St. Petersburg, Russia | Day 1
St. Petersburg, Russia:
Good morning from Russia! We had a very smooth crossing and slept well. For
some reason, I woke just after five o'clock this morning. Luckily, I stepped
out on to the balcony to see St. Petersburg appearing in the distance and
the rising sun.
St. Petersburg sun rise
We were coming very slowly into port. After entering a
channel, we were guided by tugs, turned around and we backed into dock
behind the huge Star Princess. As we passed, I snapped this photo.
Remember, we are on the 7th deck of the Regatta, and I took this
photo looking straight across. The Star Princess is massive. I know
this because we have previously sailed on her twin sister, the Sea
Princess. Just a few passengers aboard the Star Princess were stirring. We passed so close, we could have spoken -
but everyone waved. I could hear Tagalog passing between the two ships
though.
The Star Princess
Star Princess
Star Princess
Our ship was met at the dock by officials arriving in
Chrysler LaBarons. Military personal were standing by in camouflage,
but I could still see them. An Orient cruise ship has now docked in front of
us. A band met them and began playing "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here" - at
7 am, mind you! Tour buses are leaving, escorted by black cars, sirens
blasting. No one on the port side of this ship will sleep-in this morning.
Added later: Wow. It was as I had expected, but on even a
grander scale. Last month I rented every DVD and read anything I could find
on St. Petersburg and Peter the Great. Peter the Great
moved Russia into the modern world. Of course, he had to go to war with
Sweden for 21 years to get the land so Russia would have access to the
Baltic Sea... but after that little problem was solved, he built a great
city. When Peter was young, he traveled to Europe and met with doctors,
scholars, architects, metal workers, carpenters, printers, artists,
scientists and experts of any kind. But his passion was ship-building and he
yearned for a Russian Navy. After winning the war, he sent for hundreds and
hundreds of skilled tradesmen and architects to build St. Petersburg. It was
built in a marsh, on 42 islands, with miles of canals throughout. St.
Petersburg is only 300 years old.
The rules for cruise ship passengers entering Russia are very strict. The
government sent officials on board to check and stamp our passports and we
were given a little red card allowing us to be in town for the day. We were
given strict instructions to never leave our group for even a moment, do not
speak to strangers and for goodness sake, don't use the restrooms unless one
of the guides are with you! (Not sure about that one.) We boarded a tour bus
this morning with 34 fellow passengers and were introduced to our guide,
Svetlana. She was an absolutely beautiful girl and spoke English very well.
Most of her talk consisted of the facts I had already familiarized myself
with before the trip, with helpful hints such as, Jew vill be back to de
bus in five-teen minutes, when we stopped at St. Isaac's Cathedral.
Monument to Nicholas I, outside St. Isaac's Cathedral
St. Isaac's Cathedral
Our next stop was to another church (this was not the church tour, by the way, and we stopped three times and three times it
was to a church). St. Peter and St. Paul's Cathedral is
called a church, but it is the burial place of the Tsar's and Empowers and
Empresses and their family. The pulpit is a bit to one side in the middle of
the church and there are no pews. Peter the Great designed
the church. All of the carving inside was produced in Moscow and it is
wooden - painted with gold. PTG wanted to be buried here, but the church was
not finished when he died unexpectedly, so he was not "officially" buried
for two years after his death. I could not bear to take photos of crypts,
but we visited the crypt of Peter the Great and Catherine I and Catherine the Great. Tsar Nicholas and his family were entombed here in 1998
after the discovery of their murdered bodies in Siberia.
St. Peter and St. Paul's Cathedral
St. Peter and St. Paul's Cathedral
Fancy sports-themed tour bus
Our last church was by far the prettiest - the Cathedral of the Resurrection, also known as the Church of
the Spilled Blood. There was an open-air handicraft market and
Svetlana allowed us 28 minutes to shop! Jew vill now chop until
twelb noon. Doo not be late.
Cathedral of the Resurrection
Cathedral of the Resurrection
It was fun shopping in the market. If you seemed even one
bit interested in something, the vendor wanted to know if you would be
paying in dough-lars, rubles, euro or cred-it car-da before offering
a price.
Nesting dolls are a popular tourist souvenir
Clinton contains a Monica Lewinski & Hillary doll, George Bush contains the
past
four presidents. Osama holds Saddam, Yasser and Kaddafi.
The Colonel, Russian-style
Everything in St. Petersburg is under
scaffolding. Repairs are underway on hundreds of buildings. A huge
Naval celebration will take place on Sunday so there are many tourists in
town and many military ships in the harbor. We had perfect, warm and sunny,
weather. Svetlana says it is only sunny in St. Petersburg 40 days per year,
so we were really lucky today.
We arrived back at the ship. All 34 passengers were accounted for and our
passports were once again inspected by Russian immigration. As we were
standing in line I noticed the Regatta is docked next to (my estimate) 3,600
giant white bags of ammonium nitrate. Happy for all the security. Actually,
there are now six ships in port and the Regatta is moving tonight to a
quieter, less explosive, spot.
Added even later: It is best I type my journal as it
happens, or else I am afraid I will forget something. We have heard nothing
but fabulous comments about the evening we had planned and we were not
disappointed. Everyone said "it will be the highlight of your trip", and
they are probably right. (Of course, they are not going to the World Track &
Field Championships next week.)
