More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor hotels

[JohnM]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Keep 'em coming RF - sensational stuff .

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

I have the absolute hots for St Petersburg. It’s becoming – or has become – one of my favourite cities in the world. It has amazing sights; beautiful parks; brilliant architecture; at least one of the world’s great museums; fine waterway; a vibrant city life and so on, etc, and so on .... Shame about such a **** of a central government, but can’t help that.

I arrived at St Petersburg airport a bit after midnight, two days after the MH17 disaster. The full shock and international recriminations hadn’t yet started, so there wasn’t much thought of there being an issue going through immigration, and there wasn’t. I thought I’d be right getting a taxi at this hour (taxi booking desk etc) , as I had been to this airport last year ... but gee, it didn’t look quite the same... And it wasn’t! A new terminal, so my plans were out the window. No matter, there is an efficient taxi booking desk right outside customs (green lane, no stopping) and soon I’m on my way to the hotel, Novotel St Petersburg Centre. It’s actually no where near the centre of the city, but I had stayed here last year with friends and it’s not a bad hotel, in a quiet street just off Nevsky Prospect (think Broadway in NY) and close to a metro.

I’d come back to St Petersburg as three days last time wasn’t nearly enough just to cover the sights. Trip report from that first visit here. This time I’m intending to see some of the remaining ‘must sees’ and also to have the luxury of just swanning around a bit, enjoying some of the casual street scenes and experiences with out the hurly burley of sight seeing (at least how I do it).

The Novotel was pretty much the same as last time, except this time it’s no smoking (Russia went ‘smoke free’ in closed public spaces earlier in the year ). No upgrade, but the room was good:

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Next morning its up for some sightseeing. First to the metro; in both St Petersburg and Moscow it’s 28 Rubles per journey, about $1. They use tokens still here (disposable multi trip cardboard cards in Moscow). Down the familiar escalator, deep into the earth, and arise at the usually elegantly decorated station at the other end.

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Now what I love about St Petersburg, and Russia in general is the things you see just walking about; the unexpected, unusual or just odd. Like delightful, colourful churches, or happy gents like this:

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I never did find out who he was (anyone?), but obviously he was pretty content with his lot. 

Something from Egypt, and something a bit more contemporary. Yowsers!

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And of course newlyweds do want to have some great back-drops. These sculptures (there are 4) ‘The Horse Tamers’ are on the Ainchkov Bridge, Nevsky Prospect over the Fontanka River. They date from the mid 1800s. When St Petersburg was threatened during WW2, they were removed and buried nearby. Some damage to the bridge by German artillery is still evident. That's the Stroganoff Palace behind the RH pic, yes, where that deliceous meal was created.

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[JohnM]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Russia is one place that I have yet to visit. How is it for independent travel? I guess an advance visa is required?

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Russia is one place that I have yet to visit. How is it for independent travel? I guess an advance visa is required?

I think its fine for independent travel (by that I guess you mean not in a tour group). Certainly in the cities its pretty easy, once you get the hang of things. I've done a bit in Africa, as have you and its a LOT easier in western Russia, at least. Others are better qualified to talk about places off the beaten track.

Yes, you need a visa to visit Russia, and frankly the paperwork is a PITA. You need an 'invitation' from each of the hotels you will be staying at and by the time you finished the application, you would have put down most of your life story. But its worth it There is a thread here about the Russian invitation thing - again, others have more experience with it.

But you can get a 72 hours visit to St Petersburg without a Visa. Don't know the details but Mr Google will tell you. 72 hours not long enough!

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

First stop is Smolny Cathedral, part of a convent built in the mid 1700s. Bit surprised to find Karl still looking sternly out at me in the gardens, but hey, this is modern Russia. Baroque-meets-onion-domes for the cathedral itself

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Climb the bell tower for some nice views out over the city.

