Tag: Russia

We entered the immense Palace Square through the triumphal arch and the Winter Palace was before us, begun by Rastrelli for Empress Anna then added to first by Empress Elizabeth and then Catherine the Great until it was a palace fit to be the official residence of the imperial family.

The troops were on parade 1945 style …

We collected our pre-booked tickets, luckily missing the huge queue again and headed inside up the Jordan Staircase, so called as the imperial family used it to descend to the Neva on the 6th January annually to celebrate Christ’s baptisim in the River Jordan. Talk about stunning …!

Next came the Imperial Apartments …

… including the splendid Malachite Hall …

… Gothic Library …

… and Golden Drawing Room

… the Boudoir

Then the state rooms including the Great Church …

… St George’s Hall with a red throne …

… and the amazing Pavilion Hall with its moorish confection of gilt and glass as well as a huge mosaic on the floor and hanging garden outside.

Must also mention with everything else there was to see, the fabulous array of parquet flooring in every room, with every pattern imaginable …

and also the babushkas sitting in every room, keeping an eye on things.

This was only a fraction of what the Hermitage has to offer – we just picked the swankiest staterooms, and barely looked at the art collections, but we had been on our feet for three hours and so headed out to the courtyard.

We found a cosy Russian country restaurant for some lunch and a rest just round the corner.

The afternoon was The Hermitage part two, in other words the newly converted General Staff Building which now contains extensive Impressionist and Post- Impressionist art collections. We really liked the stylish atrium spaces and stairs but the rest of the museum felt a bit strange in its semi-circular building.

As for the paintings … well there were lots of Gauguin and Van Gogh and some Monet but no water lilies. Then there were a couple of Russian avant garde – a Kandinsky and a very Black Square by Malevitch.

Finally, there were loads of Picasso and Matisse. I think it was a case of museum wilt as few of the paintings drew our attention, but I liked this one by Charles Hoffbauer

After we rested our weary feet, we popped in to the Russian Vodka Museum where we were shown round by an engaging guide who explained the exhibits and gave a run down on the history of vodka and some of the customs that have grown up round Russia’s national drink.

It began as bread wine, distilled by monks in Moscow in the C15th and remained fairly low in alcohol.  In Peter the Great’s time, he punished people for lateness by making them drink a tot – about a two pint tot – in penance, but at the same time, devised a badge of shame, weighing some 7kg that had to be worn for round the neck for a week for being drunk.

The first official use of the word vodka (coming from vada meaning water) was when Empress Elizabeth licensed vodka distilleries in 1751 and a century later it was established as the drink of choice for Russians, becoming more popular a few years later as the monopoly was removed and it was affordable by all. The classic recipe for vodka of 40% alcohol to water mixture was patented in 1894 by Mendeleyev, the inventor of the periodic table. Vodka hasn’t always been available however as during  WWI prohibition was introduced by Tsar Nicholas and never have the Russian people required as much medicinal spirit!  Again in the 1980s, Gorbachov carried out an anti-alcohol campaign with posters saying NO to a small glass of vodka. Olga said most Russians said no, make mine a double!

Today, if someone buys and new car or house it is considered good luck to put the keys in a glass of vodka and drinking it, dating from soldiers doing the same with their war medals.  Our tour ended with a tasting and little Russian snacks to soak up the liquor.  I’m pleased I tried,  but I’m not a very discerning spirits drinker, and to me it tasted the same as any clear spirit drunk neat so they won’t be making a convert of me, although the vodka flavoured with chilli and honey was more interesting!

We returned to Gosti for dinner, and found everyone on party mood, celebrating the restaurant’s 6th birthday.  We had another lovely dinner including little herring pate toasts, beef stroganov and aubergine Parmesan.

Another beautiful day and we spent it at the huge imperial estate called Tsarskoye Tselo or the Tsars Village.  We look the metro then the bus for 30 minutes out of the city, passed huge numbers of apartment blocks surrounded by countryside.

We had a walk to Catherine Park, and saw this church on the way.

