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St. Petersburg |
Part 1 |
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Wednesday 1 September 2004We
get up extremely early: at 2:45am our alarm clock awakes us. Our taxi is ready
at
Our
suitcase is already there when we clear passport control. We are picked up by Nikolay,
our personal guide
in St Petersburg. Even he had become a bit worried by the long wait. In his
Volga he takes us to the B&B Nevsky Inn, smack in the centre of the city. We
will see Niko again in the morning for our city walk. We are being welcomed by
John, the British owner of the
B&B, who tells us a bit about the B&B and the area around us. We have a
short break before we set out for a short walk. We walk towards the Palace
Square and within 3 minutes find ourselves in front of the Winter Palace and the
Hermitage. Behind us is the impressive General Staff building. We are on
historic grounds. It was from here that the Czars ruled the Russian Empire since
Peter the Great founded the city up until the Russian Revolution. Here was the
heroic, if somewhat exaggerated storming of the palace that marked the beginning
of the October revolution in 1917, starting the Communist Soviet era. We retire to our room, watch some Russian television and go to sleep early. The weather in St Petersburg is splendid: 24°C/75°F and lots of sunshine. Thursday 2 september 2004We get up around 7.30 for breakfast. There is a lot to choose from: toast, cheese, jam, eggs, sausage, pancakes. We also meet Tanya, one of the girls who works here. Her knowledge of the English language is limited to the ingredients just mentioned, which limits the conversation somewhat. But this early in the day that can be considered a plus!
We
wait for Nikolay, who meets us a bit after nine. We go on a city walk with him
and see the city's sights. We leave him a free hand. He wants to show us a mix
of known and lesser known spots in his proud city
We
go and look for some coffee, but that is not that easy in this neighbourhood. We
do find it in the end. After coffee we walk to Sennaya Plochad, the Hay Sq We have lunch at the Meat Grinder, a sort of grill buffet where you pick and choose your veggies and meat bits which are grilled on a plate by the cook. The Russian answer to fast food.
The
afternoon is spent at the Hermitage museum. Via the museum's website
we have ordered a two day combination ticket. With the voucher e-mailed to us
in hand we can circumvent the queues via the back entrance in order to collect
our tickets from the information desk.
At night we take the metro to a restaurant. That too is an adventure in itself. We buy tokens (zheton) at the window, but have trouble finding the platform. The network consists of 4 lines, located very deeply underground. The signs in Cyrillic are difficult to fathom and the platforms are "disguised" as hallways with little doors on the side that open when a train pulls in. We count the stops and get out at the right stop, Маяковская (Mayakovskaya) station. This station is on line 1, which has beautifully decorated stations. We follow the signs ВЫХОД В ГОРОД (exit to city) and wind up at Plochad Vosstania (Insurrection Square). We are looking for a Georgian restaurant on Ul Vosstania, but that has been closed down. Our second choice is on Old Nevsky Prospekt, beyond the Vosstania square and the Moscow railway station. It is the bistro Garçon. Good, but not cheap. The prices are not indicated in Rubles, but in approximate units. Indicated as y.e (Russian) or a.u (English). An approximate unit is now worth 38 roebels, a bit more than a Euro. Something to pay attention to. We have to wait long for our main course, but the quality is very high and we return satisfied to our room. weather: warm, 24°C/75°F, sunny, thunderstorm in the afternoon.
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3.30am and drives us to the Central Railway Station. We are way too early as our
train does not leave until 4am. At 5 to five we arrive at Amsterdam
Schiphol Airport where we check in for Copenhagen and St Petersburg. The flight
to Copenhagen, the transfer (2 hrs) and the flight to St Petersburg go off
without a hitch. We get a roll and a drink on each leg. We arrive at 2pm local
time (2 hours ahead on Dutch time) at Pulkovo 2 airport. The airport is a bit
old hat. We have to stand in line for passport control for about an hour. It
takes ages and when we are half through the line our window abruptly closes
down. Fortunately the people in the line next to us are kind enough to let us
join theirs. We wonder if this delay is one of many to come! 
