Finishing Up Russia

Hi there! Sorry I was away so long. I was in the process of moving from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden. We only moved from Utah to Heidelberg 11 months ago so we still had stuff in boxes from that move. Yes, moving twice in less than a year is as awesome as you think it is. And we may move again next summer. Please, don't be jealous.

Anywho, back to our Baltic cruise. We were in Russia!

This is the Neva River that flows through St. Petersburg into the Gulf of Finland. St. Petersburg is rather flat and our tour guide told us how the city suffers with floods every fall from the heavy rains further inland. By this point, we knew our tour guide was a little different, but according to her, Russia suffers the worst flooding in the world and nobody understands how hard it is for the country and the city of St. Petersburg. On a funny side note, every time we crossed over the river, she would say, "This is the River Neva." Except with her accent it came out like this. "This is the Reeva Neva." For some reason I found this hysterical.

We continued to drive through the city on our way to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. We got the feeling that she was only taking us to see things that she wanted us to see. So when we would drive past an interesting sight, she would let us know if it was worth our time or not. Mostly not.

Through out the day, Miss Russia-kicks-the-whole-worlds-butt Natasha told us that St. Petersburg only gets a handful of sunny days in the year. Something like 60 total. Natasha told us several times how thankful we should be that we were here on a sunny day. So I started thinking, who should I be thankful to? Her? The Russian weather gods? Possibly Peter the Great? No! I know! Stalin! Stalin totally arranged for us to have good weather just like he arranged for the great subway stops for his people. (What am I talking about? Read about earlier in our day HERE.)

Thanks for the sunshine and blue skies Stalin!

Finally she took us to a spot on the "Neva Reeva" where we were allowed to get out of the van and take pictures. This is the Hermitage Museum. Founded by Catherine the Great in 1764, it is one the largest and oldest museums in the world. It is located in six different buildings including this one, the Winter Palace, former part time home of the Russian royalty. We opted not to go to it during our time in St. Petersburg. For one, it is usually quite crowded. And two, it is not air conditioned and it can get quite hot in there in the summer. I wasn't really in the mood to squish my body against thousands of other tourist bodies so we enjoyed this view from the river banks.

Here we are in front of the Russian war ship, the Aurora. Aurora was built in 1900 and was used in four different Russian wars. Remember earlier when I told you our tour guide told us about how Russia is always getting picked on and is never the aggressor? Yep. Nothing says "I am a peaceful country," like having war ships and tanks scattered through out your city.

You can tell from this picture who here makes a living saluting every day. I'll give you one guess who it is. Psst... come here. Guess what? It's not me. (Me whispering to you.)

By this point, some of our kids were hungry again after the Russian pastry meal that they had deemed "yucky" earlier. So what better than McDonald's, right? While Matt and Mrs. Point ran in, Mr. Point and I stayed in the van. Our tour guide would not allow Matt and Mrs. Point to go in alone. She went with them. Our driver got out of the van and stood on the sidewalk, almost like he was guarding it. At this point I got it. We were being babysat by them. As in, "Watch those Americans. Don't let them go or see or do anything naughty. Keep an eye on them."

Russian McDonald's turned out to be fairly the same as most other McDonald's around the world. Alexander had a Russian cheeseburger. Since vodka is such a standard drink in Russia, I wanted to see if McDonald's had a vodka dispenser right next to the Coke. Matt reported back that they didn't. Although we did drive past a vodka museum where you can taste different vodkas. Our tour guide babysitter told us it was one of the only museums where you can legally be drunk.

Next, we were off to the focal point of the afternoon. The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood.

Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded in the street by a grenade in 1881. The wounds bled heavily and soaked the street with the Tsar's blood. He died several hours later. His son, Tsar Alexander III, built this church as a memorial to him. Hence the name, on Spilled Blood.

The spot where the Tsar was hurt has been completely left alone and is now a shrine encapsulated by the church. It is still the original cobblestone street that ran down the side of the canal in 1881.

The church has suffered heavily during the history of St. Petersburg. It was ransacked and looted during the Russia Revolution (1917). It was used as a morgue during WWII. And then after the war, it was used to store vegetables, leading to the sardonic name of Savior on Potatoes (those Russians are such smart alecks).

Restoration of the church started in 1970. After 27 years of painstaking work, it reopened to the public in 1997.

