20 June 2018, Wednesday
Woke up feeling excited about another day of exploring St. Petersburg. My accommodation at Your Space Capsule Hotel provided a very basic breakfast from 7am to 10am. When I went to the common area and kitchen at 9am, I found that there was no more bread left. There was only some cereal and milk, so I had an unfulfilling breakfast to start the day.
At about 9:30am, I left the hostel and made my way towards Palace Square, the meeting point for the Petersburg Free Tour (click here). Along the way, I passed by the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood again. I can’t help taking a photo each time I pass by it. It’s just too beautiful. The church is closed on Wednesdays so I will have to wait patiently to visit it tomorrow.
I arrived at Palace Square at 10:10am, way ahead of the starting time for the free walking tour at 10:45am. While waiting, I admired at the beauty of the Winter Palace, which used to be the Russian emperor’s residence but now houses the State Hermitage Museum. Everything here in Russia is on another level. The buildings are stately and grand. Palace Square, the open square in front of the Winter Palace, is HUGE. In the middle of it is the Alexander Column, a 47.5m tall column unveiled in 1834 to commemorate Russia’s victory over Napoleon’s France.
At Palace Square, I saw several street vendors selling Russian military-style caps with a lot of patches and badges pinned on the side. They looked really good and I decided to buy two caps for 1,000 RUB (S$23.255). I put them on and I thought that they made me look super cool and bad-ass.
The tour started promptly at 10:45am. Our guide for the day was a young lady named Anastasia. The group was pretty big, which I guess was unavoidable because of the influx of tourists coming for the FIFA World Cup.
Anastasia first brought us to the New Hermitage building, apparently one of the most recognisable buildings in St. Petersburg. The New Hermitage was built between 1842 and 1851 and it features a magnificent portico supported by the 10 muscular Atlantes figures cut from grey granite.
A portico is a porch with a roof supported by columns, serving as the entrance to a building. The word Atlantes is the Greek plural of the name Atlas, the Titan (pre-Olympian God) who was forced to hold the sky on his shoulders for eternity. Thus, in architectural terms, an atlas is a support sculpted in the form of a man, with his head bent forward to support the weight of the structure above across his shoulders, and his forearm lifted to provide additional support.
The atlantes figures were indeed very finely sculpted and impressive. Anastasia told us that if you touch the big toe of one of the atlantes and make a wish, it will come true. However, for maximum effect, you should touch the big toe of the most powerful among them. She then asked us to make a guess and pick one. However, I cannot remember which was the most powerful one, so you’ll have to join the tour to find out on your own!
We then walked to the rear side of the Hermitage Museum, along the Neva river, where we had a glimpse of the Peter and Paul Fortress on a small island across the river. At that moment, Anastasia told us to get ready for the midday cannon shot, fired every day from the fortress at noon. This custom was introduced by Peter the Great to signify the beginning or end of a work shift, and also to alert residents about floods and to mark important state events. Right on cue, we heard the boom of the cannon shot.
As we walked along the Neva river, we also saw the Dvortsovvy Most (Palace Bridge), a drawbridge offering access to Vasilievsky Island. St. Petersburg is a city of bridges. Peter the Great envisioned St. Petersburg to be like Amsterdam or Venice, where people move on the water via canals instead of streets. There are 342 bridges in the city, of which 22 are drawbridges, and only nine of them are raised on a regular basis. The bridges are raised to allow cargo vessels to sail through the Neva river to the Gulf of Finland and to the European ports.
Nevertheless, the raising of the bridges has become a big tourist draw in its own right, and there are huge crowds gathered at the river banks every night to witness it. Or rather, it should be early morning, because the bridges are raised between 1am and 5am. There are even boat tours that allow you to watch the lifting of the bridges from the river’s perspective. On a practical note, if you’re a party animal and you’re out late, you’ll need to know the drawbridge timings so that you don’t end up being stuck on one side of the river while the bridges are raised.