That
era too ended some 10 years ago. Via the picturesque Winter Canal we reach the
embankment of the river Neva and we get a fine view of the Peter and Paul
fortress. We walk back via the Church on Spilled blood. This conspicuous church
of Disney like proportions is at the very spot where Czar Alexander II was assassinated
by anarchist activists. An ungrateful fate, as this czar had just ended serfdom
and increased political liberties. The fence on which the czar collapsed is
still present in the church that was built from 1883 until 1907. On the facade
are 20 granite stones commemorating events from Alexander's reign. The mosaics
depict scenes from the new testament. There are 144 coats of arms of Russian
provinces, regions and towns. We continue via the Kanala Griboedova, where
artists paint and peddle their water colours. We have a drink on a side
walk café on Nevsky Prospekt, the main artery of the city. It is very busy on
the streets by 6pm. We go back to our room, before we go out for dinner at 
.
We make for the river Moika, one of the canalized rivers who form a belt
of canals (after the example of Amsterdam) around the city centre. When planning
the city, Peter the Great had a good look at western European cities like
Amsterdam and Venice. The canals are much wider here than in Amsterdam and the
water level much lower in relation to the street level. We follow the Moika
to the Mariinsky palace (now the seat of city government). In front is the Blue
Bridge over the Moika. With 319ft/93m it is the widest bridge in the world. It
looks more like car park. Then we find
ourselves on Isaac Square with the statue of Czar Nicolas I and the gigantic
Isaac Cathedral. A huge dome dominates the city's skyline. It is one of the
largest domes in the world and has 100kg of gold leaf covering it. The church is
a design by Montferrand and it took 40 years to complete it. Special railways
had to be built to get the Finnish marble in place. In 1858 the church was
ready. Unfortunately we can not get in as it opens at 10.30. We continue
to the park behind it, that served as a cabbage field during the blocka
de
of 1941. At the banks of the Neva we find the equestrian statue of Peter the
Great, commissioned by Catherine II to the Frenchman Falconet in 1782. Peter's
horse is trampling the snake of evil. We walk along the senate building (now
state archives) and then on to Konnogvardeysky Bulvar. At the end of that is the
Nicholas palace. From here we walk along an area called New Holland. It is one
of the more mysterious parts of the city. The island has been closed to the
public for 300 years. Peter the Great used it as a naval shipyard (taking its
name from the country where he learned the craft). In 1915 a strong naval radio
transmitter was set up here. We continue towards the 
uare,
where the horses used to be fed. In the middle of the square is newly erected
peace monument with the word peace on it in hundreds of languages, Dutch
included. Niko shows us the Vorontsov palace. The palace was built for a
minister by Rastrelli. Since 1810 it has been a military academy. Niko has
studied here too. We walk towards Nevsky Prospekt the main avenue of the city.
It is very busy here and we have to be aware of pickpockets. We take a look at Gostiny Dvor (Merchant's
Yard), the oldest indoor shopping mall in the city and maybe the world. It
dates back to the days of Catherine II and was built between 1757 and 1785 by
Rastrelli. In actual sense it is a collection of little shops under one roof.
Our last sight for the day is the Church of Our Lady of Kazan. A service is
going on in this church as well, old ladies attending, devoutly kissing holy
Icons. The church is a neo classical structure, with two semicircular colonnades.
It was built between 1801 and 1811 by Andrey Voronihkim, a former serf. The
design was inspired by the St Peter in Rome.
Only then to find out that today is first Thursday of the month and that means
free entry! They are kind enough to validate our (already paid) tickets for
Friday and Saturday instead. The museum is based in the Winter Palace, the small,
the old and the new Hermitage and the Hermitage theatre. The buildings are all
linked to each other. The Winter Palace was commissioned by Czarina
Elisabeth I in 1754 to Rastrelli. It is the third palace on this spot. Elisabeth
died a few months before the palace was finished in 1762. Katharine II and her
successors remodeled the interiors in a classical style, but left the outside
untouched, just like the Jordan staircase and the chapel. The small Hermitage
was built as a retreat for Catharine II and to house the art collection started
by Peter the Great. In 1917 the provisional government was based here until it
was removed by the Bolsheviks in October of that year. Since 1922 the complex is
a museum: the State
Hermitage.
During the Soviet era it grew into one of the world's leading museums. With help
of donations it was renovated and improved during the 1990's. The collection
grew out of the collecting spirit of Peter and Catherine the Great. Also the
Soviet era was a time of frantic collecting (or nationalization) of art, within
the Union but also in Germany and Eastern Europe during and after World War II.
The collection consists of 3 million pieces of which only 5 to 10% is on display
at any one time. The museum now has also opened mini Hermitages abroad: in
London, Las Vegas and 
