Postcard from St. Petersburg
We arrived in St. Petersburg after an overnight train from Moscow for our last destination. It proved to be one of the most beautiful and amazing cities we had been to on this trip, well worth the effort of getting there.
St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great of Russia and was designed after European cities, created to Europeanizing the Russian Empire. It was the capital of Russia until the Soviet Revolution which actually began in St. Petersburg with Lenin.
Located in St. Petersburg is this statue of Peter on a bronze horse. He was an avid horseman and hunter. He also started the Zoological museum which is one of the top three in the world and its prized exhibits are his horse and dogs.
Being the financial, industrial and political capital of Russia for hundreds of years, St. Petersburg has tons of beautiful 19th century (and before) buildings all over the place. The next picture is just a representative picture of a building from around the city. Interestingly, the Soviets moved the capital to Moscow and more or less ignored St. Petersburg for development so it still retains its 19th century charm.
St. Petersburg is situated in the middle of a bunch of rivers and consists of a bunch of islands with canals through them. This means there are over 900 bridges around the city. At night the whole city is beautifully lit up. This is one of the main bridges in the town. It is good that they light it up so well because at the time we were there, the days were only about 6 hours long, leaving a lot of time for night.
We spent a lot of time trying to see just a few of the millions of museums. In fact, there are museums to everything, including chocolate, horses, small dolls and anything else you can imagine. We tried to stick to the main ones since we only had a few days but did manage to make it to the Dostoevsky museum. This was actually a small but well laid out museum all about the life and literature of on of Russia's greatest writers. You can even see the houses where The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment were based.
This photo is of Peter and Paul's Fortress at night. It was the first thing built by Peter and was a fortress to ward off the Swedes. It was very similar to Georgetown from the beginning of our trip, including a similar layout and never having been tested in battle. There was lots of information on the founding of St. Petersburg and the Russian space program including a real size replica of Sputnik and newspaper clippings from around the world when it was launched.
We also went to the Armory which had weaponry, especially artillery. You can see the evolution of artillery from the beginning to modern soviet stuff. There were some cool experimental weapons like the first rifled cannon barrels with projectiles and square cannons.
Finally, right before we left, we went to the world famous Hermitage. Unfortunately we weren't able to stay for very long, only two hours. We did get to see most of the great art though. Return of the Prodigal by Rembrandt was truly amazing, well worth the visit. We didn't make it to all the other stuff which is huge, like the Smithsonian.
The one negative about St. Petersburg is that there seem to be pickpockets everywhere. We were mostly successful at fending them off. If you want to know more, ask Stephen.
This concluded our trip. I headed back to Dallas and Stephen headed to London to see his parents for a week before heading to Portland.
St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great of Russia and was designed after European cities, created to Europeanizing the Russian Empire. It was the capital of Russia until the Soviet Revolution which actually began in St. Petersburg with Lenin.
Located in St. Petersburg is this statue of Peter on a bronze horse. He was an avid horseman and hunter. He also started the Zoological museum which is one of the top three in the world and its prized exhibits are his horse and dogs.
Being the financial, industrial and political capital of Russia for hundreds of years, St. Petersburg has tons of beautiful 19th century (and before) buildings all over the place. The next picture is just a representative picture of a building from around the city. Interestingly, the Soviets moved the capital to Moscow and more or less ignored St. Petersburg for development so it still retains its 19th century charm.
St. Petersburg is situated in the middle of a bunch of rivers and consists of a bunch of islands with canals through them. This means there are over 900 bridges around the city. At night the whole city is beautifully lit up. This is one of the main bridges in the town. It is good that they light it up so well because at the time we were there, the days were only about 6 hours long, leaving a lot of time for night.
We spent a lot of time trying to see just a few of the millions of museums. In fact, there are museums to everything, including chocolate, horses, small dolls and anything else you can imagine. We tried to stick to the main ones since we only had a few days but did manage to make it to the Dostoevsky museum. This was actually a small but well laid out museum all about the life and literature of on of Russia's greatest writers. You can even see the houses where The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment were based.
This photo is of Peter and Paul's Fortress at night. It was the first thing built by Peter and was a fortress to ward off the Swedes. It was very similar to Georgetown from the beginning of our trip, including a similar layout and never having been tested in battle. There was lots of information on the founding of St. Petersburg and the Russian space program including a real size replica of Sputnik and newspaper clippings from around the world when it was launched.
We also went to the Armory which had weaponry, especially artillery. You can see the evolution of artillery from the beginning to modern soviet stuff. There were some cool experimental weapons like the first rifled cannon barrels with projectiles and square cannons.
Finally, right before we left, we went to the world famous Hermitage. Unfortunately we weren't able to stay for very long, only two hours. We did get to see most of the great art though. Return of the Prodigal by Rembrandt was truly amazing, well worth the visit. We didn't make it to all the other stuff which is huge, like the Smithsonian.
The one negative about St. Petersburg is that there seem to be pickpockets everywhere. We were mostly successful at fending them off. If you want to know more, ask Stephen.
This concluded our trip. I headed back to Dallas and Stephen headed to London to see his parents for a week before heading to Portland.
posted by Randall Knutson at
10:35 PM
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