St. Petersburg looked familiar, but yet so different. It's made up of Western European architecture which I recognized, but looks so tired. While Tallinn looks to be back on its feet in the post-communist world, St. Petersburg is still trying to break free of its past.
It's been over 20 years since communism fell in Russia, but as an American, you can’t go there without thinking about the KGB, spy movies, that thing on Gorbechev's head, and remembering all those bad fake Russian accents we’ve had to endure in movies over the years. The bad fake Russian accent is quite accurate though.
We had two days in St. Petersburg and we wanted to see everything. The first day we hired a private guide and she took on the challenge. Somehow, coping with St. Petersburg traffic, she managed to find a way to fit everything in.
Here’s where our guide took us:
St Isaacs Cathedral
St. Isaacs Cathedral glows along the St. Petersburg skyline during the White Nights of summer. An impressive cathedral, its granite columns are solid. There wasn’t much to see of the Cathedral itself, but it’s a great landmark in the city.
The Hermitage
Prominently situated in the center of St. Petersburg on the Neva River, the Hermitage, with over three million items, has the largest collection of paintings in the world. It’s made up of six buildings, palaces and theaters, all connected to now form the museum. Catherine the Great originally lived in one of these palaces and used it as her Winter Palace. The Hermitage was Catherine’s place to escape from it all, where she could become a hermit and enjoy her paintings without being bothered.
The Hermitage started with a few hundred Dutch and Flemish paintings, but grew over the course of a couple hundred years. So much so that if you spent one minute looking at every piece in the collection, it would take you eleven years to see everything.
Being that none of us have eleven years to dedicate to the Hermitage, here were some of my favorites:
Ceramic by Picasso
One of the first paintings of Raphael
Unfinished work of DaVinci
Interiors of the Hermitage were just as beautiful as the collections
Mosaics
Know before you go: The Hermitage is free the first Thursday of every month. Luckily for us, our first day in port was the first Thursday of the month!
Church on the Spilled Blood
This church sums up Russian architecture and grandeur.
During the communist-era, when all houses of worship belonged to the public, the Church on the Spilled Blood was used mostly as a potato warehouse. As it was used as a warehouse during the time, the church was rather dilapidated and in need of major repairs toward the late 20th century. It was under major renovations for three decades and now the beautiful interior mosaics are back to their original brilliance.
Catherine's Palace
Almost fully destroyed by the Nazis during WWII, this palace has been immaculately and painstakingly reconstructed to its original glory. Artists from around Russia and the world spent decades restoring the palace, using only methods available during its original construction to keep true to the style. Some of the original pieces from the Palace were hidden away during the years of war and later recovered, but the original pieces of one room are still missing. The Amber Room.
Aside from the amazing palace interiors and grounds, Catherine's Palace is best known for the Amber Room. Instead of tapestries adoring the walls, the walls are lined with yellow and red amber. At first glance, it looks like just another ornate room in the palace, but wait, it's polished amber and intricately etched on the backside with scenes.
Here's a close up from about.com: (photographs of the Amber room are no longer allowed)
There’s a great article about the latest story in the search for the lost Amber Room here.
That covers the first eight hours of our first day in St. Petersburg, more to come shortly...
The Hermitage, Catherine's Palace Date of Completion: June 2010
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