Country: Russia
Distance travelled:
Weather: Sunny but cool
Breakfast this morning was identical to yesterday apart from the replacement of frankfurters with a cabbage and mince mix in a crepe-like wrapper. We were all packed and ready to go so headed out to the closest metro station. I had read a lot of interesting information about the St Petersburg Metro system and was keen to have a look. Their fare system seemed to be one of the best we have come across as well, just buy a token for 28 rubles ($0.82 AUD) and use that to enter the system. You can stay on for as long as you like and change trains as often as you like as long as you don’t leave a station. Seemed pretty good to us.
From Wikipedia:
The Saint Petersburg Metro is the underground railway system in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It has been open since November 15, 1955. The system exhibits many typical Soviet designs and features exquisite decorations and artwork making it one of the most attractive and elegant metros in the world. Due to the city’s unique geology, the Saint Petersburg Metro is one of the deepest metro systems in the world and the deepest by the average depth of all the stations. The system’s deepest station, Admiralteyskaya, is 86 metres below ground. Serving 2.15 million passengers daily, it is also the 16th busiest metro system in the world.
It had taken us a little while to find the entry to the nearby station, Sennaya Ploshchad (Сеннáя плóщадь), on the blue metro Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya line commonly known as the M2 line and we knew we needed to exit at Gorkovskaya (Го́рьковская) station. It was on the far side of the Neva River since we planned to spend the morning at the Peter and Paul Fortress. When we exited the station, we had absolutely no idea which way to head, which is fairly normal when coming out of the underground for me and we spent some time wandering back and forth until we reached one of the two entries into the fortress.
We wandered through the complex passing the entries to the various museums contained therein until we reached the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, pausing at the rear to examine the graves of Russian heroes through the surrounding fence. At the front of the cathedral were rows of seats and Mark made himself comfortable while I bought myself an 250 ruble ($7.25 AUD) entry ticket to go inside. The queue to get in moved fast since it appeared to be mostly tour groups and I was in amongst the crowds before long.
From Wikipedia:
The Peter and Paul Cathedral is a Russian Orthodox cathedral located inside the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is the first and oldest landmark in St. Petersburg, built between 1712 and 1733 on Zayachy Island along the Neva River. Both the cathedral and the fortress were originally built under Peter the Great and designed by Domenico Trezzini. The cathedral’s bell tower is the world’s tallest Orthodox bell tower. Since the belfry is not standalone, but an integral part of the main building, the cathedral is sometimes considered the highest Orthodox Church in the world.
Inside appeared to contain very little but tombs of the former Russian Tsars. Most were large blocks of white marble and unfortunately there was no English signage so I had no idea of who was interred underneath apart from where Peter the Great was located as he had a bust on his as well. There were two others which weren’t of the typical white stone but rather jasper and rhodonite, over the graves of Alexander II and his wife, Maria.
The main attraction for most of the tour groups, and I must admit something I was interested in also, was the graves of the last Tsar, Nicholas II and his family and servants killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and relocated to the cathedral in 1998. The press of people at the small entry to the side chapel they were buried in was four or five deep and after a few minutes I switched my camera to live view and held it up over all the people around me to take a few shots and then moved away. Fortunately they all seemed to be shorter than me.
At the front of the cathedral was a vast iconostasis all in gold. It was an impressive display and seemed to be generally ignored by many of the tourists around me. I took some shots trying for clear views as people milled and ebbed around me and then finally decided to head out. I found the decor not be to my taste since it seemed have a cold feel to it but that may have just been the crowds of tour groups. As I made my way to the exit I noticed a display on the Russian royal family in a side hall and detoured in to read what I could. It was very interesting and had quite a lot on the re-burial of Nicholas II although unsurprisingly it discretely failed to say much about his death.
When I rejoined Mark outside he told me how he had been sitting playing with the film option on his camera and listening to the unappealing chimes of the cathedral clarion when he noticed all the people around him turn to look expectantly at a large canon mounted on the walls not far away. He turned the camera in the same direction just in time to film it firing, something that happens every day at noon. I was surprised as I hadn’t heard a thing, wrapped up as I was in dead Russians.
Making our way out of the fortress via the gate opposite to where we entered, we walked past an old wooden boat now converted to a restaurant and of all things, a gymnasium. We could see the exercise equipment through large windows cut into the sides just above water level. We made our way to the Zoological Museum, now open, and went in. The first thing to greet us was the skeleton of a twenty-seven meter long blue whale!
This museum is another of those glass case types and is filled with an incredible array of stuffed animals. It put me in mind of a line from a Terry Pratchett novel, something about catching a butterfly for a collection before they became extinct. We started at a slow pace, looking at all the displays but after a while realised that we didn’t have the time to examine every animal so ended strolling through and slowing in the more interesting areas. The fish were passed with vague interest, the birds with even less. Reptiles were slightly more interesting, especially their collection of crocodiles and then we found the mammals.
Down the centre of the room were a number of dioramas – displays of the subject in as natural a setting as could be managed, several showing both summer and winter situations. They also had several mummified baby mammoths on display and I eventually found the Tasmanian tiger I had been keen to see. I had heard it wasn’t in the best state, and although I can attest to the truth of that, I was still thrilled to have finally found it. Right at the far end of the gallery was an incredible arrangement of several lions in a savannah setting. The background, in some sort of 3D magic gave it an unbelievable depth and detail and we spent some time trying for a photo without reflection from the front of the glass case. There was also an insect display upstairs, although to my surprise they didn’t have many butterflies exhibited and some live insects in a separate room as well but that required an additional entry fee so I skipped that, not being partial to spiders.
From there it was a short walk back to the bus stop we had initially alighted from two days ago. We were there in plenty of time so decided to have lunch at the restaurant nearby. I finally had a serve of borsch, the Siberian version, served with a bread roll drenched in garlic flavoured oil and Mark opted for beef stroganoff served somewhat weirdly with a cube of mashed potato. Looks are not important, he told me, it was delicious. We chatted to the staff as we ate, one of which could speak excellent English.
Eventually we decided we had better go outside to meet our bus back to the port and our waiting ship. We stepped outside just in time to see it, a nondescript white minibus, pull away. Damn, I have terrible trouble reading timetables! Fortunately Mark had insisted we plan to catch the second last bus so although we had to wait another hour, we still had transport and wouldn’t have to brave a Russian taxi. We used the time to locate another bakery and bought some more pastries to eat on board instead of having to dine in their restaurant. We waited nervously, eyeballing every van that came by in case it was our transport. The correct vehicle appeared right on time and we climbed aboard along with a couple originally from the Middle East but now living in Finland.
It was an easy process getting back through immigration, though still no smiling, and we were soon back aboard in our economical cabin in the bowels of the boat. I stepped out briefly to buy some more drinks from the duty free shop aboard, an acceptable €1 for both coke and water and then we spent the rest of the evening watching some movies, not being inclined to go out on deck to wave goodbye to St Petersburg.