May 2, 2012
St. Petersburg
A short overnight train journey takes you from Moscow to St.
Petersburg. We arrived to typical St. Petersburg weather—cloudy and cold. We
were told we would want to take an umbrella with us wherever we went because
you never know when the rain will fall. We toured the city with an engaging
local guide who showed us where Dostoyevsky lived while writing Crime and Punishment and told us about
his gambling problem which resulted in his living in over 20 apartments in the
city as he would never pay his rent and only ended when his second wife
threatened to leave him. We also saw many of the beautiful buildings scattered
throughout the city.
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| Crime and Punishment inspiration |
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| One of Dostoyevsky's many (over 20!) apartments in the city. |
We arrived on our tour leader, Bob’s, birthday and so we
celebrated that night with dinner and dancing. I will say that going out in
other countries makes me appreciate the non-smoking policies in the States. I’m
a lightweight and went to bed early but even still woke up smelling like an
ashtray. Yuck. Anyway…
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| The birthday boy |
In addition to seeing the striking architecture in St.
Petersburg, I was able to enjoy several concerts and dances. I went to a
performance of “Verdi’s Requiem”, which was amazing. (Don’t know when I started
enjoying classical music so much?)I attended a ballet performance of “Carmen”
and then a selection of other non-related dances as well as a folk show. The
performing in the folk show was fantastic, but it did feel like a bit of a
tourist trap—alas. The Aussie girls and I also attend a performance at the
Mariinsky Theater. The performance was called a “Gala for Young Theater Goers.”
While I know I’m no longer “young,” in a theater-goers sense, I didn’t realize
until we got to the theater that the young theater goers ranged from five to
eleven years old. Despite (or maybe because of?) the young audience, the selected
opera, symphony, and ballet numbers were wonderful, and we got a taste of each
genre. To top it off, we watched the performance from the Tsar’s Box—which we
had to ourselves!
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| Folk show |
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| Folk show performance |
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| Just a little younger than we are... |
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| Mariinsky Theater |
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| Yes, this is the Tsar's box |
The Intrepid tour ended in St. Petersburg on the 29, and we had a dinner at a traditional Georgian restaurant the night before to say goodbye. Our guide finally played the piano for us (It turns out he used to play keyboard in one the biggest bands in Russia!), and Alicia was a good sport for dancing with a very energetic (and talented!) Georgian waiter.
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| Bob accompanying the Georgian singer |
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| Go Alicia! |
I
stayed a couple extra days to explore the city after the tour ended. My plans to see a few of the
out-of-city sights were foiled each day (by totally acceptable things), but I
did make it to the Hermitage Museum (“I’m not saying it’s the best museum in
the world… But it’s certainly not second” one curator said of the place--or something to that effect.) It
was fantastic. With over three million exhibits, it’s not really something you
can absorb in one day, but now I have an excuse to go back. J
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| Cathedral of the Spilled Blood |
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| Inside the cathedral |
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| Mosaic on the ceiling |
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| Another mosaic inside |
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| May Day parade |
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| May Day (Labor Day) parade |
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| The Hermitage (a very little part of it) |
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