St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Today was our first day in St Petersburg. We’re spending 2 whirlwind days here, trying to see as much as we can.

We started the day at the Peterhof Palace. This is a little ways out from St Petersburg. It is a large palace with gardens and many fountains. The palace was started by Peter the Great and greatly expanded by his daughter Elizabeth. The palace was very crowded with literally thousands of tourists, which made it much less enjoyable. We were there when the fountains were turned on, which is a semi-ceremonial event. Funny thing is…a man manually turned on the water for the fountains.

From there we went to St Isaac’s Cathedral. This was built in the early 1800s and has a huge gold dome which is easily seen throughout St Petersburg. The inside is decorated with beautiful mosaics. We then went to another church—The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. The outside is a classic Russian style church with colorful onion domes. The inside is entirely covered in mosaics. It was built on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and has a memorial to him inside.

We ended the day at the Yusupov Palace. This was the residence of some of the extended family of the Tsar. This is where Rasputin was poisoned and eventually successfully assassinated.