St. Petersburg, Russia  Holland America Westerdam   Red October Tours - August 2 , 2005

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I’m doing the combined two-day journal of St. Petersburg together.  We almost missed the second day of our tour with Red October because we never got our wake up call on the morning of August 3.  The weird thing was I was having a dream that I had to give my room to David and Craig for some reason and they had blown off the wake up call.  I was giving Craig a hard time telling him I can’t believe he missed the wake up call.  Then I really woke up and it was 7:15 AM and we were meeting downstairs at 8:00 AM.  I know I set up a 6:00 AM wake up call because I wanted to write my daily entry for August 2. 

On August 2 we woke up at about 5:45 AM because we were supposed to meet our group on Deck A near the infirmary to go out together.  We showered and went to breakfast and were downstairs at the 7:00 AM meeting time.  Well no one shows up for about 15 minutes and then we asked someone if the gangway we were going out was the one we were going to use.  A member of the crew told us this was crew gangway and we had to go to the next gangway up towards the back of the ship.  Of course they won’t let us just walk down the hallway.  We have to go up to the first floor walk down the ship and then go down the stairs again. 

I’m getting worried now because there still is no one in our group around.   Matt called upstairs and talked to Jean Moser who had set up the 14 other people on our group tour.  He told her about the crew exit and she called all of their other people.  She came down and met us and we found out from her that there had been announcements that the ship wasn’t getting in until 8:00 AM.  Really we were already docked and we were waiting for the ship to be cleared.  The Russians clearing the ship were walking past us frequently and they looked to be right out of some cold war movie. 

Jean started getting worried when people still weren’t showing up.  They had actually locked off the elevators and people could not get to the A deck.  I suggested she walk upstairs to check things out and she found everyone right there at the top of the stairs.  We had to leave together because we had a group visa.  We finally got going and Bill Moser realized he had left his room key upstairs.  One final delay and we finally got to go through Russian immigration and customs.  They took the copy of our passport and gave us a red card that was to be returned upon our arrival in the afternoon. 

We went to town and made a few photo stops with Elena explaining everything.  I mean everything.  She was quite a chatterbox, which is great for a tour guide.  It reminded me of Randy Quaid in Vegas Vacation when the hijack the tourist van to go to Wayne Newton’s house and he is frantically calling off hotels in a rapid fire delivery, “on your left Mirage, on your right is Venetian, on your left is Caesars’ Palace”.  She went on nonstop for two days.  

She also tried to make us make a million pit stops for the bathroom and would give everyone five minutes.  Sixteen people in five minutes is really pushing it.  But all stops were like this.  We’d stop, she’d tell us we have one minute for photos then push on.  Again, I’m not complaining as it made things run smoothly.  Our first stop was for a picture of Pushkin’s statue and the opera house where Nureyev and Baryshnikov danced.  Next was a stop a St. Isaac’s Church and the statue of Peter the Great.  In front of Peter the Great we got the first view of the Neva River at its focal point in the city.  All kinds of things are within site at this location.  The Hermitage, St. Peter and Pails Church and Fortress, the Naval Academy with it’s huge red statues in front and a bunch of palaces.    

The Czar’s loved their palaces.  They are everywhere in St. Petersburg.  I think Elena told us there were 58 palaces.  But back to Peter the Great’s Statue, it is magnificent.  It’s an all black Peter atop a black horse with a snake riding up its back leg all atop this enormous block of granite (I guess).  It all overlooks the massive Neva River.  It was one of the coolest statues I’ve seen. 

We made a few more photo stops on the far side of the Neva, like the Academy of Arts and Rostral Columns, after the Peter the Great’s Statue, and a pit stop for the bathroom at a souvenir shop.  No one had rubles and Elena kept saying that they don’t take dollars but didn’t say wouldn’t take dollars.  Next was another trip across the Neva River and a stop at a local grocery store.  It was a one-room grocery store, but what a room.  The room had giant 20-foot high ceilings and was ornately designed for a grocery store. 

Back to the bus and off to The Savior on the Spilled Blood Church.  We stopped on the way for photos of the eternal flame at the gravesites of the people who died during the October Revolution called the Fields of Mars.  This gave us a great view of the Church of the Spilled Blood.  Apparently, all cemeteries have an eternal flame.   

The church had the brightly colored onion domes and was absolutely beautiful.  Inside the church all the walls and ceilings had these intricate mosaics.  It was completely amazing.  The significance of the church is it was where terrorists murdered Russian Emperor Alexander II.  There is a red stone memorial marker that matches the one his tomb is made of at the Peter and Paul Church were most Russian Czars and Empresses are buried.   

