Baltic Cruise- Day 9: St. Petersburg, Russia- May 26, 2018

Russia. I don’t want to be melodramatic, but it is a place where neither my husband K nor I were willing to spend the night. We always said, that if we visited, it would be on a cruise ship. It felt safer, especially now that they’d closed our consulate in St. Petersburg. The ship even warned everyone in a letter to be sure to be careful and carry our passports and noted that the consulate was closed. Let’s face it, the place is ruled by a guy who has not shown a great deal of compassion nor respect for the rule of law. His long arm has reached out to kill his citizens even in foreign countries.

Of course, we knew this before we left home, which is why we booked our excursion through Holland America, rather than a company with ties to AAA. We figured that Holland America was used to dealing with the bureaucracy and would not leave without us. My daughter J and I were quite adamant that K would not be going off to an evening concert on his own. Our visa was taken care of by booking the excursion through Holland America.

Once again, we did not choose the excursion that was going off to the capital. Moscow was just too far away and held little appeal, anyway. Plus, there was so much to see right here in St. Petersburg.

The ship sent us another letter (it’s a good thing there is a mailbox outside each door) letting us know that it was the anniversary of the founding of the city. So, many, many Russians would be in town. They were working with the tour guides to try to avoid some of the traffic. So, our itinerary would not necessarily be in the order in which it appeared in the brochure. Also, another letter came reminding us that since we had an evening cultural excursion, we needed to order food to be waiting for us in our cabin at 5. It was a limited menu. I chose a sandwich and K chose pasta, and we were able to choose desserts. Iced tea wasn’t on there, but I added it and asked for the packets to sweeten it.

We’d lost an hour, when we changed time zones going to Estonia. That did not help our 5 a. m. wake up feel any better. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the dizziness I was feeling or just the stress of the coming day. We went to breakfast at 5:35 and we each had a good one, since we did not know how long it was until lunch. The Lido deck wasn’t too busy for me to get a Spring Garden Omelet and I also picked up my muesli and a fruit bowl.  The omelet was a little too wet inside, but still tasted good.

 

Weird bridge, we thought.

 We went back to the cabins to wash up and gather our things. The forecast was 73 or 76 degrees, depending on where you looked, and no rain. Right on time at 6:45, we were waiting at the World Stage. The guy calling groups told us that over 2000 people had signed up to go on tours today. There are about 2600 onboard, so that is impressive. And a bit of a logistical nightmare. Oh, and there are 6 ships in port today.

We were off the ship at 7:32. Ship’s officers were at the end of the gangway, this side of customs. We were not allowed to go to the passport control as a family, as we can back home. Instead, each of us spent what felt like a long time in front of the high counter with a large mirror running the length of the wall behind our heads. The officer did a fair amount of time typing, scanning my passport and peering at me. Then, she handed me my passport with my visa paper with my name written in Cyrillic. (Unfortunately, unlike J and K, I didn’t think to photograph that paper and it was taken at the end of the day and a new one was not issued the next. Darn!) We were all finished at 7:37 and went to find the bus.

I actually dozed off in the 12 minutes it took between getting on and the bus driving off. I did wake to hear the guide’s name was Julia and to take a look at some of the buildings we were passing. But, honestly, I fell asleep again. I’d like to blame the early hour, but I fall asleep on tour buses.

 About 8:52, we arrived in Pushkin, a town south of the city, to visit Catherine’s Palace. She did a lot of explaining on the bus and through our headphones about various tsars and empresses who lived here. But, I wound up googling at home to get them all straight. The building was started by Catherine I as a summer palace. Her name in Russian is Ekatarina, which explains the fancy E you see around the place. Empress Elizabeth, her daughter, was going to expand it, but had it torn down and a new palace was built. Next came Catherine the Great, who had the interior refurbished. I wish I could figure out which Alexander and Maria the entwined A and M design seen inside refers to, but there are too many possibilities for me to be sure. It may well be Catherine the Great’s great-grandson.

Anyway, as we lined up to go through the gate, we were greeted by a band playing various tunes, including American. Once through, we saw a very long building in blue and white and with what looked like gold statues. No doubt Empress Elizabeth planned that they would be gold, but Catherine the Great stopped all of this sort of work, thinking it a waste of money. 

There is a relatively simple garden between the road in front of the palace and the elaborate carriage gate. Inside, we had to put on paper booties to protect the floors.

 The staircases were uniformly white, perhaps marble. Here is a shot of the entwined A and M. 

 The architect had obviously seen the hall of mirrors in Versailles. It was a lovely room. If you have the money, you can even rent it out for an event, like Elton John did! The geometry teacher in me loved the floor. I cannot remember how much of it is original, but not much thanks to the Nazis, who occupied the palace and lived in it. Interestingly, whenever referring to that time period, no tour guide ever said, “Germans”. It was always “Nazis”. We wondered if it was out of consideration for the number of German visitors they get now.

