I apologize for this almost “double” post, so soon since my last one, but I need to catch up to the present. The weekend began shortly after my Friday lunch when I headed off to the Higher School of Economics to practice piano on the only grand piano I’m allowed to play:
It’s quite a nice piano. The action is really nice but in the middle of the higher registers the volume drops a bit. Russia doesn’t seem to have piano benches—only in piano stores, and recitals at the conservatory. So I had to put my Russian books on my chair to raise the seat a little bit. They also call grand pianos “Piano Royal.”It’s made by August Foerster, a German Company. I think I like the sound and feel better than Steinway’s but that could be because I have no other piano to compare.
Then Tanya, a friend I met at the dorm when she stopped to listen to me practice on the upright there, called me and said we were going to the Pushkin museum. They had a visiting gallery of the Lichtenstein family. Some of my favorite painters and their pieces were:
Freidrich Gauermann: The Well at Zeelam Lake. Watering Horses at Lake Zell. The Harvest Wagon.
Ferdinand Goerg Waldmuller: View of Moedling.
Thomas Ender: The Gulf of Sorrento.
Jakob Alt: Church at Kaschau.
Jens Lekman: Black Cat.
Then we visited the sculptor part of the museum.
The first room. Actually, one of like three rooms. It was a pretty small exhibit.Tanya got me taking a picture.David. Just a copy though. But I bet you can’t just put this guy into your normal copy machine to make a double.
Then we headed over to Pushkin Cafe after the museum closed and we were forced to leave.
A photo for the tourist picture book of me at Pushkin Cafe. Everything here is outrageously expensive, but we have no intention of eating there anyway.
Next Tanya showed me this grocery store that had taken occupancy in an old Soviet building that looked like an incredible museum.
The groceries look really out of place here with these exquisite decorations. I was finally able to find soymilk here! I bought one Liter and drank almost the whole thing that night when I got back. Unfortunately it was $6 so I haven’t been back to get more.Of course I snapped a shot of the clock. But actually, this specific photo is Tanya’s as it came out better.Tanya! Taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.Disneyland! Or maybe if Disneyland had gotten bombed or something. We call it the “Flea Market.” It has a whole bunch of souvenirs and old postcards, broken cameras, US Military Surplus (no idea how), and all kinds of paraphernalia. We struck gold by finding this place. I bought a couple of Soviet propaganda posters and postcards as well as some gifts.A shot of the left side of the market. It was built to resemble one of the Russian city’s Kremlins.An old mill inside the market area. I don’t know if it ever worked though.
Later that day, Tanya and I decided to go to a honey festival where representatives from 81 provinces in Russia brought honey from their respective areas. The festival had been going on for almost a week now and was almost over so I wanted to get some honey before it closed.
Honey! Everywhere I looked there was honey. And behind each tasting table, there were buckets and buckets of honey. I must have consumed a cup of honey during our time there. Which was alright, because my body was producing a lot of energy to keep me warm. My hands turned purple.An example of me tasting honey. They had all kinds of honey. From clear and spiderwebby, to opaque and cakey or like salty in texture. The different tastes were spread out all over the taste bud map too. They had honey made with strawberries in them, apple honey, eucalyptus honey, mint honey, etc.Tanya tasting honey.I got out my honey to show it off, and then got some on my gloves. So then I proceeded to clean the honey off of them. It worked.My loot. But its not all for me. I bought/sold it for/to people when I came back to the dorm. I kept one of the bears on the right. The best honey I tasted there. It’s super tasty and smooth and beautiful. I eat it with my Kasha (Russian oatmeal) in the morning.
I started a new book the past week and am now into the a good amount of plot. Although, it’s pretty short so it wasn’t too difficult to get there. It’s called Fahrenheit 451. I really like it though. One of my favorite quotes so far is: “How rarely did other people’s faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?” (p11) and I really like “It fed in silence with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching.” (p14) (in reference to a hose going down a woman’s throat to basically pump her stomach of sleeping pills) Time to read more of it!
