Wednesday, July 11, 2018- St. Petersburg, Day 2

Wednesday, July 11, 2018- St. Petersburg Day 2

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We got to sleep in a bit this morning as we were told that getting through immigrations would not be an ordeal since the Russians already have our passport and visa information.  We had breakfast in the buffet and grabbed our excursion gear, which included sandwiches from the International Cafe, refrigerated overnight, for lunch.  

There was no need to get a disembarkation ticket this morning.  We literally just walked off the ship and through customs and immigration, taking just enough time to scan our passports and then wave us through.  This morning our Chinese contingent was on time, so we were able to leave on schedule.  

Susan had requested the opportunity to see the St. Petersburg subway.  Svetlana obliged, figuring out a route that would take us to the most renowned station without delaying our itinerary too much.  She provided us with tokens and instructions on how not to get tripped up by the escalators or targeted by pick pockets.  

Then we piled out of the van and headed down into the subway at Narvskaya Station and descended deep into the bowels of the earth on the fast escalators.  There were people running down the escalators to our left as we carefully stayed to the right side, tightly gripping the moving handrail and mindful of who was around us.  Pleasantly enough, St. Petersburg’s subways did not smell at all like New York’s, or Chicago’s subways, and didn’t have rats, trash or homeless people laying about.  They were clean, well lit, well ventilated, and clearly a point of local pride.  The walls were largely marble with elaborate bronze fixtures, and many sculptures dating back to the Soviet era of the proletariat carrying about in their roles to glorify the Mother State. 

The subway cars sped along with surprising speed.  The cars were not air conditioned, but with the windows opened along the roofline, it was comfortable inside the cars.  We popped out of the cars at Avtovo Station, with its granite and jasper floor, marble walls, bronze chandeliers, and some amazing mosiac tile panels proclaiming victory against the Germans after WWII.  It was almost like being in a museum, except for the trains that arrived and departed every 2 minutes like clockwork.  We managed not to loose anyone on the return trip, and then hopped into the van for a quick trip to the Faberge Egg Museum in the heart of St. Petersburg.  

The Faberge Egg Museum is a private collection of a dozen Faberge Eggs, crafted for the imperial family of Russia.  All of them had an associated story of how they managed to avoid falling into the hands of the Nazi forces, who pillaged and plundered anything of value that they came across.  This collection was notable for possessing the very first Faberge Egg, which was a fairly simple appearing enameled egg, containing a golden sphere, which in turn contained a golden chicken. I guess that fits with the Russian tradition of Matryoshka nesting dolls.  Subsequent eggs became more elaborate and contained new surprises, including tiny jeweled replicas of Imperial carriages complete with moving parts and hundreds of diamonds, and animatronic miniaturized birds that flapped their wings and sang.  Others had clocks and exquisitely painted miniature portraits.  The enamel on the eggs had amazing 3 dimensional depth that photographs can’t capture.  Svetlana was able to give us a bit of history of each of the eggs, and explained the progression of Faberge’s work within the framework of the history of the Russian imperial family, wars and other events.  She could have written a PhD thesis on Faberge Eggs.  

The Faberge Egg museum also contained many other varied products of Faberge’s hands and mind. It is a fascinating collection of amazing enamel, gold, jewels and semiprecious carved stones ranging from snuff boxes, photo frames, clocks, opera glasses, figurines, manicure sets and even a oral thermometer. 

The museum had tightly regulated traffic flow through the exhibits but we had plenty of time to admire the fantastic pieces.  It was certainly a highlight of our St. Petersburg tour.  The museum also had nice toilets and was comfortably air conditioned and modern inside.  It was, in itself, situated in a urban palace with imperial architecture and no shortage of marble and elaborate wood and stone flooring.  

Our next stop was at the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, with it’s twin gold gilt spires that reach 400 ft into the sky.  This elaborate cathedral is the location of the Royal Tombs of the Romanov Imperial House.  Nearly all Russian emperors were buried here, with the exception of Peter II and John IV.  

