Early in the morning on June 10th we hopped a train from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, Russia – a great city.  The ride was lovely – much like the countryside that we saw in the Baltic States with lush grasslands and forests sprinkled with wild flowers. It was very relaxing except when the Russian immigration people came on to check our passports. They were a very serious bunch – no kidding around with these guys. But we all passed with flying colors and we disembarked in St. Petersburg right on schedule.

As always, we hit the ground running with our first stop being Peter and Paul (the saints not the Beatles) Fortress and Cathedral.

This cathedral is the burial place of the czars and OMG it is lavish.

 

 

Nicholas II and his family are all buried here including Anastasia.

Nicholas II was the last Russian Czar. He, his wife and their five children were put to death as ordered by Lenin during the Russian Revolution. Lenin’s plan was to eradicate the aristocracy so that no one could lay claim by royal authority later. (We’ll talk more about that later.)

The place was gorgeous and very interesting.

 

Carolyn, Dick, Tom and I grabbed a quick dinner at a little Mexican restaurant (no kidding) and called it an early night.

 

The next day was incredibly busy starting off with a visit to the Grand Choral Synagogue 

and their wonderful ambassador Cantor Gregory Yakerson.  Mr. Yakerson told us a bit of  the history of the church and its congregation. The synagogue was built in the late 1800s and consecrated in 1893. As was the case in the vast majority of the synagogues and churches, it was closed to worshipers and later bombed by the Nazi’s during WWII. Stalin, with his anti-religion policies, all but banned the practice of religion (if you went to worship, you may well have disappeared by the next morning). With the communist regime in power into the 1990s, repair and reconstruction was not possible until the 2000s and only completed in 2005.

Mr. Yakerson explained that decades without religion decimated their membership numbers with much of the younger generation growing up without a religious foundation. Many members returned, but not near the 1200 members they once had.

*We heard this story and others just like it repeatedly throughout our visit – so horribly sad but still with a determination to survive/rebuild/reclaim what they once were.

 

 

Then this gracious man sang for us –

  What a gift.

 

There is reconstruction and renovation going on all over the city and they put up screens for protection from falling debris. Their screens depict something about the area they cover and are often works of art in their own right.

Moving right along, our next stop was:

Peterhof – Summer Palace of the Tzars

This is probably a good time to give you a little background on Peter the Great (AKA Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich) Tzar of Russia from 1682 until his death in 1725.   Hey, I’m a teacher. It’s what I do.

Peter I was the grandson of Tzar Michael Romanov. Peter became a tzar at the ripe old age of 10. He grew into the position both figuratively and literally reaching a height of 6’8″. As an adult, Peter traveled other countries and realized that Russia lagged significantly behind other European countries in development. He found this totally unacceptable and became determined/obsessed with remedying the situation in what is referred to as a “Cultural Revolution.” He brought the best engineers, scholars, architects, craftsmen, and shipbuilders from the western nations to modernize Russia while sending hundreds of  Russians to Europe to be educated in the arts, sciences, crafts, and design.  In his 42 years as tzar, Peter established St. Petersburg, built a Russian navy, strengthened the Russian army, modernized Moscow, secularized education, he opened the door to trade with the west and established Russia as one of the major powers of Europe – now that’s pretty impressive.

Okay, I ‘m done well at least for now, so let’s see Peterhof. Ooops, one more thing – In his travels in western Europe, Peter saw Versailles and was determined to do it better – thus the summer palace, Peterhof.

 

 

The gardens and fountains are spectacular!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The water from a naturally pressurized well feeds the fountains.

 

The palace and ground were spectacular and just between you and me, I liked it better than Versailles – just my opinion.

Okay, I just want you to know that all of this was done before lunch – that’s a busy morning.

We did have a leisurely lunch on the grounds then hopped on a hydrofoil (another new experience) for a very fast ride across the Gulf of Finland and back to our hotel.

It had been a wonderful day, but Wait There’s More – We’re going to the Russian Ballet!!!

After dinner, we walked the short distance to the Miriinsky Theater

to see Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The theater is gorgeous,

the dancers beautiful, the orchestra wonderful

and the evening magical.