We woke early again, which was fine because we got great sleep in a super comfortable bed (except for the hot temperature so we took out the woolen filling in our sheets). Breakfast was great but we ate all the poppyseed sweets the night before so they didn’t have any more. We were late to the bus because some of us couldn’t get up…Adeel, and were taking a shower when we were leaving the hotel.
We drove to where we were sightseeing in Suzdal and stopped to take a group photo in the morning light:
It was somewhat misty in the morning, and a bit colder than the day before, quite a bit it seemed.
Then we stopped in front of an ancient village, er rather about 17th and 18th century Russia.
The EntranceThe layout of the village. All these buildings were actually standing in the 18th century, and were transported here from areas around Suzdal.Here’s what the village looks like. I don’t remember much from here because I was too occupied noticing how cold it was. The pain in my hands was pretty distracting.A Loom. This is how people made money back in the day. They definitely had a market for warm clothes. They did it by hand though, no machines. Tough work. After knitting the hat I’m wearing, I can appreciate the frustration, patience, and feeling of accomplishment these women must have had.This was apparently the “safe” room in the house where the inhabitants stored their valuables. The really creepy mannequin is supposed to show us how short the people were, and what clothes they wore. But it just creeped us out as we were reminded of all the scary little girls in pop culture recently: The Ring, FEAR (videogame), Grudge.Windmills! It gets pretty windy here. But the windmills grind the grain up into really fine sandlike particles. The workers keep them in wood barrels until the grain cools before pouring them into sacks.A sweet pic of me and the windmill. I guess I’m not wearing my hat today.The inside of the mill. The triangular shaped object spins when the mill spins and grinds the grain in the barrel beneath.I’m not sure if these were 18th century seesaws or just for the little kids who were bored, or for American tourists like us, who want to try everything out. Anyway, we had a lot of fun.This swing definitely looked like it was from the 18th century, as it was breaking when we swung on it. So we only used it for photos.Go Bears! I guess Berkeley has really left its mark everywhere around the world.Cute couple on a bridge over the water.So this picture pretty much sums up our entire trip. If you don’t know him already, Chris Horvat is a man of many talents, including (obviously) modeling. The moment captured here is locally referred to as “The Precious” here in Russia.But those two words always bring another reference to mind (LoTR), and I was forced to reveal what lies beneath. By the way, that’s a flower made out of wood.
This bridge took us to the Suzdal Kremlin:
The Suzdal KremlinA shot of the Kremlin as we were leaving.Original bronze doors with bible scenes once stood in the doorway of the church in the Kremlin.The Tsar’s Lantern. Apparently this means the largest lantern in Russia.Beautiful murals decorated some of the church’s walls. A male choir sang for us and were quite good. They are famous in Russia and often give concerts here as the acoustics are really good.Inside the main room of the Kremlin. The architecture used new design/technology that eliminated the necessity of a central supportive beam.A Good Thanksgiving Table. I can’t believe I’m missing the best holiday ever. Oh well, better get over it.Old map of America. There’s California to the left, separated from the rest of America by a large body of water, i.e. California is really an island. I’m not sure what information they used to create this map. Obviously, a not too reliable source; they probably didn’t have wikipedia back then.Spanish Jesus! This is the only non-white Jesus we have seen the whole time in Russia.The original clock on the Kremlin building. Instead of numerals, it has Russian letters to designate the time.Tres amigos, err in Russian: Три друзья.A shot of the Kremlin as we were leaving.We then visited an old Abbey that turned into a prison during Soviet time. Even though these walls date back to when Suzdal was still being attacked by other provinces, they were built after the last attack and so never got to test their strength.These were the prison cells. How cold it must have been with windows like these. After WWII this prison was transformed into a juvenile hall type building for delinquents.The bell tower in the Abbey. We listened to a 10 minute concert of one man playing all the bells. It was pretty cool watching him, but the music wasn’t too great.