Next on our itinerary was the Hermitage.  Huge, would be an understatement on the size of this museum.  It’s in six buildings and is painted all green.  Most of the buildings are painted a bright color in the city.  This is because the weather is so depressing that Peter the Great ordered buildings be painted a cheery color to help the moods of the people.  One of the main reasons for using Red October was their guarantee of skipping the lines at all the sites and enters right away.  This was a great choice because the line to get in the Hermitage was the length of the building.  We scooted right past security and entered right away.  It is impossible to see everything in the Hermitage.  There are like 3 million artifacts. 

The first stop in the Hermitage was at four rooms that had art confiscated from Germany after the end of WWII.  This is one of those instances where you know there is still a grudge between Russia and Germany.  She explained that Germany requested the return of the artwork the Russia took but this was artwork that was taken from the victims of the Holocaust.  In her blunt way Elena told us that, “there was no chance in hell the artwork would be returned”.  In order to be a little diplomatic Russia said all it had to do was prove they owned the art.  A little hard to do, since they stole it in the first place.   

Elena took us to some of the most significant pieces.  The paintings were taken to see were by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Gauguin and da Vinci.  There was one by Rembrandt that Matt had read about that some mad man had slashed with a knife and thrown acid on.  It looked pretty good after the restoration it had gone through. 

It’s almost impossible to get good looks of things because as large as the museum is it is absolutely packed.  We were interfered by some very rude Italians and Chinese tourists.  Matt seemed like he was upset with the Italians and Elena really didn’t like the Chinese.  Trying to go through the Hermitage seems like it would be impossible to do on your own on a first try.  You would just get lost in the size of the museum and mass of humanity wandering aimlessly. 

We finished the trip to the Hermitage with a stop at the Gold Rooms.  Elena gave way to a tour guide named Helen, go figure.  I wasn’t to impressed with the Gold Room.  The only things I though was really impressive were a couple crowns and a comb modeled after a Greek temple with the teeth of the comb representing the columns of a temple.   

Elena was describing a really good department store on the opposite side of the restaurant as a good area.  Then she tells us the side of the street that the restaurant is on is a bad side of the street.  She can’t tell the pickpockets on that side.  She herded us into the restaurant as fast as possible.  The restaurant is owned by a Russian movie star and is named after some lieutenant who fought against Napoleon.  Matt and I had the Russian Perch that was lightly grilled and very good.  Matt liked the borscht but I passed on my bowl after one spoon full.  Elena was again overprotective here.  She told us there were bathrooms on both sides so our group split fairly evenly.  I was in line behind Matt when she showed up and made me go to the other bathroom.  When I got there I was still second in line but this time behind one of the older men in our group.  I would have been better off behind Matt.  We had our first Russian beers, which weren’t bad.  Big Tommy Smith, a big guy like me, bought our beers for us. 

We left the restaurant after lunch and headed out of town towards the Peterhof.  The Peterhof is a summer residence of Russian czars.  We blew off the main building, which was again brightly painted, yellow this time, with gold onion domes.  The domes are incredible when the sun hits them. The problem is the sun doesn’t come out that often.  We went down the hill and ended up at the fountains of the Peterhof.  Again, incredible is the only word I can come up with.  All these glimmering gold statues with water fountains everywhere on the slope of the hill and at the bottom of the hill.  This is the picture that was used for my Eyewitness tour guide.  We had a 5-6 minute stop for pictures then walked towards Monplaisir Palace.   

This is where the overcast clouds finally caught up with us.  It started to pour as we walked through the woods.  Of course, this was the first day I did not bring my rain jacket.  Matt and I got soaked.  Everyone else did pretty well.  Most of the people in our group had jackets or umbrellas’.  Elena had mercy on me and I held her umbrella while she held up her Red October sign for everyone to follow.  This really wasn’t that necessary since everyone was just watching me.  The Tennessee crowd had figured out the usefulness of having me in your group.  When you think your lost look for me. 

We got to the palace and saw it was on the water across from Finland.  We got inside as fast as possible and again just went through an amazing summer palace.  You really start to feel that the Russian peasants had a right to be pissed.  They were starving and the czars have 58 monster-sized palaces to use at their whims. 

The fountains in the gardens were amazing.  The last one we saw was at about 5:00 PM and was called the checkerboard.  It had dragons and other kids like decorations.  They wanted to have fountains to meet even the kid’s tastes.  They even had one that was an umbrella that you could go into the middle and have the water drain down around you.   

About this time the fountains started dying.  Elena explained that to save water they stopped the fountains at 5:00 PM and started them again in the morning.  We saw one shut down but others were still going strong until we left.  All the fountains run by gravity, which by itself is incredible.  I think Elena told us the water came from about 26 miles away.  

Our group was getting tired but I was amazed at how the Tennessee group held up.  They were troopers and just really good, nice people.  They adopted Matt and I into their group.  They fell right into the size jokes like naturals and I obliged.  Bodyguard, easy to find, clear the way, everything all my friends back home joke about.