Just Ice and Whiskey: Baltic Cruise Day 5

May 28th

Today is our first day exploring St. Petersburg in Russia. There are some complicated visa things with Russia right now, but if you go on a cruise and an organized tour you bypass all of that and get to see some of Russia. You still, however, have to stand in a line with all your other cruise ship disembarkees and wait to clear cruise port customs. This took longer than we thought, but we still made it to our tour bus in time.

Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg in 1703. It's a pretty young city by European standards. For a little while it was called Petrograd and later, in 1924, to Leningrad. It returned to being called St. Petersburg in 1991. It is considered the most Westernized city in Russia.

Our tour starts with some photos from the bus:

Fun fact - St. Petersburg is actually built on about 42 islands.
It has a lot of bridges and waterways.

A submarine monument of some sort.

Our first stop is Peterhof. Peter the Great started building Peterhof in 1714.

Dan got this lovely panorama of the entrance area and the line of groups waiting to get inside.

Our guide waited in line and let us roam around the upper gardens.

As you will see, they are very linear - possibly a nod to their lands original purpose, growing vegetables. The gardens weren't installed until the mid 1700s.

The Upper Gardens have a few fountains in the less linearly structured areas.

Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the palace.

Peterhof was mostly destroyed during the Nazi occupation in 1941-1944.

Restoration work began in 1945 and continues to this day.

There are also extremely expansive Lower Gardens.

This is the balcony above the Grand Cascade.

Panorama by Dan.

This channel goes out to the sea.

Look! We were there!

Peter used this as his Summer palace and was only here a few weeks ever year.

So many spouts and statues!

Now you can see the Grand Cascade.

Zoom out.

It's a very impressive way to enter a palace. If Peter had important guests, or people he REALLY wanted to impress, he brought them to the palace via the channel so they could see all this.

One side of the cascades. I like all the green and gold.

I think they'd turn the fountains off once you got up here. No one likes soggy guests.

This is the Samson Fountain.

I don't know what any of us are doing in this photo.

Except the little girl. She is texting while riding a lion.

I would say that's illegal, but we're in Russia.

This is another one for "had the sculptor/artist ever seen a lion?"

On the sides of the Grand Cascade are very manicured lawns and gardens.

They are full of brightly colored tulips.

Colored stones make up the swirly parts of the gardens.

There are more fountains down here. There are a lot of fountains.

Dan is being silly.

We went to what used to be a green house, and is now a restaurant, for lunch.

Outside is a fountain of Neptune fighting a fish....I think.

I enjoy the accompanying turtles.

Fountains and gardens and tourists oh my!

Another lovely panorama by Dan.

This is the Chessboard Cascade.

Many of the statues were buried in the gardens to try to protect them from the Nazi destruction.

Dan being silly again.

More lovely flowers.

Unfortunately, it was time to go. We had to start making our way back to the bus.

Now you can see the greenhouse turned restaurant.

Here is a map of Peterhof. The palace is tiny compared to the surrounding gardens.

We were only able to see a very little portion of the grounds.

This is the roof of the palace chapel.
This ends our tour of Peterhof.

Now, more photos from the bus:

There were lots of forest of these silvery birch trees. I liked them.

Those blue domes belong to Trinity Cathedral.

That gold dome is our next stop!

This is St. Isaac's.

At on time it was the largest Orthodox basilica in the world.

Cinderella's pumpkin carriage was outside.

St. Isaac's has very large doors. Each side weighs 10 tons.

And very tall ceilings. And we haven't even gone inside yet!

See? Tall ceilings. They're made of SOLID pieces of granite.

The basilica was built between 1818 and 1858.

The interior of the basilica is lavishly covered in mosaics and paintings.

This stained glass is called "The Resurrected Christ."

There are also ornate carvings and decorations along with the paintings and mosaics.

Something of some sort of official-ness was going on here.

There were a decent amount of people in the church.

Dan took some fun panoramas:

The church can hold 14,000 standing worshipers.

If you stand in the center of the basilica and look up you'll see this.

The Nativity of the Virgin by T. Neff (1900)

This is a mosaic. I know you don't believe me, but it is.

1/66th scale models of the incarnations of St. Isaac's.

The first St. Isaac's was erected in 1707 by Peter I. It was destroyed in a flood.

The second St. Isaac's was erected in 1717-1727. It fell apart and then burned down.

The third St. Isaac's was erected in 1768 by Catherine II. It was never finished and was raised.

The fourth St. Isaac's was erected in 1818-1858 by Alexander I. Here it stands today.

A bust of Auguste de Monteferrand (1850)

Monteferrand was the architect of the fourth/current St. Isaac's.

He wished to be buried in the crypt below St. Isaac's but Alexander II (Tsar at the time of Monteferrand's death) refused since Monteferrand was not Orthodox.

The cost of St. Isaac the Fourth ₽23.5 million rubles or roughly $10 million USD.

There is some greenery in St. Petersburg. Supposedly it is grey most of the year.

Fun photos from a guide approved gift shop:

Music boxes.

"Fabergé" eggs.

Matroyshka dolls.

Crystal crown. Only $7,385.

More photos from the bus:

The Bronze Horseman. This is a monument to Peter the Great.

St. Isaac's from two sides!

This green building is a portion of the Hermitage Museum.

The yellow building is the Admiralty building.

The Admiralty building and St. Isaac's again.

This is a rostral column.

They originally served as beacons, but now are only used for ceremonial purposes.

An old ship of some sort.

The spire of the Peter and Paul cathedral.

Here you can see the two rostral columns and the old stock exchange.

In the middle is the Peter and Paul cathedral spire.

This is two thirds of the Hermitage Museum.

It's the second largest museum in the world falling only behind the Louvre in Paris, France.

Hey, it's that old boat. It's called The Flying Dutchman. It was built to be a restaurant. The restaurant didn't make it on its own, so now it's three restaurants, a gym, and a beauty salon/spa.

Go big or go home I guess.

In case you needed any "badass" Putin clothing, you could get it here.

The bus travelled over this, what seemed like tiny, wooden bridge to get us to the Peter and Paul fortress for our next big stop.

The Peter and Paul fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg. It was established in 1703.

Apparently you can take helicopter rides.

The red brick building is the Museum of Artillery, Engineering, and Weapons.

This is the Grand Ducal Mausoleum. It was constructed in 1896. Its purpose was to move many of the non-reigning members of the Romanov family out of the Peter and Paul cathedral. The cathedral had started to run out of room for "more important" people.

This is the Peter and Paul cathedral. It was built sometime between 1712-1733.

It has the tallest steeple of any Orthodox church at 122 meters.

An event, I think a funeral, was about to take place and the guard didn't want to let us into the church. After a little bit of back and forth with the guide, he decided we could have 10 minutes.

While still being very ornate, this Orthodox church was not covered in paintings and mosaics like the other ones we've visited. The iconostasis is also unique. Instead of a flat wall this iconostasis is more of a tower.