St P to the end!!

Friday 9th January

Enjoyed quite a relaxing day. First up was to make our way to the Mariinsky Theatre again for a matinee performance of The Nutcracker. It’s quite a long, but very beautiful walk from the Metro station to the theatre, but this morning we took our time and enjoyed the sights.

The Metro station itself is in the Sennaya area around which Dostoevsky set Crime and Punishment. From there it’s a lovely walk along a canal (currently frozen) which can be crossed by any one of several beautiful bridges. As is the case for most of St Petersburg, the architecture of the surrounding buildings is also something to be seen.

The Nutcracker was fabulous – we both thoroughly enjoyed it. The festive season was also quite an appropriate time to see this ballet.


Outside the Mariinsky Theatre

Continued exploring the area immediately around the Mariinsky and then made our way – once again admiring beautiful canals, bridges and buildings, to St Isaac’s Cathedral – one of the largest domed buildings in the world.

The dome of St Isaac’s, which dominates the city skyline, is over 21m high and is covered with over 100kg of gold leaf. There are several massive pillars, both in and outside of the building, made of granite brought from Finland on ships and a railway that had to be specially built. As you can imagine, the interior is extremely grand.


Phil (no - it's not an Eskimo) outside St Isaac's

Saturday 10th February

Up early for our second visit to The Hermitage. Today’s focus was 19th and 20th Century art from around the world. Particularly enjoyed the French and Russian sections. Completed our visit by viewing the ‘museum’ pieces (Egyptian, Roman, Greek etc) and then that was it – according to the map we’d seen it all! But as we said previously, only 5-10% of the collection is on display at any one time, so next visit to St Petersburg will definitely require another excursion or two to The Hermitage! Could quite happily do this display all over again anyway.

Walked along the beautiful (frozen) Neva River for ages but resisted the temptation to actually walk on it (others were!).

Wandered through Mars Field – an open space which was a military parade area under Alexander I and is now a memorial area for the victims of the 1917 Revolution and civil war.

Visited the Church on Spilled Blood (so named because it is built on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II) and marveled at the mosaics (the work of over 30 artists) which cover 7000 sq meters. It’s hard to imagine that during the time of the closure of churches in Russia, this one was used to store items such as potatoes and theatre props. Unfortunately this was the fate of many churches during this period (one up the road was turned into a swimming pool!) – some are still undergoing restoration after decades of neglect. This one took 27 years to restore.


The Church on Spilled Blood

Just across Nevsky Prospekt – the main thoroughfare through St Petersburg – is the Kazan Cathedral. Built in a very different style, it reflects Tsar Paul’s wish to unite Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Unlike St Isaac’s or Spilled Blood, this one is not classed as a museum but is a working church. Very interesting to visit.

Restaurants are plentiful in St Petersburg. We found a great one and enjoyed a fabulous meal before calling it a day.

Sunday 11th

Spent all day at the Peter and Paul Fortress which is across the Neva River from The Hermitage. There’s meant to be a Metro station right beside the fortress – but the train sailed straight through and on to the next one! Is that what the man was announcing over the loud speaker?? How would we know??

After a very long (but what’s an extra kilometer or two of icy paths?) but interesting walk we made it to the fortress.

Peter the Great had the fortress built in the early 1700s to help defend the city against the Swedes but it’s actually never been used for this purpose. Throughout history, it has mainly been used as a prison – inmates have included Dostoevsky, Trotsky and Gorky.


The fortress is on the banks of the frozen Neva. Here, Phil is deciding whether or not to 'walk on water'

There are several building inside the fortress, including the beautiful Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. Other buildings now house museums and various exhibitions including a fabulous one on the history of St Petersburg. The actual prison cells are also open to the public. You can certainly spend hours here – which we did!


Inside the walls of the fortress - Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral on the far right

Made our way to the Mariinsky district again (we’re really good at this trip now!) but this time to the very modern Mariinsky Concert Hall for a fabulous performance – a very contemporary version of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. Another great day!

Monday 12th

Sadly, this is our last day in St Petersburg – we leave tonight for Novgorod. We’ve seen so much and yet have hardly scratched the surface of what this city has to offer.

Firstly, we ventured to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery – a working monastery founded in 1713. In the grounds are a couple of different cemeteries where some of Russia’s famous artistic figures are buried. We made sure we saw the graves of Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky. There are also several beautiful buildings in the grounds.