We then drove back to Vladimir where we were given a treat: Traditional Russian Dancers.
Group Photo, again! Outside the restaurant where we were going to eat a traditional Russian lunch. Yes, Chris is about to consume Dian’s head.We sat down at our tables and had no idea why they were set up this way. Until these people walked in…The Russians started their show after we had finished 2 courses and were waiting for the main course. It went on for longer than we expected, about an hour; but it got more and more fun as it progressed.More than just dancing, there were little guitars, percussion instruments and two accordians. The two accordians played the background music the whole time.And then they involved us into the show! We think Adeel was some sort of prince and all the girls were trying to grab him but that his character didn’t want them or something.This dance involved lassoing a member of the audience, bringing them out to the circle, and then dancing for a little. Then the new person would lasso another and bring them out.They even got to play instruments for part of the show. At this point, we were all either laughing in amusement, in shock, or laughing at each other. It was great.I even got to show off some of my dance moves; or rather, be lead around by my partner and try to imitate as best I could.We would all run to the center, shout something in Russian, then back out and do it again. Then run around the circle to the beat while the people in yellow & black or blue & white would sing.
Then they pulled us all out into the main room for the final dance. Normally they move the guests out doors at that point and we dance outside, but it was too cold so we got stuck performing for all the other guests in the restaurant. When we got out onto the dance floor we were shocked by the BEAR that was standing in the center. It may have just been a man in a bear suit but probably it was a real bear. We had no idea what the point of the bear was, but it made everything more ridiculous and hilarious so we just went with it. We ran around holding hands in a circle and then ran to the center, hugged the bear, and ran back out. Then we played some games. The first was a blindfold game where the person in the center would get blindfolded and then another would spin him/her around and push him/her towards the circle and the blindfoldee would try to grab someone. Then they (yea bad grammar but I hate typing him/her) would blindfold the next person and the game would continue. Chris rigged it so he grabbed me, then blindfolded me and pushed me into the bear AHHH! But I didn’t get bitten, and one of the female dancers saved me. Next, duels took place. Chris and David put pillow cases on their heads, looking like KKK members and would swing stuffed pillow case at each other until someone’s hat fell off. This went on for a couple of rounds. Next, there was a woven wooden shoe attached to a string and the person in the center would swing it around trying to rope the feet of a member from the circle. We roped Dian, and just about fell over laughing when he began to swing the shoe. His intensity and focus were so absurd, and he got the shoe spinning too fast to see, at which point he let loose and it flew into someone. After all this, we were led back to our tables and got to feast on the rest of the food, which we had almost forgotten as we were having so much fun.
What was really admirable though was that these performers are actually factory workers or other local workers who do this in their spare time. They get paid for it, but mostly they do it for the fun of it, and to share the culture with us foreigners.
Outside the restaurant. This is some sort of small resort because there is this pond area as well as other buildings like a bar, bed & breakfast, and others.
After a long day we all piled into the bus to travel back to Moscow. In about 30 minutes the inevitable happened:
Our bus driver got pulled over and had to bribe the cop. Fortunately he got off only paying 100 rubles, approximately $3.30. So now with bus drivers we are 2 for 3 getting pulled over. The one that didn’t get pulled over, to his credit, was the “best bus driver in Russia.”
On the way home I relaxed and read about Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, Father Callahan, and Mia. As I was pretty close to the end of their tale, at least while I’m in Russia, I decided to finish the book. Just as the light faded, I closed the pages to the biggest cliff hanger in the whole series. Just one more part left. It will be a good gift for when I return home. I hope my mom will have finished it so I can snag it before Spring semester begins. Because, I’m getting close to the “clearing at the end of the path,” (Stephen King) and even though I kind of don’t ever want to get there, I’m super curious about what Roland and his katet will find.