At 7500 meters of mosaics, this church is said to have more than any other in the world. That's a lot of Russian tile my friends.

Here is the back view of the church. The domes on the top of the church are called onion domes and are used on churches through out Russia.

Some facts about Russia are they are on the Russian Ruble. One Russian Ruble is equal to three American cents. That's right, $0.03. And to say thank you in Russian is spasiba. So, spasiba for reading this.



After one last walk down the canal, it was time to head back to the cruise ship with our friends (and guards) Natasha and Sasha.



We cleared customs and immigrations and went back to the port. We didn't know if we would ever have the chance to be in Russia again. But upon seeing these six cruise ships plus ours for a total of seven docked here seeing St. Petersburg, we started thinking that we just might have a chance.

Until next time Russia!

PS A strange thing about this day was that it was the Fourth of July. A big holiday in the United States, but not so big in Russia. Stay tuned to read about how we celebrated the 4th on an Italian cruise line in Russia!

Rushing Through Russia

Okay, where we were again? Oh, that's right. I was in RUSSIA! 

Did you miss the first part? Click here on The Peterhof to read about our time at the palace and gardens.

We had just finished up our visit to the Peterhof palace and gardens in St. Petersburg, Russia. As we were walking out of the garden, we saw a young bride and groom in their wedding dress walking through the garden with a photographer. Our tour guide, Natasha, turned to me and said in her little Russian accent "We have a bea-u-tiful tradition here in Russia. When young peoples get mah-rried, they take their families and a photographer, and they go to a bea-u-tiful place to take pictures of the day they got mah-rried and it's a bea-u-tiful tradition here in Russia."

It was at this point that I realized our tour guide had a couple of screws loose. I started thinking, I don't know what's wrong with Russians, geez! When we get married in the States we never even think to take pictures with our families in bea-u-tiful places. Wow. What a novel concept that it would seem Russia has invented. We should all thank Russia right now for letting us in on this fabulous Russian tradition they have. So the next time you look at your photo album, say "I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for Russia."

We decided to head over to the underground metro stops in St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg's metro is said to have some of the most beautiful, highly decorated, and opulent metro stations in the world.

The metro was started before WWII in St. Petersburg, but construction stalled during the war due to lack of money. In 1955 the metro stations finally opened. 

The metro stations were completed under the direction of Joseph Stalin. These metro stops were for "The People." He directed to have them built and decorated to show the great power and wealth of Russia. Kind of strange since 20 years before building these, Russia couldn't even feed its people. For more info, click  Soviet famine 1932-1933.

As we walked through the metro station, our disillusioned tour guide Natasha told us what a "good guy" Stalin was. How he had the people's best interests at heart and how he defeated the Nazi's from over taking the innocent country of Russia. (I'm not kidding. She said things like that.)

These are some the support columns in the station that are inlaid with gold and crystals. The station was more beautiful than some palaces and castles I've seen. I'm sure that the Russian people were very grateful to have such beautiful metro stops. But maybe, I don't know, instead of beautiful metro stations they would have rather, say, not lived in fear of being dragged out of their house in the middle of the night and killed in front of their family? For more info click Stalin's Great Purge.

So our tour guide thinks that Stalin was pretty okay. He did give them nice metro stations after all. And Nazi Germany attacked Russia when all Russia was doing was minding their own business. Hmm... okay. And then she went on to tell us what a good guy Vladimir Putin was. In my little, blonde, brain I heard the sound of breaks screeching and I just wanted to ask her if she really believed that or was she giving us a Russia-has-to-look-so-great-to-the-Americans-white-washed version of history? I know there are things in my own country's history that I am not proud of, but at what point do you say "Yeah, my country did some uncool things, or leaders in my country did some uncool things," instead of saying "Yeah, my country can do no wrong and we are better than everybody else."

But I really didn't want to cause an international incident so I just kept my mouth shut and nodded my head. She also told us about how Napoleon attacked their fair country and he wasn't able to overtake it. The way she spun it was Russia has just sat there for hundreds of years, minding its own business, and it keeps getting attacked by all the bullies and poor Russia, they just want to get along with people. Okay then.

Russia may not be communist anymore (much to the dismay of our tour guide because you know that guy Stalin? He was the BOMB) but signs of its Soviet past were everywhere.

The Soviet emblem of the hammer and sickle were on many walls and buildings through out St. Petersburg.