One of the cemeteries inside the monastery walls - beautiful buildings in the background

From there we headed to the Russian Museum which houses a magnificent collection of Russian art. As our time was limited, we concentrated our visit on the 19th and 20th Centuries and still didn’t see everything from this period – this definitely goes on the ‘must return’ list.


Admiring some of Kandinsky's work - a bit hard to see but no flash allowed!

In typical ‘nick of time’ fashion, we made it to the train station with seconds to spare (no worries – heaps of time!) before we boarded our train for the three hour journey to Novgorod. This train was quite unlike the ‘romantic Orient Express-type’ train we’d taken from Moscow to St Petersburg. It was quite the practical (sitting class only and quite ‘Soviet’ style) passenger train – lots of laminex! Clearly for local use. For some reason (what did she say??) we were ushered to Carriage 2 and not allowed to go to Carriage 1 (which was clearly written on our tickets). We’re sure she said ‘sit anywhere’ (or something like that…) but for the first ten minutes everyone else in the carriage (ok – maybe a slight exaggeration – a couple of people) kept kicking us out of seats telling us (we think) that we were in their seat. Oh, to know just a little Russian!! When you’re trying to argue your case (in a completely foreign language that no-one, repeat no-one understands) and stand your ground, but the whole carriage (not exaggerating now) goes absolutely silent and stares at you – you know it’s time to just give in and move to a quiet corner. Eventually found a nice, quiet spot that apparently no-one else found at all appealing – peace at last and a chance to read up on our next destination – Novgorod.

Arrived in this very small town at about 8:30pm with just – quite literally – a mud map to help us find our hotel. The streets were very quiet and we really had only a very sketchy idea of where we were going. We headed off in what we thought looked like the right direction – backpacks on and wheelie bags in tow. The wheelie bags would have been more useful if they floated and had a rudder. The path we chose was perhaps not the best because it eventually became obvious that what we thought was a path covered with light snow was actually a massive, massive puddle – more like a pond. It was the railway station car park. However – overcame all obstacles and quite easily found our hotel.

Went out in search of the action – but couldn’t find any. This is a very small, quiet town. Settled for a lovely meal at the hotel instead.

Tuesday 13th January

Had a lovely, peaceful day exploring Novgorod. This is a fabulous town which has been in existence since the 9th Century. It has one of Russia’s oldest Kremlins (originally built in the 9th Century) which is surrounded by a beautiful park.

The Novgorod Kremlin wall

Inside the Kremlin grounds are several wonderful structures – including the Cathedral of St Sophia (finished in 1052 – one of the oldest buildings in Russia) and the Millennium of Russia Monument (a 300 tonne sculpture built 1862).


Cathedral of St Sophia in the background

The Millennium of Russia Monument

Across the (frozen) river is a fabulous collection of churches – each with its own particular style of architecture. All were built somewhere during the 14th – 17th Centuries and they’re peculiarly clustered around each other (ie: within meters). We spent quite some time wandering around the outside (and inside of whichever ones were open to the public) – marveling at the architectural variances.


One of the many beautiful churches in Novgorod. We went inside this one - the walls are covered in frescoes which are hundreds of years old.

More beautiful churches in Novgorod

Completed our visit to the city by trudging out to a suburban Russian shopping mall (5 storeys!) – this was quite an experience. If you’re interested in clothes, shoes, mobile phones or pharmaceutical items then fine – if not (as in – if you want to buy some food or groceries) then look elsewhere. What an eye-opener.

This city suffered at the hands of the Nazis, but the fact that its Kremlin was high on the reconstruction priority list of the Soviets is a sign of its importance. We’re really glad we took the time to stop, spend a night and take a look. The architecture was absolutely beautiful and the slower pace was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the big cities!

Made our way back to the train station for our overnight train to Moscow. Novgorod station is one of those lovely old ones without a platform. This makes you feel like you’re in one of those old war-time films where people are down beside the train waving goodbye to loved ones. A great image – but not so easy when it comes to getting two 20kg bags up into the little doorway (ask Phil how his back is!). Once again, the glamour of our ‘Orient Express-type’ train was a distant memory. This was a far more practical, commuter type long-distance train – not a bit of caviar in sight! And once again, the language and alphabet barrier prevailed. Were we in the right cabin? Were we even on the right train? Were we heading in the right direction? What was the uniformed lady standing in our doorway asking us? (Worked out pretty quickly it was whether we wanted vodka or vodka as our complementary drink – after some deliberation we chose vodka!). Quite comfortable, though, but didn’t sleep very well as this was not an express train and each stop tended to ‘jolt’ us awake.


