Moscow & St. Petersburg

Well, I can't believe it, but it has already been almost 2 weeks! I would have liked to do many more posts but the internet thing wasn't as easy as I anticipated. I will posting a ton of photos when I get home. It is too slow and cumbersome on Rita's 4 year old computer. That is a dinosaur in computer years. In the meantime, I did just post a new slideshow.

St. Petersburg was really pretty - in Russian terms. It is a very European looking city, built by Italians and other Europeans. It was supposed to be the Venice of the North. There is a big river and lots of small canals running through the city. There are a couple of different islands as well. I gather the whole place was a marsh before Peter The Great arrived there. He had it filled in with stone and made into liveable space. Imagine what the environmentalists would have to say about something like that now! At a certain point, anyone entering the city had to pay a tax in stones.

Probably the most famous landmark in St. Petersburg is the Hermitage. It seems to be the Louvre of Russia. The art collections are located in the Winter Palace which is on the edge of the Neva River. It has 3 floors filled with art from all over the world. My personal favorites were the early 20th century artists - Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, etc. I actually missed some of the pieces because we went one direction and didn't end up circuling back to the rooms we missed.
The other fascinating part of the Hermitage is that it is filled with rooms that are decked out just like they were when the palace was being used by the royalty who lived there. There was one room that was entirely made of wood with glass enclosed cases of books. It was done in a beautiful gothic style architecture, probably with mohagany. The room wasn't easy to find and I joked that if you lived there you would need a map to find your way around. "I would love to go to the library, but I can't remember where it is!"

It is a damn good thing we went to the Hermitage on Thursday because I went back on Saturday to go see a special exhibit on gold and there was a line a mile long and another mile wide. They weren't letting anyone in at the time we arrived. I guess they were already at capacity and needed people to leave before they could let others in. The thing about Russia is that it can be difficult to find/figure out exactly what is going on for sure. Mark went to the front of the line to see what was happening and was told that they weren't letting anyone in right now. He asked when they would be, but was directed to read a sign posted on the door which actually told him nothing. The "guard" was too busy talking on her cell phone to bother answering his questions. We ended up leaving as I had no desire to spend my time waiting in a long line. I may have felt differently if I hadn't already been inside, but I had, so, no line for me!

Outside in the Palace Square (about the size of 4 city blocks with a statue in the center), we saw two big events, one on Thursday afternoon and one on Saturday morning. Thursday afternoon when we were leaving the Hermitage we walked out of the palace into the square and there were military men everywhere. Upon getting a closer look, it appeared they were doing a practice drill for celebrating Victory Day (the end of WWII) on May 9th. There were groups of military men from what we would call the Army, Navy, Marines, etc. all grouped around the square. In the center was a huge military band. There were a few different podiums set up facing the band at varying distances, as well as a truck parked with speakers set up in the truck bed. The officials were standing there yelling into the microphone, booming voice coming out to be heard on every corner of the square. He sounded so serious it was funny. At one point a group of soldiers marched, with legs straight out, across the square. Shortly after that two trucks, one on each side of the square, drove toward each other, stopped in the middle in front of the truck parked with the officials in it, listened to the band and some more banter and then circled the entire square one after the other, stopping in front of each group of soldiers. It all seemed so old fashioned and silly. And everyone was taking it so seriously.
On Saturday when we went back to the museum, there were throngs of people outside in the square again, only this time they were mostly wearing spandex and either running gear, rollerblades or on a bike. A relay race just started as we were leaving so we stayed to spectate. It was a funny sight to see masses of rollerbladers with the palace in the background. The military presence for the race was also quite serious. I have a photo in which a bunch of young men in uniform are standing around smoking cigarettes with their automatic rifles hanging down to one side. I guess you can't be too safe in a group of health nuts on their rollerblades.

Well, I am literally falling asleep at the keyboard, so I am going to call it a night. There is definitely more coming....
I have to tell you about the worst canal ride in history and the best French pastries you can find in St. Petersburg.

Sweet dreams.