Metro from the train station. still let me off a half hour walk from my hostel, with my pack. ugh.
canal
Kazan Cathedral
Singer Building.
Door of the Singer Building
Singer building by day. Style Moderne architecture.
detail at the top of the bldg.
Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood
closer...
gotcha!
it's 1am and I'm in St. Petersburg!!!
Saviour of the Spilled Blood by day.
Hermitage by night
those dots at the bottom, middle are people. Puts it in perspective, huh?
Dvortsovaya Ploshchad (palace square) with the Alexander column (celebrating victory over Napoleon) and the General Staff Building
still the general staff building
arch leading to my street (my hostel's street) - during the day, it's packed with street artists and caricaturists. Odd, but many young Russian women were having a portrait drawn by a street artist.
the chariot of victory!
statue to the side of the arch. this one's for you, greg!
1:30am. time to get to bed, but there are still loads of people out - with or without bottle of some kind.
detail of the arch
view of the hermitage through the arch
Hermitage by day.
courtyard entrance to museum
blurry pic of one of the Hermitage cats. a woman came out of the museum a couple of minutes later with a plate of food for the kitty.
I swear, all of the best Egyptian antiquities have been removed from Egypt. The quality of these pieces is higher than of those in the museum in Cairo.
just one ceiling.
and another
Jove. I REALLY wanted to sit on his lap, but there was a rope to discourage people like me. :)
just a table. all of the design is of inlaid semiprecious stones. beautiful.
I've entered the room of death. All of these are of dead animals. Overwhelming
the fish market
i love the dog/cat tension here.
the killing zone
and the painter of the best ones is... a disturbed, but talented man.
replica of a hallway at the vatican.
The Madonna and Child by Leornado da Vinci. It was awesome, no one was in front of it. They were all looking at some crappy gold thing in the center of the room and I just stumbled onto a da Vinci.
The Titian room. Danae and the Penitent St. Mary Magdalene. Danae is one of my favorite Titian paintings. I love this painting of "St. Mary Magdalene" there's actually another very similar painting of the Magdalene in Venice that's the exact same pose, just with no clothes. and it's titled the Penitent Mary Magdalene. No Saint.
the gold room
mosaic on the floor in the gold room
detail
the head of medusa by rubens
6th century merovingian bead necklace. amazing.
just a painting that i liked
peter, the great!
Peter the 2nd. the grandson of the 1st. ruled as tsar from age 12 until his death at 15. sad.
Catherine
one of Catherine's last lovers. he was 25, she was 60ish.
Fragonard - stolen kiss
there were 3 rooms of picasso's work. oddly this was the cover page i chose for a report on picasso i wrote in the 4th grade. hah!
one of picasso's sculptures. lively.
the dance...
Music!!! I had no idea that there was a companion piece for Matisse' The Dance.
Gaugin and one of his reasons to stay in the islands.
the Gaugin room. there are about 10 other paintings.
my favorite Gaugin. Something about how the woman is looking at the sunset and the next island makes me think that she's longing to travel the same way that i do.
Girl with a Fan - Renoir. For some reason, i LOVED this painting. I stood in front of it for a good 10 minutes. Renoir sure did emphasize eyes in his paintings (there was a whole room full of them). any chance he was schizophrenic?
random layout of waterspouts in the river in front of the hermitage. why is russia so much cooler than the us?
view of peter and paul fortress, built to hold back those pesky swedes.
view back at the hermitage from my hydrofoil ferry to petrodvorets palace/garden complex.
on the river
oil pipeline in gulf of finland
that's a twin of the boat i'm on. two ships, passing in the...afternoon.
the boat was a bit unsteady, but this is still darn gorgeous!
inside the ferry. just in case you were curious about what it looked like.
walking into Petrodvorets, created by Peter I made to surpass Versailles. My all-time favorite place in St Petersburg. What's not to like about over 400 fountains laid out in a HUGE garden complex full of secret nooks and paths?
the Palace.
don't worry! he's wearing a fig leaf! - why is it always a fig leaf, by the way? why not a cluster of pine needles? or a eucalyptus leaf? or would that be too suggestive?
costume characters. you can get a picture with them and/or rent a costume and wig and get photos dressed as a period character yourself!
there's a band down there if you zoom in
little streams running through the parkland
just another of over 400 fountains. across the way is one of the costume rental places (in the right-hand building)
a little fun for the kids. it comes on randomly and shoots water from different spouts each time. the kids all shriek like they're being murdered. interesting to approach.
the little boy was the only one to stay for the whole shot & got blasted in the face from a hidden spout in the bench. :)
just me.
rainbow
this spout rotates. beautiful
close-up
the aviary.
woodland.
the rolling green grass
another place to cool off. it was only about 80 today.
avenue. easy to imagine people from another world perambulating.
moi
i love this fountain
Peter the first's little getaway.
a spot that seems to actually predate the destruction of the gardens by the Germans in WWII. This whole thing was rebuilt by the Soviets.
