Day Seven - Jun 2, 2013
St. Petersburg, Russia
Daily Didactic
We were torn between two touristing options today. Sasha at the front desk had recommended a day trip out to a suburb, Petehof. It involved a boat ride and seeing a more residential area of St. Petersburg. Our book says it also has a palace somewhere, but those aren't super hard to come by in this part of the world. Alternately, we could go take a look inside the Church of Our Savior of the Spilled Blood (COOSOTSB for brevity) and then wander to the other side of old St. Petersburg to visit the newly rejuvenated New Holland island. The latter sounded less logistical, so we opted for that. In the end we had about an 8 mile walk that took us into three Cathredrals, past another, along a good length of the Griboedov canal to the New Holland island project, and wrapped it up at pretty great restaurant. We should stop and explain that none of these cathedrals are considered churches. They are all "museums", a holdover from the officially atheist Soviet Union. On our way to TCOOSOTSB, we wandered into Kazan Cathedral on accident. It was gorgeous and a little smoky from the volume of lit prayer candles. We walked on to the COOSOTSB, which was actually used as a warehouse during communist Russia. The interior is entirely covered by recently restored mosaic art. It was incredibly impressive to look at. We followed the Griboedov canal a few miles and hung a right at the St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral. We weren't dressed acceptably to go inside (shorts and bare shoulders), so followed Kryucov Canal down to New Holland Island. The island is covered in enormous abandoned 19th century warehouses. Originally it was a shipbuilding island with canals to bring boats out the the Neva river. Between then and now it has been the subject of a lot of plans that never seem to materialize (according to the wealth of didactic information posted inside the entrance). Currently it is the target of a community center park and arts community. We truly wish it the best of luck. We headed back to the hostel and stopped along the way at St. Isaac's Cathedral to take a look inside this time. Like everything else today, beautiful and a little overwhelming. We took a quick break at the hostel and then (working again from Soul Kitchen's truly awesome guest map) grabbed a great dinner at the Clean Plate Society. We had read a cautionary review online that the place was crawling with rude russian hipsters. It was nearly empty on a Sunday night and we felt adequately hip for the pleasant hipsters who served us. We returned to room and prepared for an early morning train to Moscow.
Today's Photos
