Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
What can we quickly recount about St. Petersburg that will
not bore you? Such a preamble is required, otherwise this post will get lost in
a sea of names of palaces, museums, tsars, writers, composers and we will lose
you. So indulge us a few minutes while we set this up for you…
Founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, who wanted a capital
with access to the northern waters, never mind that his choice of location was
on a fetid bogland. Within a few years, it gained a reputation as one of Europe’s
most beautiful cities, which it retains till this date despite ceding the
capital back to Moscow after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Saint Petersburg
is considered “European” - a counterpart to the more “Russian” Moscow. Peter was
the first tsar to travel to Europe and returned with a head full of ideas for
reforms and architectural novelties which he put into practice in his new city.
The reluctant imperial family and government was moved from Moscow’s relatively
benign climate to this chilly, damp outland. With a rational street plan, stone
buildings and academies, St. Petersburg became a thriving capital in which
fashions and discoveries from Europe were tried out before filtering through
the rest of Russia. Peter forbade the use of stone in buildings everywhere else
but in his city.
Peter the Great was happily married to Catherine I and she
became the first female leader of Russia on his death (1725). Their daughter,
Elisabeth became Tsarina after an interim period under Tsarina Anna, daughter
of Peter’s co-tsar Ivan.
Elisabeth was the one who commissioned architect
Rastrelli, resulting in the Baroque architecture that can be seen all over the
city and surroundings. She also chose a German princess as a wife for her
successor, the petty-minded Peter III who was deposed by his wife, who then was
crowned Catherine II – the Great. She moved on from Baroque to Neo-Classicism –
this transition can be seen in the Catherine Palace (named after Catherine I).
She was a learned and energetic woman, an enlightened Empress who corresponded
with Voltaire and bought impressive collections of European art for the
Hermitage, libraries for Russia’s scholars and with a liberal bent of mind
leaned towards reducing the burden on Russia’s serfs. However, a peasant
uprising and news of the French Revolution in 1789 quickly stripped her of
these liberal notions and she left behind a Russia that was as badly off as
before.
Fast forward to 1825 to the Decembrist Rebellion which we
already mentioned during our trip to Irkutsk. The Decembrists made a stand on
Senate Square hoping to force constitutional reform following the French
Revolution.
They were fired upon by the new Tsar Nicholas I, quelling the
rebellion, hanging the leaders and exiling the rest to Siberia.
Fast forward some more and we come to the end of Tsarist
Russia with St. Petersburg being the cradle of the Russian Revolution. In
January 1905, the Palace Square was the scene of “Bloody Sunday” when gathered
troops fired on thousands of unarmed demonstrators. Fast forward some more and
late on the evening of 25 October 1917, the battleship Aurora fired blank shots
at the Winter Palace. The Red Guard, trained by Trotsky, stormed the palace. On
7 November 1917, Lenin’s Bolshevik’s supporters secured the Revolution by
attacking the Winter Palace from the square as well as its west side. It is
still a favorite venue for political meetings and cultural events. The square
is the work of the architect Carlo Rossi whose name and work can be seen
elsewhere in the city as well.
Once the Communists came to power, they moved the capital
back to Moscow. We will return to this topic a few days later when we get to
Moscow. Back to St Petersburg with a quick list of its celebrated citizens –
Nikolai Gogol (the merciless satirist of society), Ilya Repin (realist
painter), Pyotr Tchaikovsky (graduated from the conservatory and composed
world-famous operas, ballets and symphonies), Grigoriy Kozintsev (filmed Hamlet
in 1964), Anna Pavlova (prima ballerina at the Mariinsky theatre who took Paris
by storm when she toured there in 1909), Alexander Pushkin (beloved poet),
Sergey Diaghilev (driving force behind the Russian ballet), Anna Akhmatova
(wrote the famous poem Requiem), Dmitriy Shostakovich (world famous composer of
symphonies who suffered under Stalin’s rule), Fyodor Dostoevsky (novelist who
lived in the slums of Sennaya Ploshchad and set a murder scene in Crime and
Punishment there).