Beach. The Bay here is actually quick warm.
a little Hermitage
these birds are all over St. Petersburg
Armenian Apostolic Orthodox church.
just a normal stretch of Nevsky Prospekt (main road in St. P)
close up of the building.
Quo Vadis - the one internet cafe in St. P.
cafe portion of Quo Vadis
biker bar.
another Style Moderne Building
night cruise on the Neva. Unfortunately, I got on the Russian language tour, so I came away still in a state of blessed ignorance regarding the building of St Petersburg's bridges. So sad. :(
the boat.
weird, blurry picture of a bridge on the Neva
underside of a bridge
view across the way.
the Hermitage from the river. that's another boat between us and the building.
drawbridge being raised to amuse the tourists.
see all of the boats? and those specs along the quay are hundreds of tourists all there. this is 2am in St. P. The streets are full of people and so are the canals!
ducking under the bridge
two men playing chess on the street. 2am.
cool magnetic lock they have in Russia.
Nord Hostel interior.
great shower!
my dorm
kitchen Nord Hostel
the one internet terminal and registration desk.
entrance hall to the hostel
view up from the entrance hall of the hostel
Exterior Hostel Nord
side view of Kazan Cathedral
pedestrian bridge
view of the fortress from the Strelka
bear cub
i didn't see him dance, though.
there are brides all over the place as it is traditional to go with a group to many different locations for photographs. the whole wedding party has champagne bottles and plastic cups and usually there's a musician playing. it's a giant roving party that lasts all day. the guy with the sash (left) is the best man
the best one i saw. the couple are holding doves.
they make some sort of silent vow/wish/prayer back to back.
speak to each other and release the doves. the guy's dove flew off and the woman's lingered for a bit. not sure of the meaning there.
then they kiss while everyone claps and counts.
now, the groom cleans dove shit off of his hands.
these boats are actually bar/restaurants and become party spots at night.
don't jump!
the fortress of peter and paul. after being built to repel the swedes, those darn swedes forgot to attack! instead, the fortress served as kernel of new city of petersburg and also as a prison.
people on the beach. the Neva is COLD!
guy doing his exercises.
full picture of the same guy
river entry way to the fortress
Cathedral.
a mosque in the distance.
the fortress on a dark and gloomy afternoon.
from a bridge. i made that whole circuit on foot from the far left, over bridge 1 & 2 to the strelka, over bridge 3 to the far right, and then over this bridge to the summer gardens. big day for my feetsies!
summer garden
another bride. they're dancing to a guy with an accordian. pretty cool.
walkway.
summer palace
exhibit in the park
the best chair in the world
that little boy likes my chair.
pond at summer garden and the goose that swims alone.
big, egg shaped vase covered in pigeon crap and the culprit at the top.
in st. p. they tell you how long you have before the light turns red AND how long before it turns green. Cool!
Katherine & Philip - fellow Hostel Nord alumni.
There are portrait artists all over St. P. about 600 ruples will immortalize you in black and white. 3000 will get you color. a large number of russian young women get their portraits done.
kitcsh restaurant.
a russian woodland grove by day...
and a thumping club by night!
bus
scary lady who collects the 14p to ride on the bus.
obnoxious american guy at hostel. why is there always at least one obnoxious american? i'm so ashamed.
yum, pate for breakfast.
metro
i like that informing the public of the location of and distance to MacDonalds ranks right up there with the City Hospital and the Police Department.
it's actually not raining right now. that's exhaust. i am now officially grateful for smog checks.
apple tree in public park.
minibus
another bride to the right. they are everywhere!
one authentically old building.
the recreated Catherine's Palace as Tsarskoe Selo outside of Pushkin
they love the myth of Atlas, don't you think?
garden in the park
guess who?
those horses are clearly plotting something.
the park
the guest house.
now it is raining. and that bird is hunkering in.
the sad thing is that that entrance is closed today. they all need to go around to the other entrance. once a queue starts, there's just no stopping it.
layout of Ekaterinskiya park.
each building has it's own entrance fee in addition to the fee to get into the park
a church in Pushkin
getting started on the heating supply for winter.
stop for the microbus to the Moskovskey metro station.
random onion domes. :)
funny menu translation. (bottom)
that's from subway.
guy with multicolored dreads - a popular look in st. p.
that girl looks like she's playing dress up, but that's for real. women all dress like that, she's just getting an early start.