It has been too long since I’ve last posted, my apologies. My classes have sped up, and along with spending more time on them I’ve been sightseeing more in Moscow instead of sitting at my computer. Shame on me. On another note, if anyone would like a picture from my blog, send me an email describing the photo, and from which post, and I can send you the full size version. It may take a few days but I’ll get to it eventually.
Anyway, October 3rd came early. We had to be on the bus by 7am or something like that. A 4 hour drive followed. But no matter, I sat in the last row and stretched out until Natalie figured out that I had too much space compared to everyone else and stole the right 2.5 seats. But there was still enough room and I was able to get a decent 2 hours of sleep. Prior to us sleeping though, our tour guide, a friend of Elena Pischik, gets onto the bus and tells us he brought wine and bread & cheese for our morning meal to start the adventure. Naturally, I passed on the wine, but took the bread and cheese for when I woke. And when I did, I found the wine (and little sleep the night before) had quite an effect on our students:
Austin passed out (not unusual)Chris serenaded in his sleep by the music from his headphones.Will quite obviously out cold. Reminds me of Chip & Dale, the chipmunks.Dian, not looking very comfortable.Lenny, the sleeping king. Wherever we go, he always falls asleep at some point, in some of the most ridiculous positions.David and Nikolai looking comfy.Natalie soundly asleep.
We finally arrived at Vladimir and faced the golden gate:
This gate was originially built into a wall that surrounded Vladimir. It has been standing since the 12th Century.A view from the top of the Golden GateThe protective wall, and what’s left of the ditch for the moat on the right.Apparently the wall didn’t work too well as this diorama shows of the Mongolian Invasion. This happened multiple times as exlpained by our tour guide. The diorama needs some technology updating; we were laughing more than taking it seriously. The language they used to describe the warriors was absurd as well: the “valiant” Russians and the Mongolian “horde,” “ruthless.”A Soviet Cosmonaut suit. Note the American/Soviet arm patch.A red church outside the walls of Vladimir.Looking down from the Church’s balcony. It is now a museum for blown glass. USSR made it mandatory for all glass making factories to be at least 150km away from Moscow because they kept blowing up. Vladimir is the closest city that fits this rule and so the glass making factories were moved here.Close-up of the Glass centerpiece.Old Style Matroshka DollsThe red vase with the gold lining was made by cracking the glass in cold water and then filled the cracks with gold (big & small).The Blue Glass Light is beautiful but note the green glassware. It has uranium in it to make it that green color. Way cool. Then they outlawed working with uranium because of some health reasons.A glass flower on that centerpiece a few photos back.This monument represents the unity of the three types of soviet people: worker, warrior, and baker/farmer or something.Group Photo! as we headed over to St. Demetrius CathedralSt. Demetrius Cathedral has a lot of lions on it. No one knows when it was built but at the end of the 12th century there are repors of the St. Demetrius icon being brought to the cathedral. There is no explanation yet of why there are so many non-christian carvings on the church.Looking out over the countryside from St. Demetrius Cathedral we see Russia’s rural beauty, as well as a Nuclear Power plant to the left.As the sole physicist of the group, Chris ponders nuclear power for us.Another view from St. Demetrius, a horse and his rider over the countryside.