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Then its onto Vasilyevsky Island, which was intended by Peter the Great, the city’s founder to be the centre of the city. It’s full of museums and institutions, some of the oldest in the city. The St Petersburg State University was founded in 1722 and one of its 12 its colleges, an attraction in themselves, houses the Mendeleev Museum (Dmitry Mendeleev of course made the first arrangements of the chemical elements into a Periodic Table). It’s also where Popov made some of the first radio waves (on earth, at least). Vladimir Putin studied law at this University.

Arrgh ... renovation strikes again – the entire row of colleges are behind scaffolding and screening and no angle reveals anything, and the museum is closed. That’s a real blow. I’ll have to come back . I make a decision to go into the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography; it’s somewhat well known, or somewhat infamous, depending on your point of view.

Warning – next para contains things somewhat gross; skip it if you are delicate.

Russia’s first museum, it was founded by Peter the Great to dispel superstitions about diseases and the like. Its best known ‘attraction’ is the room of preserved deformed human foetuses and animals in jars. Yes, I had a look, and yes, it is rather repulsive.

On the point of the district is the former Stock Exchange, now the Central Naval Museum. Would have liked to visit, but time was against it. Nearby is a brass monument; you can see the 12 University Colleges lined up behind the Naval Museum. Phooey.

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Turn around and there’s the Neva River. As good a vista as Sydney Harbour (at water level), somewhat minimised here by the panorama view. On the left is one of the 2 Rostral Columns, former river beacons studded with the prows of boats; to the left of centre is the St Peter & Paul Fortress, where the very first fortification of the City of St Petersburg was built in 1703. The Romanov Tars were traditionally buried here and the remains of Nicholas II and most of his family were brought here in 1998. On the right is the famous Hermitage Museum. Thankfully we went there last time, else it would have been a day in itself!

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The St Peter & Paul Fortress and inside the St Peter & Paul Cathedral.

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[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

I then walked back over a familiar path, destination: CaféSinger for afternoon tea. But to get there you have to walk past the Hermitage, the Dvortsovaya Ploshchad (’Palace Square’) and the General Staff Quarters building (now part of the Russian Museum). Even though I had photographed these to death last time, you just can’t resist doing it all over again. After all, some renovation scaffolding and screening had been removed from the Hermitage since last time 

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(Sigh). The green building on the left is the Winter Palace, main building of the Hermitage Museum. The Winter Palace was the main residence of the Russian tsars from 1732 to 1917. It was this building that was stormed in the 1917 Revolution and the Tsar, and his family, removed.

Dvortsovaya ploshchad must be one of the great city Squares in the world (am I using that expression too often? I think its justified ). In the centre is the granitic Alexander Column (1830), the tallest of its kind in the world. There is no attachment to the ground – all 500 tons are just sitting there! The Stones, AC/DC, Elton john and Paul McCartney have all played here.

Facing the Winter Palace is the general Staff Building; 580m long and a graceful curve. It was formerly the home of the General Staff, the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry of Russia. The Triumphal Arch in the centre of the General Staff building commemorates the victory over Napoleon in 1812 (natch).

And so to the Singer Building, or House of Books as it’s widely known today. Built in 1904 for the Singer Sewing Machine Company, it was originally intended as a sky scraper, like the New York version (kids, ask your mother what a sewing machine is, and why the company was the IBM of its day), but at that time buildings in St Petersburg were not allowed to be higher than the Winter Palace.

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Today, the building houses a large book shop (many English titles as well as Russian) but for me its main virtue is Café Singer on the first floor. Beers, wines, High Tea, all types of coffees and magnificent pastries and cakes in elegant surroundings – and fabulous views of the Kazan Cathedral over the road. Just bliss after a long sightseeing slog.

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Back out to Nevsky prospect and refreshed, I decide to walk the remaining couple of km back to the hotel. The one thing about the St Petersburg metro is that the stations aren’t very close together and they are not tourist oriented with respects to positioning. If you want to catch one from the Hermitage for instance, you probably have a considerable walk before you get a station on your particular line.

