June 23-24
Staying out until 3am should mean a late morning… but we had a 10:45am walking tour booked, and only 1 shower for four people, so my alarm went off at 9:15am. Too early.
But I’m so glad we got up for it.
The tour guide, a young local, was energetic and funny. She walked us around quite a few sites. We started outside the Winter Palace which was the former official residence of the Russian Royal family from the 1700s to 1917.
It’s most famously associated with Catherine the Great who was responsible for the large acquisition of art that is held in the Royal Hermitage museum, right next door to the palace. Our tour guide told the story of the Russian Revolution when Nicholas II, his immediate family and several servants were slaughtered. She mentioned that although DNA testing has proven that Anastasia was also killed, she prefers to believe the Disney movie that she got away and lived a happy life. I liked that.
How great is that teal color? The building was painted yellow for awhile and then a brown/red color before being painted the current color in the 20th century. This color was chosen as a tribute to Catherine the Great, since it was her favorite color.
In the Palace Square stands the Alexander Column which is 47.5 meters high and celebrates Russia’s victory over Napoleon. The monument is topped with an angel that is holding a cross, but the impressive thing about it is that the column is made of one solid piece of marble, weighing over 600 tons. The column is held up entirely by its own weight and was lifted without cranes or modern machinery. Apparently when it was first installed, the locals were too afraid to enter the square, out of concern the column was going to fall. So to calm their fears, the tsar spent hours each day, for weeks, walking his dog in circles around the base of the column to prove that St. Petersburg’s citizens shouldn’t be concerned.
She talked about all of these buildings across the river. I have no information to relay to you about them. It was a group of like 50 people, so I only heard half of what she said.
Here is a shot of St. Isaac’s Cathedral:
A few days later, we went to visit the inside of the Cathedral, but we did learn some interesting facts from the walking tour. Apparently, during the siege of St. Petersburg by Nazi Germany, while the entire city was bombed, two buildings were excluded. One was St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
St. Isaac’s Cathedral was spared because of the large gold plated dome, which the Germans used for directional purposes when flying overhead and bombing the city. Eventually, the citizens figured out that the Germans were using the building for their benefit and covered up the golden dome to make it more difficult for them to navigate the city from above.
The second building that was not bombed was the Hotel Astoria:
Apparently, Hitler was so convinced that Leningrad would fall quickly that invitations were printed in advance for a victory banquet at the hotel. The siege lasted nearly 900 days. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges ever, with Soviet forces ending the siege on January 27, 1944. It is expected that up to 1.5 million civilians and soldiers died during the siege with about 1.4 million evacuated. Many of those who were evacuated died from bombings and starvation. But despite all of this, at least we can be content that Hitler never was able to have his party?
A few blocks from the Winter Palace is a building that was built as the first free museum, called the New Hermitage, open to all citizens of the city. The catch was that people were required to dress up to visit and only rich people had the money to buy nice enough clothes to enter, thus still making the museum prohibitive to most people. Outside the museum are columns made to resemble fifteen foot tall statues of Atlas.
Two things to be said about these feet of Atlas:
1. If you rub the toes of the left foot of this specific statue, you will become rich. (Warning: I did it. About to make it rain.)
2. The cracks resulted when the palace, two blocks away, was bombed. The force was so great that it cracked all of these statues at the feet, although they didn’t fall.
Here is a statue of Peter the Great, called the Bronze Horseman.
Peter the Great was the founder of St. Petersburg. He captured the city from a Finnic tribe in 1703 during the Great Northern War. Slaves were brought in from all over Russia to build the city which became a grid of canals, mostly due to Peter’s love of Venice.
This sculpture was ordered by Catherine the Great who, for being one of the best known Russian leaders, was not actually Russian. She was German born and married to Peter III. She believed her husband to be weak, so she had him killed off and took the throne in 1762. Being some what self conscience that she wasn’t Russian, and having a great admiration for Peter the Great, she spent much of her reign trying to show connection between herself and Peter. On the statue you can see the first line of language says Peter. Believe me. That’s what it says. The second, slightly larger line of language says Catherine.
And the Nicholas I Monument:
What makes this statue unique is that the statue is only supported by the horse’s rear hooves (two points) which was a technological feat when the statue was unveiled in 1859. This picture isn’t the best angle to see that, but trust me – only two hooves touching. If you look again at the Bronze Horseman above, you’ll see that two horse hooves are touching the base along with the snake, giving it three points of support.
