Sunday Sight-Seeing, or Petrograd According to Priscilla

The day started with a lovely buffet breakfast complete crepes and fresh juice. We departed from our hotel with a great view as you can see here,

the Dostoyevsky, in our casual clothing, on a tour bus along with two international schools from Florence Italy, and a school from Albania.

Ina, our tour guide, began by explaining the history of the city, we learned about the political leaders who had come in and out of power and the different regimes in Russia. The city of St. Petersburg has had many names; it was named St. Petersburg after its founder Peter the great in the 18th century, then during WWI the name was changed to Petrograd for the sake of the original name sounding too German; then the Soviet Union changed it to Leningrad on behalf of Vladimir Lenin.

Leningrad literally means Lenin’s city.


Our first stop was St. Isaacs Cathedral in front of St. Isaac’s Square. Ina explained to us that St. Petersburg when founded was completely marsh land. Peter the great had to sink billions of rocks to create foundation strong enough to build building. Because the foundation o the city still isn’t quit firm there is a law which restricts any building more than six stories. St. Isaacs Cathedral is one of the tallest buildings in the city.

Ina knew the weight of the buildings in the area, I found this strange because if anyone asked how much the White House or Lincoln monument weighed DC tour guides wouldn’t know. St. Isaacs Cathedral weighs thousands and thousands of tons. It was truly beautiful it had free standing marble columns and a rotunda. Our next stop was the Church of Spilled Blood.

The name of the church comes from the fact that Alexander the Second was assassinated on the road where the church was then built. Anyway the Church of Spilled Blood is my favorite building in the city. It is truly Russian, it has domes and chains on Hershey kisses on top (or garlic balls as Idrienne called them). It has colored tiles and paintings of saints.

We passed the only castle in the city, which is famous because Paul the only “poor Paul” came to lie in the castle and had many secret tunnels and safe rooms built because he was so afraid of attack and assassination. Unfortunately, Poor Paul’s neck was snapped while he was in bed one night and never truly got to rule. Ina told us that the buildings are all so many different colours because if not people would become depressed because of the bad weather.

Here are the tombs of the czars in the Peter and Paul fortress:

We then stopped at a bridge designed by Eiffel. We went to gift shops and then had lunch.

After our Stroganaff lunch, it was snowing. We went to the Hermitage and looked at really old painting and statues.

We saw Da Vincis and Picassos. My favorite gallery was the impressionists section, with Matisse and Gauguin paintings. Then the lights turned off and we were stuff with babushkas on the top floor of the green palace…. To be continued tomorrow. It’s 11:00 and Ms. Vardi said I have to go sleep.