Monday, July 9, 2012

Well, it has been a while since I posted here so this may wind up being pretty long...

Last Friday, we took a trip to Новодевнчий Монастырь (Novodevichy Convent) which is a former womens' monastery featuring a great deal of old Russian religious architecture. It had been built originally in the 16th century to commemorate the victory at Smolensk but was altered over the course of Russian history. During the Napoleonic War in the early 1800s, Napoleon claimed that he would not leave the city until this convent was destroyed. After the French army attempted to burn the structure, it was saved by nuns who extinguished the flames. On the other side of the walls is a famous cemetery where many famous Russians have been buried. For example, we were able to view the graves of Boris Yeltsin, the wife of Mikhail Gorbachev and Nikita Khrushchev (who happens to be the only Soviet premier not buried at the Kremlin). Very interesting stuff.

Since then, (in short) a lot of stuff has happened. It really has all been incredible and I apologize for not keeping up to date. Here is a short list of some of the things that we did over the week:

- Took a tour of St. Basil's Cathedral on the Red Square.
- Visited a Russian military museum where the wreckage from the infamous "U2 Incident" is stored.
- Viewed an incredible panorama at a museum dedicated to the Napoleonic Wars.
- Entered the walls of the Kremlin to see the many cathedrals, as well as both the Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell.
- Walked through a park dedicated to each of the states of the former Soviet Union.









Finally, this past weekend was a hectic dash to see as much of St. Petersburg as is possible within two days. Even with the wind at your back, it is impossible to see outside of a few of the main tourist sights such as the Hermitage and Peterhoff. Undeterred, we tried our best and, in my opinion, did pretty well.

On Friday, we hopped on the overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The train departed at midnight and arrived at Moscow Station at 8:15 AM. Sleep was sporadic but certainly possible. Immediately after getting off of the train, we stopped at a coffee shop and left for our morning bus tour. The double decker bus made for some great photo opportunities around the downtown area and along the Neva River (which happens to be the 3rd largest river in Europe by volume of water). Afterwards, we walked the streets for a while, grabbed some lunch and then checked into our hotel. With only about an hour to rest, we left for the famous Hermitage Museum in the Tsarist Winter Palace. In terms of collection size, the Hermitage is second only to the Louvre. I was told that if I were to spend 30 seconds looking at each work of art, it would take me 7 years to view everything. Obviously, we fell pretty far short of the entire collection in our four hours. 

We returned to the hotel, took a nap and went back out to grab some dinner. Afterward, we headed to the Neva to see the bridge raising which is a rather large event on Saturday nights. The parks were crowded and the walls surrounding the river even more so. The after a number of fireworks displays, the bridge finally raised at 1:30 AM. Strangely enough, this was only 30 minutes after the sun set due to the "White Nights" St. Petersburg enjoys around the summer solstice which was only a few weeks ago. Sunrise was only a few hours later around 3:30 AM.

The next day, we started around 11 AM and went straight to the hydrofoil. This watercraft took us into the Gulf of Finland and to Peterhoff, which is the world renowned palace of Peter the Great. this was an incredible experience and made for some fantastic photos of golden statues and fountains. The estate is massive and took quite a while to transverse. We returned to the mainland for dinner and an evening canal tour by boat. Afterwards, we boarded the 10 PM overnight train, arriving in Moscow at 5:30 AM with just enough time to make it to class at 8 AM. As you can see, it has been a whirlwind weekend but certainly worth every exhausting minute.















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