At this point we were two hours into a very crowded walking tour and ready for lunch, so we split off from the group and went to eat at a place called Made in China which served up some great Chinese cuisine.
After lunch we took some much needed naps before the next big event: cooking class! Andy did some research and found a class that taught dumplings and a traditional soup. They had run out of room in their kitchen, so they offered to teach the class in our kitchen at the Airbnb.
The class was awesome… mostly fueled by these cool Russian chicks, Irina and Katarina.
Realistically, the food was fine – not really my favorite and probably not something we’d ever recreate. But we had a blast. The soup, called okroshka, that we made was interesting. The ingredients: hard boiled egg, cucumber, ham, potatoes, scallions, mixed herbs, and radish.
And then the soup was served cold with one of two things – either a light yogurt or kvass. Kvass is a traditional Slavic fermented beverage made from rye bread. It tasted kind of like RC Cola that had been left open overnight. The dish with yogurt was pretty good. The kvass, less so.
Irina pouring in the kvass:
Mmmmm. Andy loves it – until he takes that first bite and switches over to the yogurt version along with me.
This was a liquor that the women brought along to share.
Fun fact: whoever opens the bottle in Russia and pours the first glass is the only person that is allowed to pour the rest of the bottle. So Irina opened the bottle and poured us all a shot of the berry drink. Then Jacob grabbed the bottle to pour out another round and got yelled at immediately by Irina. It was her bottle. If he wanted to open a second bottle, he could do it and be in charge of that bottle but this was hers to pour.
Another thing they noted was the importance of a toast. It was not acceptable to simply say “cheers” or some equivalent. Their toasts are required to be meaningful, every time.
Dumplings:
Another tradition: while making dumplings, one dumpling is made with a gross center and then cooked in with the rest. If you are “lucky” enough to get this dumpling, you get to make a wish on it. Our gross dumpling had gummy bears and pepper in it. Lucky for us, Irina got this one.
Afterwards, we found out that Katarina and Irina made a second gross dumpling with a ton of pepper. Irina got this one as well. Lots of wishes coming her way!
We spent a lot of time talking about life in St. Petersburg and what the women do for fun. Irina, the older of the two, is a big fan of the rooftop bars around the city (something we checked out a few nights later). Katarina loves one of the bar districts where she often goes to sing karaoke at the other Poison location. Yes – there are two! We knew there were two from a 3am Uber mishap the other night when Andy kept sending drivers to the other location to pick us up. Whoops. This is what happens when you don’t trust the GPS ball on your phone.
So, of course, knowing how good the Russians were from the other night, we forced Katarina to sing for us. She was great!
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After we finished up dinner, our cooking buddies left and the four of us got ready to head out. That night there was a huge celebration on the embankment with live music and fireworks for new graduates. There were also a ton of police presence for the event. They had this street completely shut down.
The party was going to be huge, but also exclusive. Only graduates, which meant that we were a few blocks away. hanging out and enjoying the great energy in the city. Michael and I did try to get a view of the fireworks, but couldn’t get terribly close.
Afterwards, we went back to meet up with Andy and Jacob. As luck would have it, while we were sitting at the bar, Katarina and Irina showed up! They joined us for a few drinks and after awhile, took us out to Katarina’s bar district to check out a different part of town…
And round two of Poison:
Do I need to say that we had a blast? Karaoke really is one of my favorite things to do. Even on a night like this, when I didn’t even get up to sing, I was just pumped to be singing along with others to great music and enjoying new friends. This Poison location, as opposed to the other, was filled with tourists – specifically Argentinian fans.
Andy got up to sing a time or two and Katarina rocked it.
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We had another “what time is it?!?!?!?” moment before ending our night around 6am with Jacob and Katarina singing Bohemian Rhapsody which was a huge hit. Then a long walk back to the apartment.
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Staying up until 6am with no scheduled walking tour means sleeping in until noon. Andy had to fly back to New York, unfortunately. It was fun getting to know him. He definitely was a huge value add to our Russian experience.
With nothing scheduled for the day, Jacob, Michael and I decided to wear sweats all day, work on the blog, watch futbol in our apartment, and send Michael out for meals. It was a perfect lazy day after a few late nights.