Even though we were here fairly early in the day, after the hall, we did not really get to linger long in any room. We’d stop and snap photos, while Julia told us about what we were seeing, little of which sticks with me. I will say that this is one of several different dining rooms, each set as it would have been for some group. The green striped room, like the red one we’d seen before it, was notable, because the stripes were created with colored glass over tin foil, a new invention at the time.

This is one of the stoves in each of the rooms. None worked. They just made them to look nice. The Nazis did not know that and tried lighting fires in the cold Russian winter. Restoration was obviously needed after the war. 

You know how you can’t decide sometimes which picture would look best on the wall? They solved it here by putting them all up!

 I have pictures of every room, but you really don’t need to see that or this blog would go on forever. And they don’t let you photograph the famous Amber Room. When we finished touring at 9:55, we were given 10 minutes for a pit stop. We wound up waiting around until 10:12, before moving on. Had I known, I could have at least bought a postcard.

Next up were the gardens. I was so excited to see tulips in bloom in the ground, a sight I hadn’t seen in Amsterdam, where it is supposedly tulip season. They were lovely and very photogenic. So much so, that I failed to photograph the lilacs we smelled.

 

A lake provided a backdrop for selfies. Some ruler had a habit of building things from places that Russia conquered and, thus, there was a Turkish bath on the lake.

 When we walked on, we admired the trees that were groomed just so and the stream and bridges. Another building on the property served simply as a meeting room away from prying ears. 

 We got back on the bus at 10:45. The bus displayed a temperature of 31 C, which is 87.8 F. I didn’t know, whether that was the temperature inside or out. When we reached the Palace Pavlovsk  at 11:08 it was 24 C or 75.2 F.

This was the location of our lunch. We found tables set for us and were asked that the two families of 3 each sit together to make the tables of 10 work. Meanwhile, there were children dancing on the large central floor. I recognized that! Cotillion! They couldn’t have been more than 11. The girls wore long dresses and those fake long sleeves. The boys seemed to be in suits. Unfortunately, their motions did not show up well on film.

We were given red wine and bottled water. I remembered that my husband said that you can’t drink the water in St. Petersburg. The salad came dressed and, while there was butter at our table, we never got bread. We later heard that most never got bread. Then came a plate with very wet green beans, white rice and chicken with a sauce over it. It wasn’t bad. Dessert was rapidly melting ice cream.

 We were given way too much time for lunch. Yes, we chatted with the others at our table, including the family of 3 from Phoenix. But, we didn’t leave until 12:35, well after everyone had eaten and used the restroom. Later, we’d really regret this wasted time.

It was a 5-minute walk to the bus and we were off at 12:42. We had to drive back to St. Petersburg, so we had time to sleep. At 1:45, we pulled up to a building and there was a guy sitting outside, who was obviously a guard. Since this was to be a pit stop and a chance to shop, I wondered whether he was there to prevent theft or to prevent Russians from going in. In any case, we were given 20 minutes. That is an awful lot of stress to place on folks. It is hard to make good decisions in that amount of time. I managed to buy a few things, after rushing off to the restroom first. As it was, we left 13 minutes late.

At 2:45, the bus driver let us off at a street corner just down from the Hermitage entrance, because it was too hard to get to it with all the traffic. Before we went in, I managed to snap this other photo of the sign celebrating St. Petersburg’s 315^th anniversary. 

 We’d been warned to leave our larger bags and all our water on the bus. And yet, we were held up by a couple that did have a fancy water container. They were finally let through with it, when it was determined that it was empty. Still, why waste our time with this?

 The palace/ museum was seriously crowded. And way too warm. I do not know how this could be good for any of the art in the place. We did not need booties this time. We also did not go in every room. For instance, I shot this malachite columned thing through an open door. We did go in two throne rooms.

This is the Military Gallery in the Winter Palace.  There are places for the 332 portraits of generals who took part in the Patriotic War of 1812. If they didn’t have the guy around to paint his portrait, they left his spot blank.

 The palace has some fabulous ceilings. I don’t know about the floors. There was no time to look down. We were hustled along so fast. 

 The place is an art museum that does not have more than 5% of its collection on display, because there isn’t room. We did see some Della Robbia and the 2 da Vinci they had. (He only did 15.) The da Vinci were difficult to photograph due to the large number of people in front of them and the glass that created a glare.

 They have this statue by Michelangelo and this familiar-looking Caravaggio, too. 

This large thing behind the glass is a clock with an incredible number of moving parts, like the peacock spreading its wings. I loved the malachite table.

 Hallways could be interesting. One had a large number of biblical pictures. 

 They have some large Rubens. I didn’t even try to photograph any of the many Rembrandts they had. I couldn’t believe that they didn’t keep them at a cooler temperature with less natural light coming in.