After returning from our morning tour, we had a nice, though light, lunch in
the dining room and a good, though not light, nap! For the first time on the
cruise, we have had to close our balcony door, as it is SO NOISY outside
with cargo containers being transferred onto and off of ships and on and off
of trains and trains starting and stopping and people shouting and cranes
roaring and, well, you get the idea. This isn't the best place for a cruise
dock. I will phone Putin tomorrow.
At 6:30 pm, we joined 200 of our fellow passengers in the Horizon Theater,
where we were given our instructions for the evening. Everyone looked so
elegant for their "Evening at the Imperial Russian Court". Even the Russian
"instructress" complimented us on our regal appearance. We proceeded to the
gangway, in single-file - passports open to the page where we were stamped
in the morning. They looked at our stamp, looked at our photo, looked at our
face and basically looked completely bored. We were issued another little
red card allowing us to be a "foreigner on shore from a cruise ship for this
day" and boarded luxury coaches for the one-hour drive south to the little
town of Pushkin (famous Russian poet and story-teller), to Catherine's Palace.
When we turned into the palace grounds everyone on the bus simply stared in
awe. The Place is spectacular and absolutely huge. It is sky blue and white,
and of course, since it is Russian Rococo, it is covered in gold. First they
had us walk through the museum holding the Royal Carriages - all of the carriages that have carried the Tsars over the years. Also on
display are six horse-drawn sleds and Catherine the Great's wheelchair
(though there was no explanation as to why she had a wheel chair), and
assorted winter sleigh blankets and clothing worn in the winter by the Romanov's.
DT at the Royal Carriage Museum
Then we walked across the road to the Palace. So beautiful!
We were greeted by a band playing traditional Russian marches, and lead
through the palace on a private tour. Usually, when someone tours Catherine's Palace no flash bulbs are allowed and you are issued
paper shoes to wear so your shoes will not damage the intricate inlaid
wooden floors. Not tonight, not for us. We kept our shoes and could get as
close to anything that we wanted to see - just so we did not touch.
Incredible. Here are a few photos of our tour through the main area of the
Palace.
Catherine's Palace
Catherine's Palace
Catherine's Palace
Catherine's Palace - the "back door"
Welcome to the Palace
The main hallway through the palace
We simply must redecorate when we get home!
All of this gold has been restored, as it was stolen by the
Nazi's. Most of the Palace's original art was hidden away and protected from
the German Army. Restoration continues, constantly.
A sitting room
Stairway
The Amber Room is amazing - completely covered floor to
ceiling in amber. There would be no way to quickly remove the amber, so
workers covered it with wallpaper to fool the Nazi's. Sadly, it too was
discovered and stolen. The entire Amber Room has been completely re-created
and was finished in 2002.
The Amber Room
The Amber Room
Made from Amber
A dining room
Nearly every room had a blue and white tiled steam-heated
fireplace contraption in the corner. They were fabulous, I mean, if you
happen to like blue and white ceramics.
Indoor heating
After our tour, we entered the most amazing room in the
Palace - the Throne Room. It is the largest and most ornate room in
Catherine's Palace. We were served champagne and then were seated for a
dance performance.
The Throne Room
We were greeted by "Catherine"
Russian dancer
After the classical dance performance, we were taken outside
where we could take photos of the other side of the Palace. Dancers were
delivered to the front of the Palace in a horse-drawn carriage and waltzed
for us, accompanied by the band. My camera could not take- in the size of
the Palace. I am not exaggerating when I tell you, it is two blocks
long.
Catherine's Palace (front view)
Tsarina Terry
Entry gate
A close-up of the Double-Headed Eagle, the symbol of Russian Royalty
In the photo above, we are all walking to catch our tour
buses and take a short drive to Russia House, where we
would be having dinner. I can't say so much that we had dinner, but we sure
had fun. We were seated on long banquet tables and were served all sorts of
pickled vegetables, something we think was chicken salad, rolls, roasted
pork, sliced vegetables and smoked salmon rolled in blinis. Our next course
was borscht and for our main course, we were served trout with a creamy dill
sauce, boiled potatoes and assorted sliced cucumbers and tomatoes. For
dessert we had vanilla ice cream with berry jam. On our table were bottles
of Russian cabernet, Russian bottled water and Russian vodka. Oh boy. The
people we were with were quite adventurous and tried everything. I tried one
sip of the wine (so incredibly sweet) and one sip of the vodka. My first
thought on the vodka was that I was in need of some nail polish remover and
maybe this would do it!? I stuck with water tonight. The men at the table
decided toasting with vodka would be just the thing to make the borscht go
down. Dang, if they didn't make some awful faces after slugging down a shot
of the fire water, yet went back for more until the bottle was drained. One
of the men at our table was chosen by the folk dancers entertaining us at
the restaurant to join-in and play an instrument. We are not sure what it is
- but it makes a lot of noise and he took to it quite well. So well, in
fact, that DT bought the poor man the instrument ($10) as a souvenir. He was
laughing so hard and was having so much fun and we were all teasing him that
he would be performing tomorrow night in the Horizon Lounge at 9:45 pm! The
food wasn't so wonderful, but it was a magical evening.
Russia House entertainers
Our coaches returned us back to the Regatta - which is now
docked a few berths away from where we were this morning. Tonight, for the
first time, the ship was serving a late-night buffet. They said many people
do not eat the dinner at Russia House (like me) and are hungry. It was 11:30
and I did not want to eat. I ordered a cocktail in the bar and carried it
upstairs to type this for you, My Dear Reader.
Boris is already snoring away.
PS: Senator Packwood is on our ship. We saw him today for the
first time.