These walls are made with real, Italian marble that they had shipped in to build the metro stations.

The St. Petersburg metro is one of the deepest in the world due to the water table so we had to take long escalators up and down to reach the stations. At the stations, our tour guide actually told us how to use turn styles and escalators. Now this is just getting weird. Does she think we don't have turn styles and escalators in America? Or does she just think Americans are slightly less intelligent than the rest of the world?

Here is our friend, Mr. Point riding the very long and apparently, very complicated escalator to the surface. Mr. Point is a bit of a history buff and he would ask Natasha questions about the Russian Revolution and if we could please go and see some of these places. Natasha shut him down, and all us actually, whenever we asked anything about the Russian Revolution. And she told us these places were too far away. We drove by one of them not once, but twice without her saying a word.

After the metro stations, the troops (our combined eight kids) needed reinforcement so we found a cute little Russian cafe that sold Russian pastries.

They didn't like the sight of meat and onion filled pastry. Even though it was really good.

They also had apricot, apple, and strawberry filled pastries. Our kids liked those a little better.

Next we went and did a little souvenir shopping. I ask you, what says "I've Been To Russia" more than a Barack Obama Russian nesting doll? 

For the next few hours we drove around St. Petersburg taking in the sights. I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures, but they were taken out of the window of the van. 

Here is a submarine in the Neva River that flows right through the main part of St. Petersburg.

As we drove around we would catch little glimpses of places like this. Palaces that would rise up right out of the former communist sprawl of the city.

Their metro stations may look like palaces, but their street cars were easily over 60 years old. They continued to use the same battered trams because they were unable to buy new ones, due to the cost of replacing all the tracks in the streets.

This gem of a home just popped up as we were riding along. I have no idea the historical significance of this place. I was just fascinated by the intricacies of the building.

And just after we would see beautiful palaces, we would see blocks and blocks of Soviet era apartments and sprawl.

St. Petersburg has a long Soviet history. When the city was founded it was called St. Petersburg. In 1914, the German name of St. Petersburg was changed to Petrograd, the Russian-ized version of St. Petersburg. Then in 1924, it was changed again to Leningrad, or Lenin's City. After the fall of communism, it was changed back to St. Petersburg in 1991. Even though the city changed its name back, it seems that shaking its communist past will be harder than just a name change.

In addition to Soviet era apartments, there were Soviet era tanks and cannons scattered all over the city.

Okay. I think that is good for today.

Coming up next, our time at the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood.

The Peterhof - Russia

Russia. Russia. Russia!!

First, I brought home a little souvenir to share. A Russian Matryoshka, or a  Russian nesting doll. If you want to join the contest to win it, click HERE to enter.

So! We have been to Russia! In our quest to see all the countries of Europe, I was worried about how this one would happen. First, Russia is NOT part of the Schengen Agreement. What's the Schengen Agreement? It's the deal that certain European countries have made to relax their borders. You have to show your passport to get into Europe, but once you are here, you can drive and basically border jump all you want without ever showing your passport. That does NOT mean you don't have to have your passport with you. There can be random border checks so make sure you have it on your person. The Schengen Agreement is why with all the traveling we've done we only have one stamp in our passports. It's the stamp for Russia so it's still one pretty cool stamp. Do you have questions on traveling within the Schengen Area? Click here for more information.

When we booked our cruise it was less than two weeks out. Yeah, that's how we do things around here. By the seat of our pants. My good friend and traveling partner, Mrs. Point, started looking up the rules for applying for a visa to go to Russia. We read that the only way they will let you off of the boat was to either A- have the real Russian visa which can take weeks to get. Or B- have booked a tour with either the boat or a reputable tour company in St. Petersburg that would issue you a visa. We really didn't want to book a tour because they are expensive and we feel we can see and experience a place better on our own than with a tour guide. But then we looked up the steps to actually get a Russian visa. It goes something like this.

1- Decide you want to go to Russia.
2- Book a hotel or a tour group in Russia.
3- Wait for that hotel or tour group to send you an invitation to visit Russia. That's right my friends. Russia is a party that is by invitation only. There ain't no crashing that.
4- Once you have your invitation you can now apply for a visa at one of the many Russian embassys* through out the world.
*WARNING - We found out that the fees that go along with applying for a visa can vary widely from embassy to embassy. Read - whatever the official feels like charging you that day. And beware, Americans are known to have to pay more.
5- Fill out mounds of paperwork.
And the steps go on and on and on. There are like 16 steps. Some people will have to get insurance (separate from the insurance you already have). Some people will have to show bank statements (to show that you have the money to go home, they don't want you to stay there).