We then took a bus ride to one of the active monasteries in Vladimir
Visiting one of the active monasteries in Vladimir, containing the Bogolyubovsky Cathedral behind me. Nice hat eh?Group Photo! Our tour guide was super cool and offered to take group photos of us most places we went. He also said we should contact him about coming back to Russia because he can get us visas.The lower stones here are part of the original cathedral built in the 12th century.Andrei Bogolyubsky, the ruler of Vladimir during the 12th century, had problems humbling himself to others. Some think after examining his body that his neck bones were fused and so he didn’t have a choice. Naturally, he was assassinated because of this issue as well as some other diplomatic ones. He was super short though like 4ft (they have his body inside, he was entombed and his body was preserved somehow, so I saw what was left of his hands and feet, that’s what stuck out from the clothing under the glass cover) and his exotic look comes from his mom being part of the nomadic group called the Kipchaks who lived in felt tents and roamed Russia.The entrance to the staircase that spirals upwards into Bogolyubsky’s chamber where he was assassinated.In order to enter this active church women must wear skirts. So Natalie, Natalie, and Christina got to play dress-up.As we walked out into the grassland to see the Church of Pokrov-on-Nerl I stopped to take this photo. I think it’s one of my favorite photos of Russia so far.The sun/sky combination was good for photos today. The Church of Pokrov-on-Nerl stands at the end of this path.Church of Pokrov-on-Nerl. When the water rises in the early Spring, it looks like this church floats on water, or is submerged depending on your taste.Up-close. The decorations are asymmetrical. Most of the churches here had asymmetrical aspects about them; maybe it was a style of the time. Our tour guide said it was unknown why this was the case.They were selling photos of the church. Here is one where the Spring melt has flooded the grass. From afar, it would look like the Church of Pokrov-on-Nerl was underwater, or floating, especially if there was fog, which apparently is common.These four had cold hands and bought gloves made out of sheeps wool from a street vendor. Unfortunately, the wool would rub off onto everything they touched. Eventually, they were spitting it out of their mouth, and everyone had it on them (we played an unofficial game of making sure everyone had some sheep on them).Me standing at the edge of the water. A good day to wear my boots I’d say. Oh, and it was pretty cold.
Then we drove to our hotel which was fantastic. All you can eat dinner buffet style, comfortable beds, and all you can eat breakfast, as well as ping pong tables, a disco, gym (I was able to ride a bike for 20 min!). They had these poppyseed mini-cinnamon-like pastries with lemon. They were to die for. I think I ate 10 of them. We kept hoarding them. If there’s one thing Russians do well, it’s poppyseed. I’ve never had better poppyseed bread/pastries/sweet buns anywhere else, and I’m loving it. It’s a pretty good motivation for running in the cold mornings.
I hope tomorrow I will have time to post the Suzdal day as well as the lunch back in Vladimir with Russian dancing and us dancing with them.
So as the title might imply, these two weeks were somewhat slow. But I needed that. As a group we got some good relaxation in but even with the extra time I didn’t get any more work done, and continued to stay up late the night before assignments were due. That’s changed now, I’m getting better and only have 2 more problems on my Topology assignment that’s due Wednesday.
Anyway, the week began with my first session of tutoring an 8th grader in English, specifically translating vocabulary from maths, biology, chemistry, and other school subjects from Russian to English, so when he moves in November he won’t be super shocked/confused. I went out to where his school was on the very bottom of the red Metro line:
Yugo-Zapadnaya Station. A huge apartment building at the edge of the city. Behind me lies a path along the road that opens up into a park. I headed there to meet Sasha and then we went to his school.
On a different note, here’s how Russian’s park:
All over the sidewalk, in any way, direction, and angle they please. I'm not sure why I didn't think this as weird earlier. I will try to include more photos of stuff like this. Apparently back in the early 90's they didn't even have lanes on the roads and people would drive wherever they wanted.
Natasha scored an apartment when her ‘new’ family friends left town for 3 weeks. They have an oven and we lack one. So some of us went over one weeknight and had lasagna. All cooking supervised by Austin. For dessert we had a chocolate cake, with the thickest cream (homemade) I’ve had in a long time (to fix that I went for a run the next morning).
Doesn't that look delicious! It was. We made 2 pots and only ate one. So there were lots of leftovers.
On Friday night the 25th of September we went to Natalie’s (we began calling the apartment ‘Natalie’s), and had a low key night watching ‘I love you man.’ Here is a special photo of us chillaxing after the film:
This is what a mathematician's party looks like. Not really, but we all made fun of each other for being on our laptops and not socializing.
