CAHKT ПETEPБУPГA
CAHKT ПETEPБУPГA
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| There was a little band that greeted us as we disembarked. |
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| I didn't get a photo of any Russian strip clubs, but here is an advertising sign for one in the small port terminal. |
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| More blocks of flats. They remind me of similar public housing blocks in Chicago or New York. |
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| For those of you with any music history education, this is a statue of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. For those of you with no knowledge of music history, it's a statue of some dead Russian. |
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| One of the many waterways that criss-cross St. Petersburg. |
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| This used to be someone's palace (I'm going to be saying that a lot in this city.) Now it's the Museum of Fine Arts. |
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| The Stock Exchange Building. The red column (one of two) is a navy memorial. |
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| A little green space near the Neva River. |
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| Clear Channel even has advertising signs in Russia. Gee, maybe they really do own everything. |
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| I was keeping my eye out for symbols of the old Soviet days. There are two over the doorway of this building. You can see the image of Lenin in the one on the left. The one on the right (behind the branch) is of a big Soviet star. Either the owner never got around to taking them down or misses the old Communist days. |
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| The magnificent St. Isaac's Cathedral. Here's a bit of interesting information. During the Soviet era when religion was a no-no, they turned this building into an ice skating rink. |
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| On the opposite side of the square from the church is the building that holds the Russian parliament. I think the statue might be of Nicholas I, but it would seem strange that the Communists would have left such a monument to a Russian czar. |
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| The Russian version of American Idol! |
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| A big advertising sign for some product. |
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| This is a view down the Nevsky Prospekt, the main drag of St. Petersburg. |
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| The Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan on Nevsky Prospekt. It was closed for serviced by the Bolsheviks in 1929 and became home of the collections of the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism. Interesting that they would turn a cathedral into a place that included anti-religious propaganda. Regular services have resumed in the cathedral. The museum still exists but the word "atheism" has been omitted from its name. |
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| The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood. This was easily the most beautiful and ornate church we saw on the trip. The building was built on the spot where Czar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. I guess that's the spilled blood part. It was begun in 1883 and completed in 1907. |
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| The back of the church. It was not open for long. As with other churched throughout the USSR, it was closed by the Soviets. It recently underwent a lengthy renovation. |
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| Across the street from the church was a Russian bride agency. |
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| Who wouldn't want to wait for fifteen years to own one of these luxurious Russian cars? |
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| I don't know what this building is. It was across a canal from the Church on Spilled Blood. It looks fairly palatial. Heck, everything else in this city was a palace at one time or another. It's run down now. |
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| I did not plant this photo. This magazine happened to be laying on the ground not far from the church. I didn't pick it up to see what it was, but you can see the ads for Russian phone sex lines and sex toys. If the cars are any indication of Russian technology, I'd stay away from their vibrators. |
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| I just thought this was a cool shot. Kinda artistic. |
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| We are still near the church. There was a little tourist market square set up here. Almost every stall sold the little nesting dolls, religious items and stuff made of fur. |
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| We ate lunch in this place. |
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