitage
at 10:30 am
Still very dark outside

It became a museum in 1764 and now has over 2.7 million items, of which only a fraction is on display at any one time.  We wandered the museum from the third floor down to avoid the crowd that assembled at the 10:30 opening time.  Early in the day, we consumed our quota of French, Spanish, Flemish and Italian art.  We finished our tour admiring exquisite antiquities art from the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.  Oh my.

Catherine Palace

The following day we journeyed via public transportation to Pushkin, located 20 kilometers south to visit the Catherine Palace.  Named for the wife of Peter the Great, the palace is simply spectacular.  The gold onion domes and the blue and gold leaf exterior capture your attention immediately upon arrival.  The great hall rivals or surpasses the grandeur of Versailles’ hall of mirrors.  We toured the palace in mandatory slipover shoe coverings, walked the spacious grounds, had lunch in a nearby restaurant and ventured back to St. P again by public bus and subway to our hotel. 

Boxing Kangaroo at State Circus

Over the next two days we wandered the city, visited the Peter and Paul Fortress on the west side of the Neva River, attended a ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty at the Mikhailovsky Theater and were entertained by goats, a kangaroo, dogs, cats, monkeys and dancing bears at a performance of the State Circus of St. Petersburg.  Lonely Planet travellers ranked the circus #473 of 499 on things to do in St. Pete.  Clearly that gang of travelers failed to appreciate the humor in "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants."

NYE dinner in the Victoria Restaurant in the Taleon Imperial Hotel

New Year’s Eve started for us with marvelous authentic Russian cuisine at the Taleon Imperial Hotel on the Moika.  Following dinner, we reveled in the folly and joy of mingling with 100,000 of our closest friends in the square in front of the Winter Palace.  The tradition to toast the New Year with champagne and fireworks was faithfully followed.  “Dosvedanya 2011!”