There are a few subtleties in this photo that make it special. First and foremost is the background on Chris’s laptop (the one in lower LH corner). It is a photo of the saddest dog in the world (taken from reddit.com). In addition, Chris’s expression matches that of the dog. Next, is the background of the laptop on the right of the screen: Mark Thom. Mark Thom is one of the students in our program and Adeel took the most amazing photo of him and is now using it as his background…the creepiness of that makes it funnier. Mark Thom:
In the words of Adeel Khan, paraphrasing Kanye West, "This photo is one of the best photos of all time."
Can't forget about Natalie in the corner making the party space bigger than just the couches.
Right before we decide to sleep which is around 4am Natalie informs us she, Christina, and Daniel are going to the ballet the next morning. Since, I didn’t come to the apartment with anything appropriate to wear to the show, along with about everyone else, we decided to pass. Also, we wanted to sleep more than 5 hours. So when Natalie woke up to leave, she captured us sprawled out around the living room:
The 'Cute Boys' photo. Probably the most comfortable sleep I've had in Russia yet. Yes that is three people on the pull-out bed. Apparently all of us were very comfortable. The switch of direction by the middle-person, Lenny, was the key to maximum comfort here.
Chris constructed a bed out of two armchairs and their cushions. He claims it was super comfortable. I dunno why he sleeps with his knee up like that.
The next night we went out to 35mm KINO, a movie theater that shows films in English, and watched ‘Moon’, a very entertaining and thought provoking low-budget science fiction film that was released this summer and is quite on par with District 9. Since the movie theater was down the block from Natalie’s we all ended up sleeping over there again. Sunday morning we back over to the dorm and I took some photos of my room as promised:
My bed to the left. Austin in his bed, the table/desk/group_study_area fridge, closet, towel. Don't forget the linoleum floor.From my desk spot, where I'm sitting now actually typing this. Our shelving space to the left. I borrowed Planet Earth from Natalie's; it's at the end of the table. Our water boiler sits on top of the fridge. We have to boil all the water that we drink, which is a lot since soymilk is so hard to find as well as expensive. $12 for a Liter.
The bedding is a little odd. No fitted sheet. Just a flat sheet below and then a flat sheet above with some wool matting that fits into it. The sheet is more like a thin duvet cover. On top lies the thin blue blanket. But the heaters crank here and I haven’t been cold once yet. Quite comfortable actually. I’ve gotten used to the difference and sleep pretty well now.
We stepped out of the bus on a brisk morning and began our trek to the Hermitage. Along the way:
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. This church was built over the place where Alexander II was assassinated by small bombs.The Winter PalaceWe’re in the courtyard! About to go inside the palace.The Main Staircase of the Hermitage.Another shot.Peter the Great’s Small Throne RoomThe Armorial Room. That’s a lot of gold.Pretty Elegant DoorwayStatues of Russian Warriors from ancient Russia.One Huge Golden Goblet. Makes Harry Potter’s Tri-Wizard Cup look like a toy.The centerpiece, a bowl made of Aventurine.War Gallery memorializing the Russian generals from the war of 1812 (against Napoleon).Three hundred and thirty-two of them…Alexaner 1, who lead Russia to victory against the tyrant Napoleon. Or maybe it was the cold weather.St. George Hall: Large Throne RoomThe Double-headed Eagle, on this chandelier and many others, represents the Emperor’s dual sovereignty: secular and religious and/or dominance of the Byzantine Emperors (way back when) over the East and West.
