Friday August 17th, 2018 St. Petersburg, Russia

This is the first of two full days in St. Petersburg and we’ve opted for ships shore excursions for both days. Self-guided visits ashore are a bit difficult in Russia as they require the advance purchase of a visa, whereas excursions organized through the ship are exempt from this requirement – though it does mean that the tours are quite highly supervised i.e. no wandering off! Even with the organized tours, all passengers going ashore and returning to the ship are required to go through a face to face immigration check point (a 2-day entry card is issued). Note that this adds about 30 minutes to start time for most tours.

For the morning of our first day we are taking a boat ride on the Neva river followed by a visit to the Church of the Spilled Blood.

St. Petersburg is a very grand old city built at the apex of the Gulf of Finland in 1703 by Peter the Great who saw the strategic importance of having access to the Baltic Sea for trade. As well as the main Neva River there are many smaller canals all lined with very grand buildings; St. Petersburg was the main seat of government in Russia back in the 18th and 19th centuries and so there are many palaces, monuments and churches as befitting a capital.

After about 30 minutes on the bus we arrived at the embarkation jetty for the narrated boat ride on the Neva. It was a beautiful bright day and we had great views of the palaces and other sites along the river and canals. There are several bridges that span the river, and all are articulated to allow the central sections to open which occurs only from 2AM to 4AM each morning; during this time the city is essentially divided in two.

Between the river cruise, and our final stop of the morning at the Church of the Spilled Blood, we had a quick visit to a tourist shop – it was called The Red October and looked really rough from the outside. Inside the shop was very well laid out with rows and rows of babushka nesting dolls and other typical Russian gifts. A small shot of Russian vodka was offered which had to be consumed in the classic Russian fashion – down in one!

The Church of the Spilled Blood was erected between 1883 and 1907 on the site of the assassination of Emperor Alexander II; it is a very classic orthodox structure with several large brightly colored onion domes. We had been warned about pick-pockets in the area which as extremely crowded - and I did see several shady looking characters eyeing our group. One big advantage of being on an organized tour is the ability to skip the long queues at the entry points.

The interior of the church was very richly decorated with paintings, murals, sculptures and a magnificent marble paneled screen (Iconostasis) on the alter. The main dome of the church is located directly above the burial place of Emperor Alexander II.

Outside the church we could not resist the brilliant photo opportunity (2 Euros each).

On returning to the ship we barely had time to grab a bite to eat before heading back out for our afternoon tour; “The Hermitage at a Slower Pace”.

The Hermitage is a gigantic museum housed in 5 large buildings including the Winter Palace on the banks for the Neva River. Following the revolution in 1917 the communists gathered up many of the art treasures from all of the palaces in St. Petersburg and the surrounding area; many items were sold off to support the launch of the new country and the rest were eventually collected together to form the Hermitage museum. It’s impossible to see everything in the Hermitage.

The museum was very very crowded and with no air-conditioning the atmosphere was very warm and stuffy. Our guide had supplied receiver headsets and we tried to follow along as best we could; but her pace was frustratingly slow – so we sneaked off to find out own way around.

The architecture of the buildings and the interior décor were amazing and many of the items on display outstanding – like the mechanized gold peacock. But on the whole, we found the organization and care of the collection to be a bit lacking; many rooms were uncomfortably hot with sunlight streaming on to priceless canvas.