Our main destination is the beautiful and baroque Catherine Palace, named after Peter the Great’s second wife and designed by Rastrelli for Peter’s daughter Empress Elizabeth. Later, Catherine the Great had many of the interiors remodelled in classical style and it was used as summer residence of the Tsars.

Once we arrived and exchanged our prebooked voucher for tickets, we had a bit of a wait to get in, during which time we took pictures of the rear or the palace and the courtyard.

We entered by a stunning marble staircase …

and followed the route on the audio guide … and the crowds … and entered the grand suit of formal rooms known as the Golden Enfilade which began with the Grand Hall or the Hall of Lights …

Next up were a couple of dining rooms and the large structure that you might spot in the corner of many of the rooms, covered with blue and white Delft tiles is the stove, necessary for heating the palace rooms.

A succession of rooms followed, with beautiful furniture, lots of gilding, and lots of stoves!

The famous Amber Room contained panels made from amber from the Baltic Sea which were originally presented to the Peter the Great by the King of Prussia.  These were plundered during WWII and the present room is a reconstruction opened in 2004, restored largely with German Funds. The room is amazing, the richly coloured panels are surrounded by gilding and make the room feel warm – no wonder Catherine the Great liked spending the evening in here.  We were not allowed to take pictures in the room, but here are a couple of distance shots of the amber!

The lovely Catherine Park surrounds the palace and we spent a couple of hours walking round the lake and looking at the variously strategically placed follies and pavilions.

We we were lucky to have such a beautiful day for our outing. We returned to St Petersburg and chose Zoom for dinner … guess what, a cute fusion cafe where you get to draw pictures … and Chris finally tried borscht …and despite not particularly liking beetroot, I thought it was yummy too!

 

 

 

We slept well and awoke to sunshine and blue skies and a breakfast of oats, toast and excellent coffee served in our room.

We walked along the Moyka canal that runs along behind where we are staying to the Yusupov Palace.

The facade is undergoing restoration and was covered by scaffolding, but inside we went up a stunning white marble staircase to the state rooms.

These were all sumptuously decorated in the C19th and including a very pretty Green Drawing Room with remarkably contemporary looking Karelia birch wood furniture …

… the White Columned Hall …

Turkish Bath and also a theatre.

The palace is notorious for being the place where Rasputin was murdered in 1916 by plotters including Felix Yusupov. Apparently he was tricky to despatch, as he was first poisoned, then shot and finally drowned in the canal outside!

We hoped to see something of the Mariinsky Theatre as it’s history is as glittering as its auditorium, with many famous musicians, dancers and singers performing here but it was not possible without seeing a performance, and at the moment the Mariinsky is performing in London!

A need for some more roubles brought us into this huge skylighted banking hall which seemed to belong to an age gone by. Part bank, part post office, it was filled with people going about their business, with space to sit and write and plenty of tellers … and an ATM tucked away in the foyer!

We stopped for lunch in another cute eatery and Chris had a cheese roll while I had an interesting salad with pickled zucchini, roast beef and radishes.  I really enjoyed my sea blackthorn cold tea with cranberry and honey, but Chris wasn’t so sold on his rather turquoise ginger lemonade!

 

The pretty blue Nikolsky cathedral reaches upwards with baroque spires and golden domes and is surrounded on two sides by canals. It also has a bell tower overlooking the canal.

We crossed Lviny most with regal lions keeping watch …

… then on to St Isaac’s Cathedral, named after St Isaac of Dalmatia on whose feast day Peter the Great was born. 100kg of gold leaf covers the dome alone and the interior is just as lavish with mosaics, marble and malachite.

We climbed the 279 steps to the dome and had a great view in all directions, to the Palace Square and Hermitage …

… across towards Vasilyevsky Island …

… and down into St Isaac’s Square .

Everyone was enjoying the sunshine and in Senate a Square we passed the huge equestrian statue of Peter the Great commissioned by Catherine the Great, which was later named the Bronze Horseman after a poem by Pushkin.  It stands on the Thunder Stone, the largest stone ever moved by humans, using a metal sledge sliding on copper balls along a metal track taking 32 men 9 months.

