Glimpses of St. Petersburg

It's almost embarrassing to tell that I only now had my first trip to Russia and to St. Petersburg, the wonderful city only 3,5 hours by train from Helsinki. Well, me and my sisters, with whom I visited the city, are more than happy that we finally managed to do the trip. Here are some photos to illustrate why. 

It seems that the renovations made in the city for its 300th birthday have changed the city dramatically from the Leningrad years when my father visited the city and wrote in a post card: "Leningrad is awful and the food is bad." St. Petersburg surprised us only positively (even though my expectations were high) and in so many levels: architecture, people, security, food. I think it could become my second biennial travel destination. It's funny, I should say so because hitherto my other biennial destination has beenVenice and it is not seldom that one thinks of the Venetian canals when in St. Petersburg (but otherwise the resemblances end there).

                         

The city is full of history, stories we were reading about when at school. Suddenly I saw all those names of different tsars and wars in my guide book (sadly, those stories already a bit blurred since my school years). Above is for example the church of Our Saviour on the Blood built on the very spot where revolutionaries murdered Emperor Alexander II in 1881. That also affected the history of Finland, then part of Russia, as Alexander II had been a kind ruler towards the Finns unlike his follower.

I have always thought that there is something magic about the tsars of Russia. But only in St. Petersburg I understood how powerful and rich they had been, how exaggerated in gold was their style,  how separated from the real world they must have been in their numerous palaces, and how they probably set their own sad destiny because of all this. The bolshevik revolution didn't bring up a democratic republic like in France and maybe that's why the killed Romanov family has preserved some of the fascination and even empathy.

The Bronze Horseman: Peter the Great founded the city in 1703. The granite underneath the statue weighs 1500 tons and was carried from 20km away to this place. It is one of the biggest blocks ever moved by humans without machines, it took 400 men and 9 months.

Here is the huge Hermitage Museum, or Winter Palace, seen from the palace square (above) and from the top of the St. Isaac's Cathedral (below). I had some ambitions when we went inside to the museum but after 2 hours I gave up; the never-ending corridors and rooms after rooms exhausted me and my sisters. It was the hopelessness of never getting even around the entire building that made me more desperate than a hurting back. We decided to focus on the 19th-20th century art only. Even this collection was huge but I made some good discoveries, like Kees van Dongen (see above the lovely green lady that I also bought as a poster). After this, we didn't even bother to walk all across the huge building to see some da Vinci and Rembrandt etc., they were simply too far away. Indeed, the museum is one of the biggest in the world, its collection has more than 3 million art works and the best of them are exhibited in the 350 rooms of the Winter Palace. The palace in itself is also worth seeing.

Here's another view from the St. Isaac's Cathedral, the massive cathedral that can accomodate more than 14000 people and took 40 years to build. The views from the golden cupola (see also below) all around the city were amazing, but the inside of the church is not of great interest. The same goes, by the way, for the interior of the Blood church that is much more spectacular from the outside. 

Some places in St. Petersburg reminded me of Paris, like this pretty square below.

Some others could have been in Helsinki. I think this one below has many similarities with Kruununhaka, Helsinki.

Obviously, we mostly walked around in the most touristic areas of the city, so I cannot say anything about how the common Russians live - or any Russians, after all, I only saw palaces... The centre is not in impeccable state in many places but it is surprisingly clean. However, I don't believe it would continue like this in the suburbs. Unfortunately, three days was hardly enough to see even the main sights of the city, so the more sociological tour for inspecting living conditions and the crazy inequalities of Russia will be on the to do list of my next trip.

In St. Petersburg you cannot but wonder what would have happened to the city without socialism.  What kind of a country Russia would be now? After all, the city has only re-emerged as a major cultural city since the beginning of the 2000s when it went through a monumental face-lift.

After the revolution, the architecture also changed remarkably; below is an example of the Soviet constructivism. It stands out as the whole centre is quite harmonious and mostly consists of classical architecture from the 18th and 19th century. At the same time, the main street Nevsky Prospekt was largely preserved in its historical form as communism didn't offer commercial reasons to dismantle old and to replace it by some new architectural catastrophes.

Reading: David Benioff, City of Thieves.