Nevsky Prospect – dare I say it’s one of the world’s great boulevards? Four lanes in each direction, straight as an arrow, long intervals between lights and lined with many types of buildings including many landmarks, cafes and restaurants on the wide footpaths.

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The ‘wide open road’ unfortunately facilitates the maniacs absolutely fanging it up the road, especially at night. But they do observe the red lights.

Lastly, in this instalment, we come across this guy, Mercury, I believe, and probably thinking something like “Dude, what do you think you are staring at?”. And just another building on Nevsky Prospect. Note the Soviet regalia on the pediment.

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[JohnM]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

TR of the year RF :!:.

 

[Disco]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Great trip report Rooflyer; finding the St Petersburg description particularly interesting. Di

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

TR of the year RF :!:.

Its possibly the longest :shock: People may legitimately think its self-indulgent, but like I've said before, happy to share and it does allow me to recall the buildings etc while fresh in memory and its a first review & cull of the hundreds and hundreds of pic I take.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

The next day I had a private tour of ‘Pushkin and Pavlosk’ – namely the extravagant palaces of Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine (the Great) (‘Catherine Palace’ in the town of Pushkin) and Catherine’s son Paul (‘Paul’ or ‘Pavlosk’ Palace in the adjacent town of Pavlosk). These are about 45 mins drive out of St Petersburg and whilst not overly difficult to get to (local train followed by minibuses or long-ish (30 mins or so) walks), given the distances, time and anticipated crowds I thought a tour that picked me up from St Petersburg would be the way to go. I tried to join several tours, but they only catered for groups of the same origin, so I ended up having a private tour. Good tour, but quite expensive.

The other major day trip out of St Petersburg is Peterhof – Peter the Great’s summer palace. If you have to choose, I’d go for that one. It’s very easily accessible by hydrofoil from the centre of St Petersburg, fewer queues for the number if visitors and the fountains are very spectacular, on top of the usual Palace ‘Wows’. The gardens are marginally better and more accessible too. I went to it on my last visit to St Petersburg; some pics of it here.

First stop was the Pavlosk ‘Paul’ Palace. The guide said that the initial line-ups at the Catherine Palace would be massive at the start (local day-trippers; it was a Sunday) so he went for the less popular Pavlosk to start with. Made sense and right choice.

Built by Catherine the Great in the 1780s for her son Paul and his family, it was almost entirely destroyed in the Second World War. First it was occupied and bombed by the Germans (it was outside the siege line of Leningrad), and then by accidents after the Soviets liberated it. The restoration done by the Soviets subsequently is remarkable.

Only one pic of it for here – too much to show all the magnificent décor and furnishings inside. Many of the rooms are individually themed; simply eye-popping. The grounds are extensive and landscaped of course. There were actually very few people visiting; no queues.

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We then drove across town to the Catherine Palace and the tour busses and hoards of people we encountered as we approached told the story. Catherine Palace is the home of the very famous and now 'restored' Amber Room. Here the tour came in very handy. These gates are the ‘tour entry’ and there was hardly anyone there when we arrived. We went straight through and walked across the front of the palace. The great unwashed enter elsewhere, in a crush.

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The front panorama:

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And the view looking the other way:

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A few details:

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[JohnM]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Great trip report Rooflyer; finding the St Petersburg description particularly interesting. Di

Do you want to see my Book Depository receipt for the Russia Lonely Planet I've just ordered :?:.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

The Catherine Palace is at the town of ‘Pushkin’ today, the location’s original name was ‘Tsarskoye Selo’, or ‘Tsar’s village’ and it’s also known by that name today.

Catherine I (wife of Peter the Great) first commissioned a Summer Palace here in the early 1700s. Her daughter, Empress Elisabeth, and Romanov successor to Peter the Great, found it a bit stodgy, so she knocked it down (!) and had the present pile built in the mid 1700s. Its front façade is about 325m long and used about 100kg of gold!