The Cathedral is situated within the walls of a historic fortress.  Outside the walls of the fortress is a military museum complete with Cold War mobile ballistic missile launchers that Kim Jong-Un would love to get his hands on.  There are also a few Soviet era submarines scattered about the waterfront and even on some back streets of St. Petersburg.  At least one is a waterfront museum, while others are high and dry in random public spaces, not unlike the random Vietnam era fighter jets that scatter the American countryside in county and city parks. 

We had a lunch break where Svetlana introduced us to Russian Fast food in the form of Chebureks, which are a deep fried dumpling/calzone filled with savory goodness. Our International Cafe sandwiches and bananas quickly got relegated to a secondary snack.  

Our next stop was quite a ways into the countryside to Catherine’s Palace, which is quite a spread. It’s easy to see why the peasants and proletariat felt the need to overthrow the Royals because this place is really, really excessive.  You could probably land a small airplane in the plaza between the front of the Palace and the fence to the gardens. 

There are halls covered in so much gold leaf that it’s blindingly bright if the curtains are open when the sun is out.  The climax of this tour is a room that is covered with real amber, including portraits created with mosaics of different colors of amber.  This room is actually a replica built with real amber because the Nazi’s stole the real room, hid it in a church that got bombed out, and then it all disappeared without a trace.  There are exhibits on the succession of Romanovs complete with furniture, clothing, and other personal items associated with each Romanov.  The family tree is quite a study, so there are a lot of rooms with lots of artifacts and displays.  

Our driver and guide got us back to the ship with time to spare. As we sailed out of St. Petersburg, the caught sight of Lakhta Center, which at 1516ft is the tallest building in Europe, and the 13th tallest building in the world.

Lakhta Center is the tallest building in Europe

As we sailed out of St Petersburg and Neva lake, we passed through an unusual movable sea barrier, designed to hold back storm surges to protect St. Petersburg from flooding.  It was like a pair of giant blast doors that can swing shut over the main shipping channel from the Baltic Sea into Neva Lake and St. Petersburg.  

We did find our room decorated by Princess in honor of Ben’s 59th birthday.  We celebrated by having dinner at Sabatini’s premium restaurant.  It wasn’t a great dinner, but they sure had an unusual Chocolate Journey dessert, served in a glass bowl that looked like a terrarium with a large chocolate egg balanced on a brownie, floating in chocolate mousse.  When you cracked into the large chocolate egg, there was a smaller chocolate and hazelnut egg floating inside on chocolate pudding.  The big surprise was that the smaller chocolate hazelnut egg contained chocolate ice cream!  Practically a Faberge Egg dessert, complete with surprises.  I can’t imagine how they managed to create that!

Chocolate Journey "Faberge Egg"

The Showtime presentation in the Princess Theatre was a production called Fiero.  It was hard to imagine what that was going to be, but when you entered the theater, the stage was decorated like the Teatro Zinzanni or Cirque du Soleil.  After most of the audience was seated, jesters and clowns started running and tumbling up and down the aisles, squeaking and laughing, teasing audience members with their antics.  Then the stage lights came on and the show began like a circus act.  The plot revolved loosely around the daughter of the Emcee falling in love with a Carnie in the circus, but they really put on a spectacular production with songs by Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and other recent hit artists, mixed with incredible stage effects, dancing and singing.  They managed to bring both a roller coaster ride and Ferris wheel onto the stage as part of the show.  They really amped up the WOW factor in their production values, with sets, costumes and effects to equal anything in a real Broadway show, but compacted into just 45 action packed minutes.  I would have to say it was equally spectacular and entertaining as their other show “Magic To Do” that wowed us on an earlier cruise.  

We finished up the night by watching the movie “Game Night” with Jason Bateman and Rachael McAdams, which was a pretty funny and entertaining movie.  

Tomorrow we arrive in Helsinki, Finland, where we have another SPBTours.com tour booked.  It’ll be a relative short day at port with the ship leaving by 4pm, so we’ll see how that tour goes.