Saint Petersburg

Our first city in Russia was St Petersburg. It wasn't the best experience: it was cold and rainy most of the time, and at first I had a hard time communicating in Russian. Because of a hotel shortage, we were only there 4 full days. I'll withhold judgement until next time I visit there.

Here is a bridge across the Neva river.
Downtown St Petersburg is indeed quite beautiful, as you would expect of the former seat of absolutist monarchs. It is interlaced with canals, and it has ornate façades. Alas, many are crumbling from a lack of upkeep. There are many palaces, cathedrals, and museums. Here is a typical downtown street:
I was surprised that the architecture was so European. Peter the Great, who founded the city, was very Western-oriented; he wanted to build a Russian Versailles. Throughout their history, Russians have been divided into outward- and inward-looking schools of thought.

The traditional centre of the city is the Peter and Paul Fortress, a walled area containing a cathedral and various military buildings. The gate is here:
The only building we visited was the Peter and Paul Cathedral. It was done in Baroque style, so it looks much more French or Italian than Russian. There are no ikons or carvings. It's hard to get a feel for it from pictures, but suffice it to say the interior is very impressive.
Here is the pulpit:
And here is the altar:
On the other side of the Neva, in the Summer Garden, is the Engineer's Castle. Canada definitely needs one of those.
Here is Dvortsovaya Square, with the Ermitage (Winter Palace) behind it. They are setting up for Russia Day festivities.
Here is the other side of the square.

There are far too many parks and monuments to mention. Once we walked around the ultra-ritzy shopping district around Gostiny Dvor (not very interesting to us mere mortals). One or two blocks away from those shops were ordinary--or even decrepit--streets. Most of what we saw were museums and galleries, so there are no pictures to show for them.

The Ermitage Museum is the world's largest art galley, contained partly in the tsarist Winter Palace. It was originally Catherine the Great's private collection, and after Red October it was converted to a public gallery. It has about 400 rooms, each one with 10-15 pieces, one or two old-lady attendants, and several dozen tourists. Some rooms in the Winter Palace were kept "empty" because the stonework, statuary, and frescoes made them a gallery unto themselves. It has some of everything; I myself saw six Renoir and eight Picasso. We spent six solid hours there, which is as much art as anyone can take.

The Dostoevsky House-Museum is a restoration of one of his apartments. It has various furniture and household items, as well as his letters and sketches of 19th-century St Petersburg.

We didn't get to see much of the Russian Museum because it unexpectedly closed an hour early. It houses the part of the Ermitage collection by Russian artists, so it is also quite large.

The Stieglitz Museum was an unexpected pleasure. It seems that 150 years ago, a rich Austrian created an academy of applied arts (furniture, silverware, keys, textiles, architecture) here. He brought hundreds of 13th-to-19th-century masterpieces from across Europe for his students to imitate. Most of the Stieglitz collection was moved to the Ermitage, but 500 or so pieces were left behind. The museum was actually closed, but for $15 each we got a private tour from a curator (!). Between her partial English and my partial Russian, things went smoothly.


Our hotel in St Petersburg was the German Club. It was nicely renovated with artwork and wood paneling. Here is our room:

And here is the breakfast room:
The neighbourhood is not the best. (Sorry for the screen in the way.) The receptionist had to buzz us in, and there was a precarious two-person elevator. Apparently it used to be state-provided housing.