St Petersburg, Venice of the North

I have briefly been to St. Petersburg on two previous occasions. The first was back in January of 2000. I went there for three days to stay with some OM people. I arrived in the early morning on the train in a sweat because I had the flu and a fever. Needless to say, I saw very little of the city. The weather was awful, hovering around zero degrees, rainy, icy and windy.
The second occasion was in 2008 for a few hours on our way to Finland at the end of our first term in Russia. We sat with some friends in a cafe and chatted about the previous couple of years.

Today we are in Helsinki on the first day of our three week holiday in Finland. We passed through St. Petersburg yesterday. Yesterday was actually a painfully long day of travel. We left home at 6am and arrived in Helsinki 22 hours later. We had to completely check in to our second flight in Moscow, not being allowed to check our bags through from Krasnoyarsk to St Petersburg. Anyway, we did have 6 hours in St. Petersburg in between our flight and the train to Helsinki later in the evening.

Six hours was enough time to see something. The weather was reasonable, 12-13 degrees, overcast some of the time but also sunny some of the time. I thought of seeing the Petropavlosk Fortress and also the Winter Palace, both in the general facility of the Finland Train Station.

We found a little out of the way cafe for lunch. It was quiet and had soft seats. We ate freshly made pelmeni and vareniki. It was the perfect place to chill out for an hour after the rigmorol of Russian air travel.

We checked out the map on the ipad and made a plan. We decided that seeing both locations would be too much effort. The girls in the cafe had suggested getting a bus. But we wanted to walk and see the city from street level. 

Melody lived in St Petersburg for six months back in 2000. Our little jaunt was a blast from the past for her. Melody used to explore the city every day after her language lessons. Her language mates never wanted too. It's a good thing I married an explorer! This is Melody and Abigail on a bridge over the Neva River.

The bridge.

The Neva River.

From the distance, this is the Petropavlovsk Fortress that we gave a miss this time around. Maybe next time?

St Petersburg has the feeling of a cultured city. The architecture is of course stunning. Many of the old buildings remain intact. It has far more of a cultured feel than Moscow does. I am sure this affects people's mentality too. There are reading kiosks every where. This man could not resist the urge to read his purchase immediately.

An orthodox church. No I did not bother to research what it is called.

A typical side street in the city centre.

Art work on one of the many bridges.

The same bridge from another angle.

St Petersburg is criss crossed with canals. This gives it the nick name, Venice of the North. There are many little boat cruises that allow one to see the historical city from close up. It definitely sounds like a fun thing to do.

I believe this is the most famous church building in St Petersburg. Names? What's in a name?

Later, Melody told me that this is considered the back of the church. Still, I enjoyed our three hour jaunt.

Impressive, beautiful architecture. Relevance to the gospel? Zero. To religion? 100%.

A famous location for wedding photos.

You can't always have lighting and perspective. Or maybe I need to learn how to use the light meters on my camera better. (Or at all.)

I believe that St Petersburg is where the tradition of placing a padlock on a bridge for a wedding comes from. I was most annoyed when many of them were taken down in Krasnoyarsk. What right does a city administration have to stand in the way of culture? Some proof that St Petersburg is indeed more cultured.

Alongside the canal on the way to the Winter Palace is the... Australian Consulate.

This is just the entrance to the Winter Palace.

Peter the Great's Winter Palace.  (Translation for Abigail- where the princesses live.)

The top of a very tall monolith in the court yard of the palace.

This man has drawn a lot of pictures of St Petersburg. He sells them for 1500 rubbles each ($50). In the Summer time he typically sells 5-10 a day. I would say he is doing quite well for himself. He also teaches art classes. That Summer income probably has to last him the rest of the year though.

Caption: "Who would have thought ten years ago that I would be changing a nappy outside the Winter Palace?"

PJ had fun being allowed to run free in a lightly populated place.

The Winter Palace from a distance.