Saint Petersburg

Last week was our long-awaited trip to Saint Petersburg (or, "Peter," or, "Venice of the North").

Wednesday night after class we left on the sleeper train (!!!), which was amazingly nice. I mean, if you're significantly taller than the average person, you might feel a little squished, but I slept for at least 6 hours. Compared to air travel, it was incredibly low-stress and comfortable. Consider me a train convert.

So we arrived Thursday morning, and immediately began with a bus tour of the city. It was interesting just to see how much older the buildings are than in Moscow (though Moscow pre-dates Peter by about 600 years, a lot of modern buildings were put up in the Soviet era). Also, Saint Petersburg has a lot of canals. I mean, it's not Venice - there are still roads and cars, but you can navigate large chunks of the city by boat.

After driving around, we went to the outskirts of the city to tour Peterhof, Peter the Great's palace. The highlight is the Lower Garden area, which has, like, a million fountains (some of which were secret so that Peter could spray his guests without warning) and opens onto the Baltic Sea.

Looking out over the Lower Garden from the palace steps

Looking up towards the house from the Lower Garden

The seeeeeeeeea

Afterwards, we took a much more sobering trip to the memorial for the victims of the siege of Leningrad during WWII. Thousands of people starved and were buried outside the city in mass graves that have now been turned into a memorial and mini-museum.

We checked into our (super-nice, centrally located, private-bathrooms-included) dorm and then just walked around the city center.

Church of the Spilled Blood

Kazan Cathedral (about 5 minutes from our dorm)

Friday, we had a guided tour of the city center, at the end of which we climbed up to the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

Kazan Cathedral (front)

St. Isaac's

yaaaay churches that are also museums so it's not rude to take pictures!

Saturday, we had a tour of the Hermitage, which is in the Winter Palace and holds some ridiculous amount of art (numbering in the millions of works). Saw my first Da Vinci, nbd. 

Afterwards, we utilized the world's longest escalator to head out to the Peter and Paul Fortress, the first thing built in Saint Petersburg upon its founding.

The creepy two-headed eagle is the symbol of Saint Petersburg

The island also includes a beach, where swimming is "banned"

Sunday was for leisurely walks through the city, and eating lots of delicious food. I also made it inside the Church of Spilled Blood.

lol Russia 

Friday after class (which btw was the worst thing ever simply because it was on. a. FRIDAY. (it was to make up for the Thursday we're missing this week when we go to St. Pete(!!!))) I went to Kolomenskoye, which used to be a retreat for all of the royals and is currently a park/museum thing (also, upon closer inspection of my bread, I thiiiink that it's also a bakery?? Idk. Limited grasp of Russian.). (I realized after looking up that info that I somehow missed visiting the most famous building in Kolomenskoye, the Church of the Ascension. Ah, well. The Church of the Beheading of St. John has a much cooler name anyway.)

the not-super-famous-but-still-pretty-cool church

I guess I did see the Church of the Ascension - that's it waaaaay off in the distance.

After seeing those churches, we climbed a giant hill (which conveniently had stairs) to find...another church!

The Church of the Beheading of St. John

#moresweatyselfies #chillinwithMoscow

Saturday was the ballet! My primary motivation for buying a ticket was dressing up fancy and taking glamour shots (I kid, I kid...kind of), but I did really enjoy the show. We saw Swan Lake - and I reallllly recommend reading a plot summary if you've never seen it before. Otherwise you might be a bit confused by the finer points. ("Is anyone actually a swan??")

fun tip, when asking a stranger to take your picture, make sure they have a fancier camera than you so a) they probably know how to take pictures and b) they won't have any interest in making off with yours

(Also, I'm going to tell you all my secret - I couldn't actually get a ticket to a show at the Bolshoi, so we went to another theater next door. It was about a fourth the price, and we still got our glamour shots.)

I'll be in St. Petersburg Wednesday through Sunday (OVERNIGHT TRAIN), so the blog next week will be a) late and b) excellent.

PS - For those keeping track, I have 18 days until I come home. ENCHILADAS AWAIT.

Visiting the homes of Russia's rich, famous, and dead (and also 1000 churches)

Fair warning: this is basically going to be a compilation of photos with the occasional commentary thrown in. I'm not feeling verbose today.

Wednesday after class, I made the trip out to Catherine II's estate (which is still fairly close to the center of Moscow).

Catherine's house

managed to take a selfie masterpiece

because why not have your church across the lawn

I feel like Catherine's estate is a cross between Hogwarts and the Shire. Hobbits at Hogwarts.

giant fountain with light show every night at 9!

(that means I <3 Moscow)

Friday was our day trip to Tula/Yasnaya Polyana. (Yasnaya Polyana = Tolstoy's estate)

Tolstoy was a bit more of a modest guy than Catherine II, so the coolest part about his estate was how green it was. Very peaceful, very photosynthetic.

the last remaining stone of Tolstoy's childhood home

Tolstoy's grave

random church in Tula (the nearby town) with super edgy black domes

nice periwinkle church inside the Tula Kremlin

Saturday, after eating some overpriced but reasonably good Mexican food, I went to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

And then today, I visited the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which (as you may have guessed by the lack of onion domes), is Catholic! I stuck around for the Mass, which was spoken in a stitched-together mixture of English, French, and Tagalog. Also, I ran into people from Baylor, so...that was cool.

This afternoon, I finally made it out to the Cosmonaut Museum, which was clearly kind of intended to be a church by the architects, judging by this Christ-like Yuri Gagarin/stained glass combo in the main hall.

Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light! Surrender now or prepare to fight!

And this week, I'm going to the ballet, so the next blog will be 87% me in my fancy clothes. Get ready.