Exquisite CeilingAnd the matching floor. That’s how big the gold pattern on the ceiling is, as big as the pattern on this wood floor.Peter’s Large ThroneThe Lapis-lazuli VaseOn the other side of the door, the Malachite VaseThe Pavilion Hall. Check out the Peacock Clock on the left.When the clock goes off the birds move and chirp. To keep it working, they only let it chime once a month.An incredible Mosaic floor in the same room.Another ClockThe Council Staircase. Called this, because during Soviet time the administration on the upper floor would communicate to the lower level by yelling to secretary.Really cool table at the top of the stairs.Next we walked through the Da Vinci Room where Benois Madonna sits along with Little Madonna. They are originals.The Doors to the Da Vinci Room. It’s sort of gross how they get the deep red color on these doors and other wood furniture around the palace. Blood. Tortoise blood. They boil the tortoises alive and the blood seeps out and stains the liquid.Entrance to the Hermitage Theatre. We didn’t go in though, unfortunately.The Large Italian Skylight Room. An Amazing ceiling.The Gallery of History of Ancient PaintingsThe Main Staircase of the New HermitageYet Another ClockA shot of the marathon finish celebration. Loud music accompanied us through these parts of the Hermitage.Blurry, but nevertheless a clock.A beautiful Strasser ClockClose-up of the face.Cool CenterpieceAustin, Natalie & I pausing as we exit the Hermitage.
Now onto St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Personally, I think Church of our Savior Christ Jesus in Moscow has nothing on this cathedral. St. Isaac’s seems larger, and is definitely more impressive.
The Pillars out front. Pretty impressive. To see it in its entirety from outside, scroll down to the first day of St. Petersburg.Natalie’s excited to go into Isaac’s.My favorite photo from St. Isaac’s. I was awestruck by the inside of this building and St. Isaac’s Cupola.Our tour guide “explains us” (this is how they say it in Russia) how they constructed the pillars using this model. This invention allowed them to put one pillar up every 45 minutes.The four different stages of this church. The third version was never actually completed. They tore it down to build the fourth and current one.The Cupola, and the dove with a 6ft wingspan. During Soviet time Stalin removed it and replace it with a Foucault’s pendulum to get rid of any religious connotation, instead of demolishing it…thankfully.Check out the zoom.Mistah JC himself depicted as a white dude almost everywhere in Russia, who woulda thought? Except for once, in Suzdal we saw him as a Spaniard. He’s truly a talented dude; I’ve never met someone who could change his appearance so drastically and so often.The altar, saints, disciples, and Mary. No chairs anywhere as in Russian Orthodox churches everyone stands for the entire service. I bet it’s to prevent people from sleeping. (Even though this building is no longer an active church, which is why Christ the Savior Church in Moscow gets to be the largest ‘active’ church)And now we get to go upstairs and walk around the outside of the Cupola.Natalie & I on top of St. Isaac’s. This photo would have been a lot better had I smiled more. Unfortunately, the one where I smiled came out blurry: LAME. So I’m gonna have to photoshop this. Check out the university in the background.Overlooking the University and Neva River.Another view of Petersburg
Then the tour ended and we headed over to my favorite building in all of Russia thus far. I had only seen it from afar while driving on the bus, but I definitely wanted to see it up close. Andrey Voronikhin modelled it after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. So I guess I will like the Vatican. Two statues stand guard over this cathedral:
Barclay de Tolly: Minister of War during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.Mikhail Kutuzov: Commander in Chief of Russia during the Napoleon invasion. His body is interred in the cathedral.Columns along a curve lead to the Sanctuary.The Sanctuary
And finally, Kazan from the front:
Kazan Cathedral in all its magnificence and glory, dedicated to Our Lady Kazan. It still looks great even though the top is covered in scaffolding.A bookstore across the street which sells books in English. I couldn’t find them though, but I didn’t look very hard.An amazing globe on the top.When I saw this I knew the end was inevitable. The machines will take over, maybe not in America but here in Russia they already have begun, with St. Petersburg as their headquarters (as I’ve never seen this in Moscow). Luckily, we were on our way back to the hostel to grab our stuff and get on the train.Our trip ended with us caravaning to St. Petersburg’s Moscow train station and waiting for our train. To end it, I read about Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Father Callahan. Unfortunately I did not sleep well this train ride and shifted in and out of sleep the whole way. I think it’s because our window would not open and so it got uncomfortably hot. Back to Moscow!
Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside Peterhof. This is quite a bummer as I can’t say I remember what any of the inside looks like. All I remember is that there were 3 architects and so 3 different styles. The first was Peter the Great’s architect, and his style was mostly wood and the most conservative in ornamentation. There is only one room left now in that style, and it is my favorite style out of the three. The second style was a Baroque style made by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli for Elizabeth of Russia between 1745 and 1755. During this phase, the upper gardens were added and two wings were added to the palace to make it massive. It looked better as a quaint summer palace with Peter, but Elizabeth wanted more I guess. The last style was overseen by Catherine the Great and was in a Classical style.
I remember everything looking exquisite and amazing, but no details. The funnest part was that because it was raining/sprinkling, we had to wear these booties over our feet which were alike to the exercise board that simulated skating and you watched that workout video that led you through the workout. As a kid though I would just put the cloth booties on and slide across the 6 foot plastic board, which is exactly what we did all through Peterhof. Which reminds me, there were a lot of hardwood floors. This is probably why I don’t remember too much as we were skating the whole time.
But after we finished with the indoors, we got to take photos of the outside:
The grounds from the palace upper level. Yes the white guard rail is supposed to be a straight line and the two vase things are directly to my left and right. But I didn't feel like fooling around with Photoshop to get it exactly right. It kind of has that impressionistic feel this way I think, k maybe not.Looking back up at the palace. The gold statue is a man opening some fish's mouth so the water can shoot up. He's pretty strong.Continuing down the waterway.Heading to the left in the previous photo we arrived at this fountain. Since Peterhof is the Russian Versailles, the grounds were huge and we in no way covered a majority of them.The grounds looked like this for the most part. If I lived here I would wake up every morning and run the perimeter or zigzag through it. The air was super clean and I was jealous. It's not like this in Moscow. Realistically though, I would probably run twice a week as a recovery. The day before each run I'd probably ride my bike along the coast trying to see Finland. I'd fill in the other days with huge capture the flag games. Mowing these lawns could be pretty fun with a tractor.It's even got little creeks trickling through the forest.Pipers! Or Russian Horns! I'm not really sure, but we caught the last bit of their show when we walked up. They were playing the Haydn Lo Speziale Overture, or a piece of it.The Stair Fountain, as I call it. After we walked to the upper level and looked around but it was mostly forest and a pond, so we came back down to look for the trick fountains.
We had heard there were trick fountains all over the grounds but we had yet to see one. After deciding to find one, we realized we didn’t know what to look for as it probably would look like a normal fountain. Luckily we stumbled upon one by accident:
After running across to check the response time (man it was laggy, I would hate to LAN with this latency), I decided to man up and get wet. I had a rain jacket after all.Look your enemies in the eyes when they attack. It freaks 'em out. It apparently worked. I delayed the gold head from shooting water at me until I was already running out of the strike zone.I got very wet. But it was worth it. Clothes dry.Looking out past the distant ship, trying to catch a glimpse of Finland, I pondered what Peter thought when he decided to build his fortress and Palace here. No not really, but it seemed like a good caption.It's night time and we are hitting up all the malls and shops in Petersburg because Austin and I want new shoes. I scored with some slip-on leather shoes with cyrillic on the inside, a rarety even in Russia I've been told. Then we walked back along ulitsa Lenina (every city has a street named after Lenin), and Moscow's got his body. This is a hotel along that street, I think. We stopped in Mango, Zara, and of course the Puma store before heading back to the dorm, stopping to notice the Carl's Jr. We ended up eating there the next day because we were all craving a Western Burger after seeing Carl's in such odd circumstances. Guess what? In Russia Carl's Jr. serves beer on tap, and it was the first food place that allowed free refills (of soft drinks)—or at least had no sign saying "No free refills." 🙂
That’s it for the night. We hung out inside the hostel for the rest of the night and took it easy. I read a bit more about Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake listened to some music and got some shuteye (something I’m craving at the moment).