It was further extended and re-modelled by Empress Catherine II (Catherine the Great) who had married the nephew of Empress Elisabeth (Peter III) who, it’s theorised, was assassinated in a conspiracy led by her after being on the throne for only 6 months. Goodness knows, I tried to follow the Russian monarchy, but gave up.

This is the ballroom, and one of the many ‘general’ rooms, with portraits of the Romanovs and their families. The blue thing in the corner is a ceramic heater. Often they had no means of adding coal/wood via the room – the access was via cavities/narrow walkways in the walls themselves.

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Then there is the famous Amber Room. It was created in Prussia in the early 1700s but was given to Tsar Peter the Great by the then Prussian king. Installed in the Catherine Palace and later expanded, it contained six tonnes of amber (which is fossilised tree resin, often containing insects, but not here!) and covers 55 square metres.

Like the Pavlosk Palace, the Catherine Palace was captured by the Germans in WW2. Beforehand, between June and September 1941, about 12,000 of the 42,000 pieces in the Palace collection were packed up and moved east and finally, to Leningrad (St Petersburg). Others were packed and stored in the basement of the palace. This was a precaution against damage; it was not envisioned that the area would be captured by the Germans. An attempt to remove panels in the Amber Room resulted in some crumbling, so that was abandoned and they were 'simply' glued and padded up; the windows were boarded up and re-inforced with sand. In September 1941, the Germans arrived. During the occupation the Amber Room panels were taken by the Germans to Königsberg and then they disappeared. The Palace was very severely damaged by bombs and fire; very substantially ruined.

The Soviets decided to re-create the Amber Room in 1979 and in 2003 it was completed, financed largely by donations from Germany. My guide said that a small amber panel turned up in 1997, via descendants of one of the German soldiers who packed it up. Wikipedia says it was an ‘Italian stone mosaic’. In any event, it was bought by the Russians and helped in the reconstruction.

So, we approached the Amber Room and I was disappointed to see the ‘no Photographs’ sign appear. However my ever helpful guide pointed out that although there were no photos allowed in the Amber Room, there was nothing to stop me taking photographs from outside ie through the doorway, and indeed the guards didn’t object .

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It’s a lot more stunning and impressive than these pics of course; essentially mosaics and carvings in 350 shades of amber. Great work by the Russian craftsmen. This high zoom pic gives you some idea of the detail. On the right is of course one of the parquetry floors; stunning design in itself.

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There are dozens and dozens of rooms, gorgeously furnished and decorated, mainly in gilt. The pic on the left is looking down the doors that link successive rooms. On the right is the same aspect as the Palace was found after WW2.

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Lastly, another room, and another pic showing the damage from WW2 (not the same room this time).

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So what you see today is substantially a 1700s Palace built by the Soviets in the mid to late 1900s.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Out to the gardens – about a square km of them (but I only got to se a small part). The main feature is the pond, with several follies and pavilions around it.

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Formal gardens of course:

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Arrgh! Renovation strikes again! Most of the façade facing the gardens is under wraps – although, as in most cases I’ve seen on this trip, they make some attempt to make it blend in a bit.

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On leaving, we see our mate Pushkin again. Alexander Pushkin (1797-1837) attended the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, which abuts the Catherine Palace. His most famous play was Boris Gudunov. He fought 29 duels, and on the last, he was on the ‘losing’ end.


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[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Back walking round the Sennaya neighbourhood in the afternoon, just SW of the St Petersburg historical centre. Starting at Spasskaya metro station.

I drop in on Yuspupov Gardens and it being a fine and rather hot day, the sunbathers were out in force. Not far away is the Nikolsky (St Nicholas) Naval Cathedral which is in much prettier surroundings than this pic suggests – river/canals on a couple of sides, and tall trees (but they obscure the view!). there is a separate bell tower behind me in this shot.

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In the same neighbourhood, and not far away I see the objective of the current ambulation – St Isaac’s Cathedral. I walk past the Mariinsky (ballet) Theatre but didn’t venture inside; also past the Yusupov Palace, less imposing, but with a past.