St Petersburg is a city built on water. As we explored the
historic center on foot, we strolled past museums and palaces, bridges and
waterways, cathedrals and parks. The heart of the city is in the area between the
Neva and Fontanka Rivers. The historic area is cut in two by Nevsky Prospekt,
the city’s vast main avenue. The most famous landmarks are packed tightly here
including the Hermitage, Kazan Cathedral and Church on the Spilled Blood, the
Palace Embankment, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, Mikhailovsky Gardens and Summer
Garden. We ended up walking 15km on this day…listed below are the sites.
The Bronze Horseman
The famous statue of Peter the Great was immortalized as the
Bronze Horseman in the epic poem by Pushkin. With the horse (representing
Russia) rearing above the snake of treason, Peter’s statue was sculpted over 12
years for Catherine the Great by Frenchman Etienne Falconet. Its inscription
reads “To Peter I from Catherine II – 1782”. Falconet chiseled away the massive
granite boulder to create the image of a cresting wave.
The site is popular with newlyweds’ photographs but they have
busloads of tourists to contend with – most of them from China. Locals (speaking
Chinese too!) dress up as royals to pose for money with tourists.
St. Isaac’s Cathedral
Named after St. Isaac of Dalmatia, on whose feast day Peter
the Great was born, this is one of the largest domed buildings in the world.
Climbing the 262 steps to the colonnade around the drum of the dome offers
fabulous 360 degree views of the city. 100 kg of gold leaf was needed to cover
the dome’s surface. Although the patriarch resides in Moscow, this is
considered the leading Russian Orthodox Church in the world. The church is the
fourth largest in Christendom. The interior is lavishly appointed with the
grand iconostasis with its malachite green and lapis lazuli columns. Most of
what look like paintings are actually mosaics in order to withstand the winter
weather. The cathedral was controversially designed by then unknown architect
Auguste de Montferrand. It took decades
to build and was opened in 1858 but was deconsecrated and became a Museum of Atheism during the Soviet era.
Officially it is still a museum (not of atheism)
today. Three great doors of oak and bronze weighing 20 tonnes are decorated
with carved reliefs by Ivan Vitali.
Palace Square
The square is the work of architect Carlo Rossi. Facing the
Winter Palace on its southern side is Rossi’s General Staff Building, the
headquarters for the Russian Army. The two curving wings are connected by a
double arch that links the square with Nevsky Prospekt. The arch is crowned by
a sculpture of Victory in her chariot (1829). To the west lies the Admiralty
with its tower and gilded spire. The Alexander Column in the square honors Tsar
Alexander I and celebrates Russia’s military victory over Napoleon in 1812. The
red granite pillar is balanced by its 600 tonne weight, making it the largest free-standing
monument in the world. The column was designed by Montferrand in 1829 and it
took 2400 soldiers and workmen 2 years to hew and transport the granite. The
column is topped by a bronze angel and together they stand 47m high.
Passing through the double arch to get back to Nevsky Prospekt,
we saw that the pedestrianized section of Bolshoya Morskaya street was filled
with costumed entertainers out to milk tourists in need of pictures with themselves
and someone dressed up as a historic (or comic) figure or simply painted in
gold or silver. A short detour from our route was required to view another
piece of the city’s history, albeit when it was known as Leningrad. A
nondescript building with 1939 above the door has a short length of barbed and
a blue plaque which is a monument to the Siege of Leningrad when the city was
surrounded by Nazi forces for 872 days during WWII. At the outset, the city’s
population, swollen with refugees, was 3 million. By the end of siege, a
million had perished to starvation, claiming more lives than any siege in
history. The blue sign reads – “Citizens: During artillery bombardment, this
side is more dangerous”
Moyka River
Embankment
The river is lined with 19th century
architecture.
The pink Stroganov Palace once housed an aristocratic family that
is famed for a beef dish. It now houses an art museum. Another landmark on the
river bank is “Literary Café”, famous for its association with Pushkin, Dostoevsky
and the poet Lermontov. We did not venture into the café because our stomachs
had developed an appetite with all the walking and climbing. Answering their
call was the Troitsky Most Café (one of a chain of vegetarian restaurants in
the city). We sampled exotic Ukrainian Vareniki and a deep fried pie and
salads. Sadly, only a small portion of their chalk-written menu was translated
into English and their staff were not interested in translating the rest for
us.
