Baltic Cruise - St Petersburg

4-5 August - St Petersburg, Russia: We've only overnighted in port once before on a multi-port itinerary; in Montevideo during our Around-The-Horn cruise, so "spending the night in Russia" was pretty wild. Unless you had a Russian Travel Visa (which most of us did not) you were restricted to ship-led excursions. Given the differences in language and culture we were fine with that restriction, as planning anything on our own would have been daunting.

Waking up the morning of our arrival and just looking out at a once forbidden country (which is again all but forbidden for anyone even remotely risk-averse) was exhilarating. Growing up they had always been "the enemy" and their unfamiliar language and stern visage only helped perpetuate the stereotypes we were fed when we were younger. The excitement of finally seeing even a small part of Russia first-hand was exhilarating.

Our Russian adventure began with immigration. If you've seen the Clint Eastwood movie "Firefox" and recall his transit through the airport on his way in to the country then you've got a reasonable impression of what we experienced. A series of queues align with a row of booths. Each booth has a raised desk for the immigration officer, and a narrow enclosure for the visitor, sealed on each end by glass doors. The door in front of you opens, you walk in, and it closes behind you. You turn 90 degrees to face the officer, and present your passport via a small opening at the bottom of the window. There are slits to "facilitate" communication, but when the officer is speaking with a THICK accent they can still be difficult to understand. The officers' uniforms are several shades of green and completely militaristic in style. All things that hardly say "welcome to our country." After being grilled for a few minutes my passport was stamped and slid back to me, then the exit door opened and I officially stepped in to Russia. Lourie followed behind me, apparently with less interrogation, and we were off!

About 20 miles from the cruise pier is Catherine Palace, a gift to her from her husband, Peter the Great, in 1710. Over the centuries it existed in several incarnations before being destroyed by the Germans when they fled Leningrad at the end of World War II. Fortunately, a fair amount of the interior was documented prior to the war, and that information was used during the reconstruction, which began in 1957.

The current iteration of the palace is a stunning sight, with large porcelain fireplaces, ornately carved cornices and mouldings, inlaid floors, and spectacular painted ceilings. Unfortunately we were only able to spend a couple of hours at the Palace, you could easily spend an entire day and still not see everything.

St Petersburg is a massive city with a seemingly endless list of museums and historical sites, not to mention cultural and culinary opportunities. I hope that one day we can return for at least a week, preferably more, but with the current state of world affairs the likelihood of that is remote at this point.

After a quick shopping trip for scarves, and an authentic Russian lunch consisting of pelmini for me (at the insistence of a lifelong friend whose wife is Russian) and a salmon coulibeac for Lourie, we made our way to the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood, named as such because it was built on the site where Alexander II was mortally wounded in an assassination attempt. 

The church was commissioned by his son, Alexander III, and construction began in 1883, was completed in 1907, and became a cathedral in 1923. It was looted, and closed, in 1932 during the revolution. Like many other magnificent structures, it was utilized for a purpose other than religious observances or memorials. While it was used to warehouse various items, and was once on the verge of being demolished, only to be spared after a significant amount of destruction had already been done. A smattering of the ornate mosaics remained when renovation was begun in 1970. It finally opened in 1997 and visitors can now enjoy the full splendor of the cathedral. The mosaics are absolutely stunning. On the inside there are 7,500 sq ft of mosaics (the largest or second largest collection in the world) and the outside boasts mosaics that tell the story of the Russian Empire.

Due to our time constraints we were unable to tour Saint Isaacs Cathedral, but we did manage a quick "drive-by" to snap photos and revel on the massive scale of the building. As previously mentioned, it, like most religious institutions during the reign of the Bolsheviks, was relegated to other, more mundane uses and suffered from significant neglect.