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It was built in the 1770s and became the seat of the Yusupov family. It once housed tens of thousands of works of art and is still lavishly decorated inside. In the early 1900s it became one of the residences of Prince Felix Yusupov, a cross dressing courtier, thought to be richer than the Tsar with over 50 palaces to his name (shock). In December 1916, Yusupov and others murdered Rasputin here – in a grisly fashion according to Yusupov’s own account. I knew about the Rasputin angle, but not about the decoration, else I would have gone inside.

Over the canal and past this Soviet ‘gem’. I don’t know what it was built for, but check out Lenin leading the adoring masses. Crumbling, decrepit ….

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Not far, there is St Isaacs Square (not Decembrist’s Square as told in Lonely Planet). The Square is flanked by St Isaac’s on one side, and the State Archives (and Yeltsin Presidential Library) formerly the State Senate, built in 1830, on the other. In the middle is a statue of Peter the Great on a rearing horse (Russia), but its not ‘the Bronze Horseman’ per Lonely Planet

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This is the Bronze Horseman (on the other side of St Isaacs, by the Neva River), depicting Peter the Great on (another) rearing horse (Russia) about to trample the snake (enemies, treason etc) whilst pointing heroically to the River Neva. It has a status in Russia akin to the Statue of Liberty, I’m told.

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It was cast in the 1770s at the behest of Catherine II (The Great) to associate herself with Peter the Great and help legitimise her rule (she was the wife of the Romanov Tsar and became Empress on his murder). The 1,250 granite pedestal of the statue, called the Thunder Stone is the largest stone ever moved by man. It began as 1,500 tonnes but was partly shaped as it began its journey from Lakhta, on the other side of St Petersburg. A tremendous undertaking in the 1700s!

The statue became known as The Bronze Horseman after the poem of that title published by Alexander Pushkin in 1833.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

On to St Isaacs Cathedral. I love this building and devoted a precious hour or so of time to a re-visit.

It’s the fourth largest cathedral in the world and the largest Orthodox one and looks and feels every metre. There are 112 enormous granite columns in all, each carved and emplaced as a single block.

It was constructed over 40 years from 1818 and the dome was covered with gold, applied with a sprayer :shock: via a mercury based solution that killed 60. During the Soviet era, the church was stripped of its religious function, most of its decoration and in 1931 a Foucault Pendulum suspended to demonstrate Copernicus’ theory (first public demonstration of the phenomenon). [Big weight on very long rope in a large space; get it swinging and over a long enough period it appears to precess around the room (ie appears that the swing axis moves around); however it’s the earth rotating beneath it, not the pendulum precessing ]. The church has now returned to worship.

From the outside – check out the size of those columns :!::

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Details of the pediment – amazing detail, given that when in place at the time no-one had a hope of seeing any such detail.

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The inside. Oh, my. Going to full size:

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Malachite like this (green columns) is a semi precious stone. You'd never know it.

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And looking straight up to the Great Dome

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[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

OK, I know I’ve been a bit gushing over some of the previous sights, but here I’m throwing the switch to full flood.

The Church on the Spilled Blood, or more correctly, Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ must be one of the most eye-popping structures on earth. Big call. No picture here can do it justice. We spent an hour here on our first visit and I was drawn back for another visit this time.

First, the history. Tsar Alexander II was assassinated on this spot in 1881. A bomb was thrown by an anarchist; the Tsar wasn’t hurt badly, so he got out of his carriage and went to the bomb thrower. Unfortunately there was a second bomb thrower and bomb and this one mortally wounded the Tsar. His successor, Alexander III started this church as a memorial and it was completed in 1907.

It’s pretty spectacular outside and takes some inspiration from St Basils in Moscow:

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But it’s inside where the wow begins. All the decorations you see here are mosaics – 7,500 square metres of them. The rich colours coupled with the detail and soaring domes and arches makes you just stop and gape. Note the people’s heads at the very bottom of this pic:

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This is the top-most dome with a major zoom to show the mosaic structure.

