St. Petersburg

When my parents were here, I took 4 days off of work to jaunt up to St. Pete with the family for oa bity of touristy sight-seeing. We saw lots of the city, and really did enjoy our time there. St. Petersburg has a much smaller feel to it than does Moscow, and the sites were all very close to each other or right around a metro stop. Plus, as the center of town was all pretty much built at the same time by Peter the Great, it has an architechtural consistency to it, as well as a formulated, grid-like layout (unlike the chaotically laid out Moscow). St. Pete reminds me of a cross between Vienna (the big, architechturally-impressive design of the buildings) and Venice (with its canal system throughout), with a bit of Prague's charm thrown in for good measure. All of which is to say that we really enjoyed the city. Here are some pics from our time there:


The above picture on the top is of the Summer Garden, designed for Peter the Great--and based off of the park at Versailles--to say that Peter the Great loved everything French is about right on. It is very elegant, laid out statues everywhere and nice little flower gardens, mostly of tulips--as you can see in the center of the picture. The picture of my parents is in front of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, better known as the Church on Spilled Blood, for it was the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II killed in 1881. It very much resembles St. Basil's cathedral in Moscow, on which it was based.

The two above pictures are from Peterhof, which was Peter the Great built as his summer residency, though they were expanded by Empress Elizabeth and Catherine the Great after his death. It is hard to know which is more impressive, the lavish interior or the over 140 plus fountains which adorn the back of the building. Once again, this building was designed to be the Russian Versailles. This green building is the Winter Palace of Peter the Great (only lame-o rulers have one palace!) which is now the home to the Hermitage Musuem, though the 1057 rooms of the palace cannot contain all of the museum. It is hard to say which is more impressive, the opulent building itself or the collection it houses. This musuem definitely gives the Britism Musueum and the Louvre strong competition for the honor of top museum. Of the three, it definitely has the best building.