Estonia to Russia

Spent the entire day on a bus between Tallinn, Estonia and St. Petersburg, Russia, stopping for lunch in the little town of Narva, the third largest city in Estonia. Its castle was built during Danish rule of the area in the 13th century and the town has changed hands a number of times, being occupied by Denmark, Russia, Sweden, and the Livonian Order, to name a few. The old city was destroyed by the Red Army and the retreating Germans during the 1944 Battle of Narva, and has never been completely rebuilt.

Part of the castle, now a restaurant

A whimsical bit of statuary in the garden, featuring an interesting array of offcast clothing...

St. Petersburg -- The Church of the Savior on the Blood

Gracefully situated 500 miles south of the Arctic Circle, St. Petersburg grew up along the Neva River, which winds around its 44 islands before flowing Into the Gulf of Finland not far away. Tsar Peter the Great founded the city here, having ousted the Swedish from the Neva Delta in the first years of the18th century. It was one of the first cities in the world to be built according to a preconceived plan drawn up by most famous Russian and European architects of the day. Only nine years after its inception in 1703, Peter moved out of Moscow and proclaimed what he named Sankt Pieterburkh (from the Dutch) the capital of the Russian empire, which it remained for the next 206 years. His daughter Elizabeth I, then Catherine the Great both promoted it as a center of culture and arts

About the time its name was Russianized to Petrograd in World War II, the monarchy of Nicholas I was toppled and the October revolution began with a cannon shot (mercifully blank) at the Hermitage from the battleship Aurora. Ten days later, the Bolsheviks seized control of the new Soviet state and the capital was transferred back to Russia. Ironically, when Lenin, who hated St. Petersburg, died, the city was renamed 'Leningrad" in his memory.

In World War II, the Germans laid seige to the city for 900 days, during with more than a half million of its citizens died from starvation or in defense of the city. Later, during Stalin's "Great Terror," many more of its finest citizens were executed or sentenced to gulags, never to be heard from again.

Despite this tortured history, it remains a lovely place, showing proudly its beautiful 18th- and 19th-century roots along the dozens of canals and waterways that give it the sobriquet "The Venice of the North."

Tsar Alexander II was assissinated by a group of revolutionaries on March 1, 1881 along the Griboyedov Canal (above). They were pushing for more liberal governmental reforms; ironically (Russian history is loaded with irony), the Tsar was to sign long-awaited constitutional reforms later than day. The Church of the Savior on the Blood, modeled on St. Basil's in Moscow, was built by his successor Alexander III, with the altar where the former Tsar's blood fell to the cobblestones.



Beautiful wrought iron gates and fencing around the Church...

St. Petersburg -- The Hermitage

It's impossible to do the Hermitage justice from inside or out because of its size. Here's a view from along the Neva River of the Winter Palace, one of five buildings that make up the Hermitage.

The following views are from Palace Square, on the side away from the River

The Hermitage continues

The main feature of Palace Square is the Alexander Column, raised in memory of Alexander I by Nicholas I and symbolizing the defeat of Napoleon in 1812. It took three years to be extracted from the quarry on the Karelian Isthmus; polished in 1830, the 48-foot high column was erected in 1834 by 2,5000 men. The face of the angel on top resembles Alexander I.

Well, what can be said of the interiors that isn't more excessive than they are?

The Hermitage and its Art

Sorry for the poor quality of these, but here are a few of the pieces that attracted me from the Hermitage's vast collection....




And a view of the fountains in the Neva River from the windows of the Hermitage:

St. Issacs Cathedral and Nevsky Prospect

The first wooden church of St. Issac was built in 1710 by Peter, but this is its fourth incarnation, designed by Montferrand in 1818; it took 40 years to build and cost ten times what the Winter Palace's construction had. It can hold 14,000 worshipers and was inaugurated on May 29, 1858 as the main cathedral of St. Petersburg. Like so many Russian churches and cathedrals, it is now a museum, although sometimes services are held during special religious holidays.


Nikolai Gogol said "There is nothing finer than the Nevsky Prospekt...In what does it not shine, this street that is the beauty of the capital." I cannot disagree.

Nevsky Prospect

Dom Knigi (House of Books), a polished granite building topped by a glass sphere and globe was originally built for the American Singer Company.


The semi-circular Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, modeled on St. Peter's in Rome, built 1801-11.
While there, we watched several couples marry in rapid succession. Most marriages are civil affairs, but some still follow them up with church weddings. Unlike Western weddings, only a few friends and family are present and weddings are scheduled in a rather assembly-line fashion, one after another.