After reading the rules and seeing how long it was going to take to secure a Russian visa, we decided to book a tour just for our two families for the low, low price of around 800 American dollars (that's not a typo).

The company that we booked our tour with emailed us our visas to get off the boat and through Russian immigration. We sailed through (except for Matt, he got a couple of double takes with all the stamps and visas in his passport from extensive traveling in the Middle East) and met our tour guide right inside the cruise terminal.

Guess what our tour guide's name was? Really, I want you to guess.

Natasha! And the driver's name was Sasha! You don't get more Russian than that.
(Do you remember when I wanted to be a Russian Spy? Read about that here.) They had a large passenger van with air conditioning (thank heavens) and bottled water for us.

And we were off. Our first stop was the Peterhof Palace and gardens.

On our drive from the port to the palace we were glued to our windows. Natasha was giving us commentary over a loud speaker about the history of St. Petersburg and some of the things we were seeing. St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great. Peter the Great ruled Russia from 1682 until his death in 1725. He instituted sweeping reforms aimed at modernizing Russia. He saw that for Russia to continue to grow, they would need a better port. He seized the land that surrounds present day St. Petersburg from Sweden and set out to build a great new capital for his growing kingdom, Russia.

The Peterhof Palace was built to be Peter's summer palace and a place for him to stay during his comings and goings to Western Europe.

The palace grounds and adjacent gardens were amazing! The palace is a buttercup yellow trimmed with white and topped with gold spires.

All around the palace are these intricate gardens and fountains with statues.

We were in line with a group of Asian tourists and while we took pictures of the palace, they took pictures of our fair and blonde children. I had heard about this, but this was new experience for my family. Alexander, my oldest and blondest, got tired of this and started holding his hand in front of his face saying "No pictures." We seriously felt like celebrities being hounded by the paparazzi. Our kids tried to capitalize on this picture taking and every time an Asian tourist snapped their picture, they would point to their hand and say "Give me money." (Much to my embarrassment.) The Asians, of course, had no idea what they were doing but they thought it was hysterical so they started holding their hands out and pointing to their palms. Needless to say, no money was exchanged for the photo taking. But somewhere, maybe in Japan, a tourist is showing a bunch of his friends pictures of my fair, white children and saying "Look what we saw in Russia!" Probably in Japanese, though.

We meandered down through the lower gardens and out towards where the palace grounds meet the Baltic Sea.

We were bit by a couple of Russian mosquitoes.

We were warned repeatedly by our tour guide, Natasha, and signs around about pickpocketing.

Does it strike anyone else as peculiar, or sad, that the bill the thief is taking is marked with the sign of the American dollar? Does this mean thieves only want American currency? (I don't know why, the Euro is worth more.) Does this mean that Americans are the only ones dumb enough to be victims of pickpocketing? Does this mean that Russians view us as hapless but happy (the guy is smiling) tourists that are too busy taking pictures to realize a guy in mask is standing behind us? Things to think about, my friends. Things to think about.

After exploring the grounds, it was time for the main attraction to start. 

The cascading fountains. The anthem for St. Petersburg fired up on loud speakers.

And the fountains started up, filling the pools, sending streams of water to the next lower pool which would eventually flow in a canal out to the Baltic Sea.

Here is Matt, posing with a statue of Poseidon. I would have liked to see Matt pose in a loin cloth with a trident too, but he wasn't up for it.

Different sections of the garden had different themes. Up where the fountains were the gardens were designed in the French style.

These gardens down by the coast had a much more tropical feel to them.

After touring the gardens thoroughly (we kept all our American currency in our pockets thank you very much) it was time to head off to the next attraction.

Stay tuned to hear about our visit to the St. Petersburg metro and Soviet area metro stations, and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. And you definitely don't want to miss when I write about our tour guides strange view of Russian and world history (Stalin was great, Putin is great, and Russia has done no wrong and is the victim every time.)

PS Would you like to go to Russia? Would you be comfortable and safe traveling on your own or would you like a tour guide? Let me know!