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The brightness of colour is amazing

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[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Just around the corner is the main building of the Russian Museum (its spread over 5 palaces throughout St Petersburg :shock: ). This one is the Mikhailovsky Palace, built in the early 1800s. I hadn’t planned to visit, as it’s mainly an art and fine arts museum, and what did I know about Russian painters (answer – nothing) … but it was a hot day and it would be cool inside ….(and I found a small but good and very cheap café inside, in the basement).

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Of course, I ended up glad I visited; the collections are well laid out chronologically, starting with ancient icons from the 13th Century onwards, and moving through to modern. Also, not so crammed in that you are overwhelmed. But first you have to go up the grand staircase and get past Peter I (aka Peter the Great) sculpted in gypsum.

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I’ll spare you most of the details, but there are many, many magnificent galleries, sculptures and paintings, and they seemed not to spare the canvas – many would cover the whole living room wall of a modern home (or more). As usual, I like to focus on the detail in these canvases, and here are but a few. Some are at odd angles to avoid reflected light.

Phrine at the Festival of Poseidon at the Eleusinia:

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Zaporozhye Cassocks writing a mocking letter to the Turkish sultan (can't you just see them pi**ing themselves as they call the Sultan nasty names) :

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And maybe my favourite, because its representation of the very hard life in Old Russia, not much of which has been apparent in this visit to St Petersburg.

Barge Haulers on the Volga.

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[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

On the metro and its a 15 or 20 minute ride southwards to Moskovaskya station (that's quite a way, the metro really belts along). In this area, Stalin planned, and began building his new centre of Leningrad. But where except in Russia can you find within 15 minutes walk something like this gorgeous wedding cake of a church (Chesme Church built by Catherine the Great in 1777):

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and then this (the House of Soviets, the central administrative building of Stalin in Leningrad), with Comrade Lenin pointing the way to a bright Workers Paradise:

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[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Righto, in the final stretch for St Petersburg. What was planned to be a couple of days of easy strolling 'revision' around the city actually turned into another series of long excursions, as I discovered more of the city that I didn't realise was there.

Close to the Stalinist buildings above is the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad. During WW2 Leningrad was sieged by the Germans for 872 days; its thought that Hitler planned to raze the city and eliminate its inhabitants. Wikipedia says (and I'm cognisant of its limitations):

On 21 September, German High Command considered the options of how to destroy Leningrad. Simply occupying the city was ruled out "because it would make us responsible for food supply". The resolution was to lay the city under siege and bombardment, starving its population. "Early next year we enter the city (if the Finns do it first we do not object), lead those still alive into inner Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad from the face of the earth through demolitions, and hand the area north of the Neva to the Finns."[32] On 7 October, Hitler sent a further directive signed by Alfred Jodl reminding Army Group North not to accept capitulation.

1.5 million soldiers and civilian died during the siege, mainly due to starvation and many of the 1.4 million evacuees also dies, also of starvation.

Little wonder that this memorial was built and the way it laid out; it occupies a large space at the intersection of a number of major boulevards. There are themes of circles/rings (encirclement) throughout and many large bronzes showing soldiers and civilians in heroic poses; a 40m obelisk in the middle

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900 bronze lamps flicker as you are led down the steps. Beneath, its gloomy in terms of light and extremely sombre, with marshal symphonic music played and the sound of a metronome ticking (representing the heartbeat of the city).

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There are memorials, military paraphernalia and a number of showcases with some poignant displays.


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All in all a very moving experience. The Soviets take their war memorials very seriously and Soviet bombast aside, they do respect their fallen tremendously. Wedding parties often go to these memorials to pay their respects.


That was my last excursion in St Petersburg; in the late afternoon I did a recce of the Moskovsky Station which was not far from my hotel and where I would board the Saspan high speed train to Moscow the next morning. That's it on the right; getting across this lot might not be easy!

