{"id":209,"date":"2009-10-10T20:56:01","date_gmt":"2009-10-11T04:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lebca.wordpress.com\/?p=209"},"modified":"2013-10-09T22:58:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T06:58:43","slug":"the-hermitage-st-isaacs-my-favorite-building-sunday-21-september-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/st-petersburg\/the-hermitage-st-isaacs-my-favorite-building-sunday-21-september-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hermitage, St. Isaac’s, & My Favorite Building – Sunday 20 September 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

We stepped out of the bus on a brisk morning and began our trek to the Hermitage. Along the way:<\/p>\n

\"Church
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. This church was built over the place where Alexander II was assassinated by small bombs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Winter Palace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We're
We’re in the courtyard! About to go inside the palace.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Main Staircase of the Hermitage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another
Another shot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Peter
Peter the Great’s Small Throne Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Armorial Room. That’s a lot of gold.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pretty
Pretty Elegant Doorway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Statues
Statues of Russian Warriors from ancient Russia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One
One Huge Golden Goblet. Makes Harry Potter’s Tri-Wizard Cup look like a toy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The centerpiece, a bowl made of Aventurine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"War
War Gallery memorializing the Russian generals from the war of 1812 (against Napoleon).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Three
Three hundred and thirty-two of them…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Alexaner
Alexaner 1, who lead Russia to victory against the tyrant Napoleon. Or maybe it was the cold weather.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Saint
St. George Hall: Large Throne Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The 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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\"Exquisite
Exquisite Ceiling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"And
And the matching floor. That’s how big the gold pattern on the ceiling is, as big as the pattern on this wood floor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Peter's
Peter’s Large Throne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Lapis-lazuli Vase<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"On
On the other side of the door, the Malachite Vase<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Pavilion Hall. Check out the Peacock Clock on the left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"When
When the clock goes off the birds move and chirp. To keep it working, they only let it chime once a month.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An
An incredible Mosaic floor in the same room.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another
Another Clock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Council Staircase. Called this, because during Soviet time the administration on the upper floor would communicate to the lower level by yelling to secretary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Really
Really cool table at the top of the stairs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Next
Next we walked through the Da Vinci Room where Benois Madonna sits along with Little Madonna. They are originals.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Entrance
Entrance to the Hermitage Theatre. We didn’t go in though, unfortunately.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Large Italian Skylight Room. An Amazing ceiling.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Gallery of History of Ancient Paintings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Main Staircase of the New Hermitage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Yet
Yet Another Clock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A shot of the marathon finish celebration. Loud music accompanied us through these parts of the Hermitage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Blurry,
Blurry, but nevertheless a clock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A beautiful Strasser Clock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Close
Close-up of the face.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cool
Cool Centerpiece<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Austin,
Austin, Natalie & I pausing as we exit the Hermitage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Pillars out front. Pretty impressive. To see it in its entirety from outside, scroll down to the first day of St. Petersburg.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Natalie's
Natalie’s excited to go into Isaac’s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"My
My favorite photo from St. Isaac’s. I was awestruck by the inside of this building and St. Isaac’s Cupola.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Our
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Check
Check out the zoom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mista
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
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)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"And
And now we get to go upstairs and walk around the outside of the Cupola.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Natalie
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Overlooking
Overlooking the University and Neva River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another
Another view of Petersburg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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:<\/p>\n

\"Barclay
Barclay de Tolly: Minister of War during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mikhail
Mikhail Kutuzov: Commander in Chief of Russia during the Napoleon invasion. His body is interred in the cathedral.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Columns
Columns along a curve lead to the Sanctuary.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Sanctuary<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And finally, Kazan from the front:<\/p>\n

\"Kazan
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A bookstore across the street which sells books in English. I couldn’t find them though, but I didn’t look very hard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An
An amazing globe on the top.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"When
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.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Our
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!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We stepped out of the bus on a brisk morning and began our trek to the Hermitage. Along the way: 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. Then the tour ended and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-st-petersburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1390,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/1390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lebca.com\/fromrussiawithlove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}