Our 'practical' train

Wednesday 14th January

Back in Moscow! Arrived at about 6am, which is incredibly early when the sun doesn’t get up until after 9! Made our way via Metro to our hotel for this leg of the journey – a different area to the one we stayed in last time.

Today, we decided to enjoy the marvel of the Metro itself. The Moscow Metro system is used by approximately 9 million people each day. It’s an incredibly efficient public transport system that literally runs like clockwork. But there’s more to the Metro than efficiency and people moving. Each station is a work of art – some more grand than others. It’s not unusual to see fabulous, enormous bronze statues flanking escalators, stained glass features, mosaics or chandeliers suspended from marble ceilings. We did the rounds, hopping on and off, and checked out what each of the more spectacular ones has to offer.

Spent the afternoon at the Contemporary History Museum which traces Soviet history from the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 to the 1980s. Wandered for hours looking at the fabulous exhibition which included various propaganda posters and Bolshevik memorabilia.

It’s not as cold here this time around – about -4 or so. Nor is it as crowded now that the holiday season has officially ended. This is more like the Moscow Louise remembers from her previous visit here 10 years ago.

Decided to spend an evening in with wine and cheese – this is not as easy as it sounds. First of all, finding a grocery store in Moscow is no mean feat, then comes the obvious challenge of actually asking for the item you want. Successfully accomplished the mission and enjoyed a relaxing evening.

Thursday 15th January

First stop today – Lenin’s tomb! This is a must-do when in Moscow. First of all, you have to leave all large bags and any cameras (including mobile phones) in the cloak room. Then you file along a set path flanked by very, very serious police, through a security check (including an inspection of any small bags you may have with you) and along the base of the Kremlin wall, then down (underground) into the tomb. You are not allowed to speak – if you do, police officers tell you to ‘sshhh!!'. You file, completely silently, along the passageway and past the embalmed leader. Then you come back up and out the other side, and have the opportunity to look at the graves of others buried at the foot of the Kremlin wall including Stalin and Brezhnev. Quite an experience. At Stalin’s request, Lenin has been lying in that state since he died in 1924 – an eerie sight.

Next, we ventured out to Gorky Park, which is a beautiful park beside the river with a small amusement park in one corner.

From there we headed to Sculpture Park – quite a solemn space where there is a collection of Soviet statues which have been housed here since post-1991 when they were torn from their original positions and ‘retired’. Heaps of statues of Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev as well as some more contemporary works of art.


Statue park - L and L

Sculpture Park is in the grounds of the State Tretyakov Gallery which houses a fabulous collection of 20th Century Russian art. As we’ve become huge fans of this type of art, we spent several wonderful hours here admiring the vast collection and learning more about the definite ties between politics and art during the Soviet era.

Tomorrow is our last day in Russia. It’s our last day in Moscow. It’s our last day of our holiday! Still so much to see and do!

Friday 16th January

Decided to have a bit of a walking day – enjoying some of the quieter parts of Moscow – slightly more suburban than the ones we’d previously visited.

First stop, though, was the White House (officially the House of Government of the Russian Federation). This is quite an imposing building on the bank of the Moscow River. You may recall images of Yeltsin climbing on a tank here in 1991 and of the building itself on fire in 1993 as a result of the incidents arising from the clash between the President and the parliament. Incidentally, on the walk to the White House is a small park which contains a memorial (quite an unusual one – lots of information and photographs rather than statues etc) to those killed during the 1993 incident.


The White House

From here we enjoyed a lovely walk beside the river through a residential part of Moscow, to the Arbat district. This is a nice area which has a few restaurants, antique and art shops – and, of course, souvenir shops along a quiet pedestrian mall. Completed our time in Moscow doing a little shopping and having a meal before facing the confronting task of packing for the return journey. This is when you really know your holiday has come to an end.


The Arbat district

This is it. We leave the hotel at 5am tomorrow and, after a couple of long flights and about 12 hours in Hong Kong, arrive home at around midnight Sunday.

Thanks to all of you for tuning in and for your comments. Thanks, also, to those who’ve commented via email or text message. It’s been great to have contact with you all. See you soon back in Brissie!