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[RooFlyer]

Re: More Central and Eastern European bling (incl Transylvania); *A flights, Accor ho

Quick word about meals in St Petersburg. As I was on my own, there wasn’t anything greatly premeditated about them. I generally went into a coffee house for lunch and then was fortunate to stumble across a great chain of sort of Japanese Bistros the first night, and went back every night after that.

First, coffee houses. Seems to be lots of chains (including Starbucks), but the two most obvious ones are:

Шоколадница (LH of the pic) , which anglicises as 'Shokoladnitsa' and translates as Chocolate / chocoholic or similar. They are everywhere. Reasonable coffee and snacks. Service can be slow.

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Кофе Хауз (RH of the pic) which translates as Coffee House. Called the ‘Starbucks of Russia’, again, everywhere. When we went to Moscow last time, we thought they were a great find. Picture menus, with main lines in English. Lots of highly coloured drinks and ice creams, but you could also get a decent lunch, beer & wine etc. However on this visit, in both St Petersburg and the same place in Moscow, they seem to have ‘gone off’. No English in the menus any more and more limited range.

The great find of this trip was the chain was:

Две палочки, or Dve Palochki which I never got properly translated but is something like Two Sticks, alluding to chop sticks, as it’s a (notionally) Japanese restaurant. Easy to find via the sign and ‘2 seagulls’ symbol (the link below has audio, hence you can tell they are seagulls )

English web page and menu (not nearly as comprehensive as the in-store ones) etc here. Dve palochki. A free-flight restaurant chain. Japanese cuisine. Sushi.

I say it’s a (notionally) Japanese restaurant, and that’s its main cuisine, but there is an American and also an Italian section in the menu, which is all pictures with English headlines for each dish.

I came across it on Nevsky Prospect, corner of Vladimirskiy Prospect (beneath the Restaurant Palkin), not far from the Mayakovskaya metro station. It must be fairly new, as it’s not on the web site’s map of their places or on Google maps. There are tables on the foot path but the noise from the street is pretty loud. Inside has very clean lines as you would expect in a Japanese restaurant, and there are quite a lot of TV screens, which show quite pleasant images (but just red in the pic below).

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Staff are young and energetic (and not Japanese, as far as I could see), with very pleasant attitudes. Where they didn’t have English, I just pointed and gesticulated and it was laughs all round. Eventually one of the better English speakers looked after me, and very well; he got a good tip!

I started with salmon soup, which was just sensational. Great texture, with small fish roe in it. Then tuna on salad and roast vegetables, which sounds odd, but which was delicious. Not a large portion, so I had to have desert, and this was a raspberry sorbet scoop on cooked (warm) spiced fruit. Oh, boy. All wWashed down with a Kronenbourg 1664 draft beer (OK, there were 2).

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Another night I paid another visit to the Soviet Café. Its also on Nevsky Prospect, near Dve Palochki above. It has good reviews on trip Advisor, so I went there with friends last time. It’s styled in an old Soviet apartment and is heavy on Soviet nostalgia. It’s in basement level, so you have to keep your eyes peeled for the sandwich board sign.

Not quite as good this time as I remember last time, but there’s always a difference in being by yourself versus with friends. I started with borscht (beetroot soup), which was a bit disappointing. Just thin red liquid with some sliced spring onions as garnish, as you might get out of a can of sliced beetroot at home. I’m not sure which was more genuine, but nothing like the borscht I’ve had elsewhere in Russia. For mains I ordered Beef Stroganoff, and I was wondering how that meshed with the ‘Soviet’ theme, but I was interested to try it a number of times in Russia, to see variations (if any). This dish was dominated by three scoops of baked mashed potato, with the beef almost hiding behind it. The beef was nice though.

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Shame about that, but I wouldn’t let this deter you from going. As I mentioned, last time we had a great meal and a lot of fun.

Next - train to Moscow and then .... Vegas meets Disneyland, Soviet style :shock:.