At 4:25, she gave us 15 minutes to use the restroom and to go to the shop. J and I hurried off. After the restroom, she did a better job than I of finding the shop. We got postcards of some of the art and the rooms, the latter turning out to be paintings of the rooms. She also found pins for our collections.

At 4:42, Julia led us outside into the crowd that was on the street. Unless you stayed close, you could not hear her over the earphones. Half of us managed to cross the street before the light changed. From that side, she could see some of our cohort going the wrong way, because they could not hear her. When everyone was finally together on the river side of the road, there was no sign of the bus. She had to call the driver, who arrived finally at 4:58. While noting that drivers here looked at their cellphones too much, too, I was beginning to worry about getting back to the ship on time.

 That fear worsened when we got off the bus at 5:17 at the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of the city. While Julia got tickets, she asked J to carry the sign with 2 on it to the front of the Peter and Paul Cathedral to show everyone where to go.  The bell tower is 122.5 m high and is the tallest in the city. While waiting, we saw a wedding party with people taunting the couple to kiss, evidently, much like tapping glasses at American receptions. 

Inside, there is the usual beautiful Russian Orthodox front piece hiding the altar from the congregation. No seats. You stand for a service, if there is one. This is another great ceiling.

What sets this church apart is that it is the burial place of all Russian tsars from Peter I  (the Great) to Alexander III, except for Peter II and Ivan VI. Nicholas II and his family and entourage were reburied in the chapel of St. Catherine the Martyr, i.e. St. Catherine of Alexandria (!), on the 80^th anniversary of their deaths. It really is a lovely place and the tsars should all be happy they are together. I think some should be jealous that they got stuck with the white sarcophagi rather than the cool colored ones. So, here in the birthplace of St. Petersburg, where Peter I decided to establish the city, you have all but two of its rulers. Not bad.

We were back on the bus at 5:50. On the way back to the port, Julia pointed out the Rostral Columns that will have flames on top tomorrow in honor of the anniversary date. They are decorated with anchors and bronze ship prows. Marble figures seated at the bases represent the major rivers of Russia. That is seriously cool!

 When we reached the port at 6:17, there was a line next to the terminal building. It continued inside past the stalls and as we passed these, we were given some papers advertising special deals. I felt absolutely antsy in the passport line, as we were to have been in the Queen’s Lounge at 6:15. J said she’d stop there to tell them that we were coming as soon as we got our tickets from our cabins. I was through the passport line at 6:33. We each hurried on board, knowing we had to have our bags scanned before going upstairs.  A quick pit stop, grabbed the sandwich to eat on the run and drank some of the tea, knowing the food would not be safe to eat later, and rushed off to the elevator. We flew to the Queen’s Lounge, where the woman told us she would call down to the bus to wait for us.

We had to go through immigration. Again. But, at 6:51, we were on the bus, which departed 4 minutes later. Our guide this time was much older and named Natalia.  I managed to stay awake looking at the passing city as we drove to the Folkloric Spectacular.

When we reached the theater at 7:50, we had to wait a few moments to get out. We noticed an electronic ad sign and realized we were seeing the trailer for Han Solo. K managed to get a photo of the title.

 Inside, we were confronted by several sets of stairs that needed to be climbed. I opted to go to the restroom first. There was an awfully long, thin counter inside with a mirror. I have no idea what that was for. There were a couple of stalls that didn’t lock properly, although one had cleaning supplies and didn’t need to lock, I suppose. I then tackled those stairs. Thank goodness for the marble railing!

We were not the only ones who missed out on eating. I overheard a Holland America rep asking if some from her group could go to get food to bring into the theater, because they had not gotten to eat. She was told no. There would be a 20-minute  intermission, during which we would be served a glass of champagne or juice and maybe they could get food then. I doubted it.

Even though I hadn’t seen a Princess ship in port, there were Princess passengers who came in after we did.

 The show was introduced in English, but performed totally in Russian. Some of it was very visual jokes, which were easy to understand. Some songs had some acting that one could get, too. Mainly, it was pretty costumes, good dancing and authentic-sounding music. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

We didn’t buy any souvenirs or DVDs at intermission, but K and I had the champagne. J went for the carafes of water and we had some, too.

The show was over at 10 and the bus left to take us back at 10:05. Natalia pointed out various sites on the way back, but we’d already seen many of them earlier in the day. Traffic was much lighter and we were at the port at 10:28.

J and I decided that we’d had too little time to shop and we did have those offers with us, so we checked out the booths. We both managed to find some things.

Passport control was easier this time and we were through at 11. We went to the Lido to look for a snack, but no luck. We were in our cabins at 11:15. Both K and J called to have the food trays picked up, as directed on a card. K finally gave up and put ours in the hall, where there were others.

By the way, we saw people out enjoying the sun, especially on the riverbank, relatively late in the day. It seems that this is the time of year known as “White Nights”. Understandably, the winter is known as “Black Days”.

We saw so much today and there was no time to process it. This is a two-day excursion and our day starts obscenely early again tomorrow.