St. Petersburg, Russia

I tried on MANY different Russian fur hats (with a 20-min time limit, Ma!)...blue, black, big, small...and I whittled my way down 50% for a lovely mink headband. It will be perfect for chilly New York winters, looking at Holiday windows on Fifth Ave. This isn't the one, but this blue one is sure fun!

River boat cruise

More fur hats!

The Hermitage Museum is the largest museum in the world, our guide Natalia said, or rather, it has the largest collection of paintings. In fact, if you spent 2 minutes looking at each canvas, you would be there for 11 years! The mint green building used to be home to Russia’s royalty for 400 years. 

The Church of Spilled Blood is the 7,000 square meter, gold-guilded mosaic memorial where King Alexander II was killed. He was a well-loved emperor responsible for liberating Russians. He escaped attack six times, but on the seventh, his enemies succeeded. A bomb was thrown at his carriage, immediately killed all of his horses, but the emperor remained unscathed. He asked a man at the gate if he was hurt, and the guy opened his coat and threw the last bomb at the king’s legs. His last whisper was, “Take me home,” so his servants brought him home to die. Now the site is referred to as a castle/temple/memorial place/museum. 

Church of Spilled Blood

This is the Hotel Astoria, one of the fanciest in town, where US Presidents stay!

St. Isaacs Cathedral now hosts 10,000 tourists a day. 40,000 people died due to the mercury used in building it. During WWII, the gold dome on top was a target from the air for Nazi bombings. 

My observations: Russians are crazy drivers. Vodka was actually introduced by Swedish conquerors. People look unhappy - even on rare and gorgeous weather days. They just look angry walking down the street, like the Russian villains in movies. Maybe they’re not fond of the tourists. Even in just 20 minutes of free time I felt edgy walking around alone in front of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. I felt mocking eyes on me as I hurried back to the bus.

In short, I'm glad I went, and saw incredible sights, but need not return!