We resumed our walks on the elegant embankment with fine
buildings appointed with graceful arches and statues of thinking men on their
walls. A short canal connects the river to the large Neva river forming an
elegant arching spectacle. The river curves right passing the imperial stables
before its junction with Griboyedov canal, another one of the city’s arterial waterways.
A short distance from this junction is the Church on the Spilled Blood.
Church on the Spilled
Blood
The normally resplendently colored church with its gilded
carrot top of onion domes was mostly covered for renovation during our visit.
Our photos would not resemble those you may have seen. A riot of color, the
overall effect of the church is created by the imaginative juxtaposition of
materials. Inside, more than 20 types of minerals, including jasper, rhodonite,
porphyry and Italian marble are lavished on the mosaics of the iconostasis,
icon cases, canopy and the floor. The church, also known as the Resurrection
Church of Our Savior, was built on the spot where, on 1 March 1881, Tsar
Alexander II was assassinated by a suicide bomber. The design is in the Russian
Revival (some say neo-Russian Historicist) style. Its designers created a
building that was a romantic, self-conscious, fairy-tale image of their own
national history and traditions – similar to Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.
The great irony here is that Alexander II freed the serfs in 1861 and gave them
land – but expected them to pay for it.
Riots and seeds of proletariat
discontent were planted. Thus, his liberal reforms unwittingly gave rise to the
movements that would ultimately bring down the Romanov dynasty.
The church was finished in 1907 and its status as a place of
worship only lasted till the 1917 Russian Revolution. During the communist era,
it was used to store potatoes and the streets around it were named after Alexander’s
assassins. Restored in the 1990s, it serves as a museum today. The walls are
covered with mosaics (no paintings). The iconostasis is made of marble with
inlaid doors. Christ gazes down at the visitor from the dome ceiling, bathed in
light from the windows and ringed by the gold balcony railing. The equally
lavishly appointed exterior demands careful attention to the details. Glazed
ceramic tiles on the façade, jewelers’ enamel covers the surface of the five
domes, the windows are flanked by carved columns of Estonian marble, the casings
are in the form of double and triple kokoshniki (tiered decorated arches).
Mosaic portraits of the saints are set in tiers of kokoshniki gables. Almost 7000
sq. m of mosaics embellish the church’s exterior. The flamboyant Russian
Revival style of the exterior provides a dramatic contrast to the Neo-Classical
and Baroque architecture that dominates the center of St Petersburg. It is
almost as if this church was plucked out of Moscow and planted here.
Summer Garden
There is the small matter of Mikhailovsky Garden to pass
through before crossing the Moyka river to get to the Summer Garden.
Peter the
Great commissioned this formal garden in 1704. Designed in the style of Versailles
by a Frenchman, the allees were planted with imported elms and oaks and adorned
with fountains, pavilions and some 250 Italian statues dating from the 17th
and 18th centuries. The English-style garden which exists today is
largely the result of Catherine the Great’s more sober tastes. The Summer
Garden was the exclusive preserve of the nobility. It was then opened to respectably dressed
members of the public by Nicholas I. The Neo-Classical pavilions – Tea House
and Coffee House that were built then are now used for temporary art
exhibitions. The Russian writer of fables, Ivan Krylov has a bronze statue of
him in the garden surrounded by bas-reliefs on the pedestal depicting animals
from his creations. Other areas of interest in the garden include the “Menagerie
Pond” Bosquet, “Cross Arcade” Bosquet, “Poultry yard” Bosquet, Grand Parterre
and Crowning Fountain. The Summer Garden’s other boundaries are the wide Neva
river and the Fontanka river that is the next waterway in the city’s concentric
design of waterways – not as geometrically perfect as Amsterdam’s, though.