Across the water is Vasilyevsky Island, which Peter intended as the heart of his city, but instead became the maritime hub. The cream and white building is Menshikov Palace which was the first stone building in the city and built by the first governor of the St Petersburg, which we didn’t visit, but was the setting for many banquets including the reception for Peter’s dwarf wedding at which Peter and his Court sniggered at some 70 dwarfs brought from all over Russia to attend the marriage of Peter ‘s favourite dwarf.

Next along the shore is the Kunstkamera, or Museum of Ethnology and Anthropolgy, billed as a top-sight but one we chose to miss as we didn’t fancy its collection of ghoulish biological malformations including babies in bottles.

Crossing the bridge, we walked to the Strelka where two rostral columns, studded with ships’ prows and sculptures representing Russia’s great rivers stand as landmarks.  They were oil-fired navigation beacons in the 1800s and are still sometimes lit in public holidays.

From here there are views of The Hermitage one way …

and the Peter & Paul Fortress the other.

We took the bus back to the B&B, and picked a bus with a crazy bus driver.  After jolting the lady beside him, Chris said sorry, the driver must be Italian, but the lady replied in perfect English, no he’s a crazy Georgian!’  We chatted with us till we got off, and she was delighted we were going to see so much of Russia and wished us a good trip.

We went to The Clean Plates Society for dinner, another modern Russian/fusion restaurant only a short walk away. I had crepe type pancakes with sour cream and red salmon roe followed by black pelmeni which were like little pasta parcels filled with beef and Chris had spinach and broccoli soup and Georgian lobio, a dish of stewed red beans with walnuts, cheese and coriander, all of which was delicious.

Tomorrow, we are off on a day out!

Our morning flight from London on BA arrived mid afternoon and we moved our watches forward two hours. The weather is much the same as we left in England, around 20 degrees and overcast with the threat of rain.  We took a bus to the nearest metro station and during the drive, we thought at first glance how familiar things looked – dual carriageway, traffic, grey sky, green grass, trees, BP garage with a Wild Bean Cafe … but there are also signs in Cyrillic and the cars drive on the other side! The Metro was easily navigated, with most signs also in English and a short walk brought us to our B&B.

We couldn’t make the bell work, but fortunately someone let us in through the outside door and we walked up a rather shabby staircase in the middle of the building up to the third floor.  Inn Aldebaron is an apartment with several rooms and a friendly receptionist who used google translate to communicate!  She made us coffee and showed us our simple but perfectly comfortable room.

Next job was to register our visa, a procedure over which there is a huge amount of conflicting advise online. The consensus seemed to be that while it isn’t strictly necessary if you do not intend staying more than 7 working days in any one town, which we are not, it was nonetheless advisable. The visa process isn’t difficult, just time-consuming to state every country visited in the last 10 years (that’ll be 45 entries then), provide an invitation letter with details of your itinerary in Russia and go to London to get fingerprints scanned – and at £150 each, more than the flight to get here! We took the bus to the agency office and we were told it really wasn’t necessary but that we should keep all our travel tickets to prove our itinerary if asked, so we’ve taken their advice and hope all will be well. A quick stop at a phone shop for local sims and some roubles from the bank and we were all set.

We went for dinner at Gosti, a Russian bakery and restaurant with cosy rooms filled with comfy chairs, kitchen and trinkets.  We were a little uncertain what the food might be like, but we certainly made an excellent start here.  We began with a mixed platter where the pickled cucumber bruschetta was the star, then a I had confit of duck with cranberries and Chris had a Russian style mushroom cannelloni served on creamed spinach, washed down with a carafe of Russian red wine which was young, but very drinkable.  We might just have to make a return visit here!

Certainly our concerns about language difficulties have proved unfounded as all three people we asked for directions spoke English, and we were presented an English menu for dinner.  We’ve learnt two words – hello which sounds like preeviet and thank-you which is spaseeba so hopefully all will go well tomorrow!