Tuesday, May 30, 2006

St Petersburg


Storm clouds coming in over Dvortskaya Pl, and The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, curiously like St Basil's in Moscow

After a couple of days in Moscow, I headed north to St Petersburg, an extremely important city in the history of Russia. St Petersburg is largely known as the town of Peter the Great, one of Russia's most famous Tsars, and from the minute you arrive, almost everything is devoted to this guy - probably one of the more stylish Tsars (Catherine the Great tended more toward the gaudy and tacky).

St Petersburg is 500km north of Moscow, and on the Neva River, flowing out into the Gulf of Finland. It's the most European of the Russian cities, and is probably a little more tourist friendly than Moscow. The biggest tourist attraction here is the Hermitage, one of the world's great art museums, mostly set in the Winter Palace, and therefore is a fantastic place to visit, both for the great art collection (there is a great collection of Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, as well as a ton of Dutch, Italian and French art) and the interiors of the palace. I arrived to St Petersburg as it started raining, and therefore I had no problems whatsoever spending the entire day indoors, taking in the Hermitage.

Interiors of the Hermitage, left, the one of the Roman rooms, and right, the 1812 Hall, dedicated to Russia's war with Napoleon

Other highlights from St Petersburg were the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood (the Spilled Blood refers to the fact that Alexander II was assasinated [blown-up] on this site), the Neva River and surrounding areas, including Vasilevsky Island, the Peter and Paul Fortress and Pedrovorets, Peter the Great's palace about25km from St Petersburg. Despite the less than pleasant weather, I loved my time here, as St Petersburg is one of those cities that truly represents much of the history of this country for a tourist - this is the city of the 1917 revolution, a former capital, city of both Tsars and Bolsheviks, and then also of modern Russian drivers (look before you cross the road or footpath...)

Here I am by the Gulf of Finland at Peterhof, and the famous statue of Peter the Great, immortalised by Pushkin in his writing about 'The Bronze Horseman'

Peter the Great's palace, Peterhof at Petrovorets

And of course, the metro was another highlight! See my post below about the fantastic metro systems in Russia...

2 comments:

Alison said...

I am learning a great deal from your posts Claire - how do you know all this stuff?
Interestingly, Cam and I took a picture of a statue of a horesman in Edinburgh that was identical - I wonder if it was the same guy?!

Anonymous said...

Nice pics Claire. Dave thinks so too.