Arts Square
Several of the city’s leading cultural institutions are
situated on this Neo-Classical square. It was designed by Rossi in the early 19th
century to harmonize with the Mikhaylovskiy Palace (now the Russian Museum). On
the opposite side of the square is the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg
Philharmonia, also known as the Shostakovich Hall. Among the works premiered
here were Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis
in 1824 and Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique
in 1883. On the western side is the Mikhailovsky Theater. In the center of the
square is a sculpture of one of Russia’s greatest literary figures, Alexander
Pushkin. Across the street is Belmond Grand Hotel Europe, one of Russia’s most
famous hotels. It is a grand structure seemingly stretching all the way till
Nevsky Prospekt.
Nevsky Prospekt-Gostinyy
Dvor
Nevsky Prospekt – the city’s main thoroughfare, is 2 miles
long from the Neva River to Uprising square. It serves as anchor for most
landmarks with its straight line, passing the canals and rivers which flow
invisibly below the flat pavement.
It passes the city’s opulent palaces and
museums (Hermitage and Russian Museum), churches (Kazan Cathedral), elegant
urban buildings, upscale shopping zones (Elyseev), lush parks, cafes and
restaurants and bustles with both local and tourist crowds. It has a reputation
for its brazen pickpockets and mindless drivers – but we found both the pedestrians
and vehicles well behaved at all times. The Metro stations (Nevsky Prospect and
Gostiny Dvor) suck in and eject bodies from/to the arterial boulevard and
several underground passageways (clean and secure, some with shopping arcades)
ensure minimal opportunity for contact between pedestrians and vehicles. Gogol
declared (in the 1830s) – “There is nothing finer than Nevsky Avenue…in St.
Petersburg it is everything…is there anything more gay, more brilliant, more
resplendent than this beautiful street of our capital?”. Laid out in the early days of the city, it
was first known as the Great Perspective Road running all the way to the
Alexander Nevsky Monastery.
In spite of roaming wolves (!) and uncontrollable
flooding from the Neva which made the avenue navigable in 1721, fine mansions
were built. Shops and bazaars, catering for the nobility, and inns for
traveling merchants followed. A magnet attracting rich and poor alike, by the
mid-18th century the avenue had become the place to see and be seen
and this seems to continue today.
We feasted our eyes on colorful sweets at Sever and indulged
ourselves to a creamy fruit laden delicacy figuring that we had walked enough
to earn the treat. The nearby Elyseev delicatessen beckoned but we made a
mental note to return to it on our last afternoon after we are done with the
rest of the sights. Across the boulevard, the two-storied length of Gostiny
Dvor (“merchant’s courtyard”) beckoned and the underpass led us thither. It is
shaped like an irregular quadrilateral and occupies a big chunk of the city
bounded on one side by Nevsky with its longest side on Sadovaya street. The combined
length of its 4 facades is nearly 1 km.
All around its perimeter is an outer
corridor under a ceiling of seemingly endless arches. This striking arcade has
been St Petersburg’s main bazaar since the mid-18th century. It has
more than 300 outlets which sell clothes, cosmetics, souvenirs, chocolates and
groceries. Near the staircases at the corners are benches that take the weight
off your legs. Serious damage during the WWII siege led to major
reconstruction, making it more like a modern department store.
Kazan Cathedral
Our final stop for the afternoon brought us very close back
to our hotel. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan was commissioned by Paul I and
took over a decade to build (1801-1811). The design was inspired by St. Peter’s
in Rome. Its 111m long curved colonnade disguises the orientation of the
building, which runs parallel to Nevsky Prospekt, conforming to a religious stipulation
that the main altar face east. Its most impressive features are the great 80m
high dome (visible from many parts of the city as a beacon of the faith along
with St.
Isaac’s and Spilled Blood) and the massive pink Finnish granite
columns with bronze capitals and bases. Occupied in the communist era by a
Museum of Atheism, the building was returned to exclusive religious use in
1999. The cathedral is intimately linked with the Napoleonic wars. Field Marshal
Mikhail Kutuzov – mastermind of a successful retreat from Moscow following the
invasion of Napoleon – was buried here with full military honors in 1813. He
has been immortalized in Toltoy’s War and
Peace. His statue and that of his comrade-in-arms, Mikhail Barclay de Tolly,
both by Boris Orlovskiy, have stood outside the cathedral since 1837.