We soon reached Senate Square with the Bronze Horseman in the middle. This statue depicts Peter the Great sitting heroically on a horse, with his outstretched right arm pointing towards the Neva river. The horse tramples on a serpent, which represents the enemies of Peter and his reforms. The pedestal is made of a piece of large granite boulder carved into the shape of a cliff, creating a dramatic moment as Peter gallantly leads Russia forward and upward.
Peter the Great was a tsar who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1725. He is credited with bringing Russia into the modern age through his extensive reforms. These included creating a strong navy, reorganising the army according to Western standards, and focusing on science and technology to replace traditional, medieval social and political systems. He also founded the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia until 1917, when it was moved to Moscow.
A short walk away was St. Isaac’s Cathedral. This used to be the main church of St. Petersburg but it was turned into a museum by the Soviet government in 1931 and has remained a museum since. Today, church services are held here only on ecclesiastical occasions.
The cathedral took 40 years to build, from 1818 to 1858. It sports a neoclassical exterior with four identical pedimented porticos supported by Corinthian columns. Most impressive of all is its gilded dome, which rises 101.5m and gleams brightly in the splendid sunshine. However, this beauty came at a price. The gilding technique involved using a solution that included mercury, to ensure that the gold stays intact for a long time. The vapour of the toxic mercury caused the death of 60 workers. That was the last time the technique was used for gilding.
We then went to Nevsky Prospekt, the main avenue in St. Petersburg where many landmarks such as the former Singer sewing machine company headquarters (now occupied by Dom Knigi bookstore) can be found. It’s a really beautiful and elegant avenue.
The tour ended at the Kazan Cathedral at 1:50pm. After giving the lovely Anastasia a small tip, I went in to the cathedral to take a look. Admission is free. Before entering the cathedral, men should remove their headgear (like hats or caps) while women should cover their heads with a scarf or a hood as a sign of respect.
Kazan Cathedral was built between 1801 and 1811 by the order of Emperor Paul I, who wanted it to resemble St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Italy. Russian architect Andrei Voronikhin achieved this by designing an enormous colonnade. The cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady of Kazan, one of the most venerated icons in Russia.
One year after the cathedral was completed, France invaded Russia and the Patriotic War of 1812 was fought. Commander-in-Chief Mikhail Kutuzov visited a mass held in the church and asked Our Lady of Kazan for help. Kutuzov later won a crucial battle that eventually led to French military leader Napoleon pulling his troops out of Russia. After the war, the cathedral became a monument to Russia’s victory over Napoleon. Kutuzov’s body was interred inside the cathedral and a monument to Kutuzov was erected in front of the cathedral.
The interior of the cathedral was quite dark but very grand and opulent, with beautiful Karelian marble flooring, pink granite columns, chandeliers and intricate sculptures adorning every corner. There was also a queue of believers waiting to kiss the icon of Our Lady of Kazan. This would be the first of many churches that would take my breath away over my next few days in Russia.
As the tour ended late, I was hungry after my visit to Kazan Cathedral so I went to Marketplace for lunch, a restaurant located nearby and recommended by Anastasia. It was a Marché-style eatery where you could pick whatever you wanted from the various dishes available and pay for what you picked. I selected an assortment of rice, grilled chicken, potatoes and a drink and it cost 597 RUB (S$13.90). For dessert, I bought a mint ice-cream on a cone for 286 RUB (S$6.65). Ice-cream is comparatively more expensive than proper food!
After that, I walked along Nevsky Prospekt and visited the Dom Knigi bookstore. I eventually ended up at Galeria, a huge shopping mall located beside the Moscow railway station. There were five floors of shops with many international brands including UNIQLO. There was also a cinema. I wanted to watch The Incredibles II but unfortunately, it was only available in Russian.
For the rest of the evening, I didn’t do much as I strolled the streets of St. Petersburg leisurely, enjoying the beautiful sunshine and weather, taking in the sights of this amazing city and soaking up the World Cup fever. Life really was good.