Worshippers wait in line to kiss the church’s namesake, the
Icon of Our Lady of Kazan which is considered the single most important icon of
the Russian Orthodox faith, the original icon was discovered by a young girl in
a tunnel beneath the city of Kazan in 1579. A monastery was erected on that site,
and replicas of the icon were sent to other Russian cities to be venerated by
the faithful.
The original icon was stolen from Kazan in 1904 and went missing
for nearly 100 years before resurfacing in the Vatican and was returned to
Kazan in 2005, but its authenticity has been questioned. But we digress. The
icon is important because it is invoked in successful military campaigns which
brings us back to the successful defense of Russia during the 1812 invasion by
Napoleon’s army.
And just around the corner was the front door to our hotel
and our legs raced to that destination after having carried us for 15km today.
Said that before. We are still not done. After a couple of hours rest, we
headed out to explore another pocket of St. Petersburg’s history and combine it
with dinner at the same Troitsky Most (Trinity Bridge) Café.
Wicked, nasty ATM
Forget all the above, if there is one thing for you to take
away from this post, it is this…never ever enter more than 4000 rubles when you
withdraw from an ATM in Russia. Ignore this at your own peril. If you do, you will
be stuck with a talisman of bad luck that will stick to you and mock your
attempts at getting rid of it for the rest of your days.
Until you actually
visit the very place that ATMs are designed to keep you away from. A bank with
warm human bodies in it. What manner of an object is this, you ask? It is the
highly offensive 5000 ruble note! Nobody will touch it. Not your hotel, your
restaurant, your museum. Why, you ask? Thanks for asking! A meal at a café will
cost you 200-300 rubles. A single Metro ride will cost you 45 rubles. Follow? What
was that? Oh, you mean to say that we could go into Gostiny Dvor and purchase
jewelery? Or go back to Mariinsky for a repeat performance of Swan Lake? No,
thanks! We will finish this story later. Until then this
monstrosity stayed with us. We wish we had read this post before stepping into
the ATM on Ulitsa Kazanskaya this evening. And asked for 5000 rubles expecting
it to break it down into 1000s. Instead it dispensed this white elephant!
Malaya Morskaya
Ulitsa
Just a short walk from Ulitsa Kaznskaya is Ulitsa Malaya
Morskaya (Little Morse street) which comes after Bolshaya Morskaya (Big Morse).
It used to be referred to as Ulitsa Gogolya after Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) who
wrote The Diary of a Madman and The Nose, two biting satires on the
archetypal Petersburg bureaucrat “drowned by the trivial, meaningless labors at
which he spends his useless life”. As if this is not enough, the street boasts
of another celebrity resident, the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky who tragically
died in the top-floor apartment of No. 13 shortly after the completion of his Pathetique symphony in November 1893.
The official cause is supposed to be cholera, but it is commonly believed that
he committed suicide due to pressure from Conservatory colleagues wishing to
avoid a scandal after his alleged homosexual affair. Yet another famous
resident of the street was the novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky at house No. 23. It
was here that he was arrested and charged with political conspiracy for his
participation in the socialist Petrashevsky Circle.
We walked up and down the street and had some difficulty
locating No. 13. Gogol’s No. 17 was easy to spot and had a big plaque with his
likeness. Tchaikovsky’s plaque at No. 13 only had Cyrillic writing and was
placed above the first floor of a Georgian-Uzbek restaurant. The menu at the
restaurant looked interesting (shame on us for quickly dismissing the tragic
end of the composer from our minds) but we had already decided on our second
meal of the day at Troitsky Most Café and that is where our legs took us. We
managed to convince them to detour via St. Isaac’s and Palace Square for some
nighttime photos.
We did manage to order something different but were deflated
by the staff’s utter indifference to our pleas for help with the translations.
Vegetarianism is an uncommon culture and it usually unites its adherents and
cuts across all barriers. Just plain old sign language can and does go a long
way among people who share this culture. Our recent experience with the young
man in Kazan is a great example. Puzzled by this lack of empathy from the
ladies who ran the cafe, we had a forgettable (literally, we don’t remember
what we ate) meal to end off a momentous day on a low note.
2025-02-13