It was a freezing cold March morning in the erstwhile capital of Imperial Russia, now the country’s second-largest city: Saint Petersburg. The thermometer showed -20 degrees Celsius, though the sky was perfectly clear and a fierce sun was bathing the glorified city in profuse sunshine. I just had arrived in the city the previous day. Now it was the right time to head downtown and see with my own eyes what gave to this city the fame it enjoys.
Saint Petersburg Mosque & Alexander Park
Coming from the north suburbs, we got off at Petrogradskaya stop and started walking down the Kamennoostrovkiy Avenue. The street soon led us to Alexander Park. By the east edge of the park, there lies the Mosque of Saint Petersburg. This is a rather huge and lavish temple whose construction started in 1910 and was completed in 1913. During that time, it was the largest mosque in Europe outside of the Turkish Empire. Its two minarets reach a height of 49 meters and its dome 39. It can accommodate an impressive 5000 thousand worshippers. Its decoration with mosaics of geometrical patterns and the turquoise domes remind something of Central Asian Mosques and let one imagine being in Samarkand or somewhere while beholding it.
We continued our walk through the park. I bet that in the summertime it must be a much more beautiful place but, also now, with the black figures of the nude birches sticking out from the white snowy monotony, it had its charm. We also stopped by a very cute and cozy little cafe located inside an old medieval stone structure of a kind in the middle of the park. ‘More Cafe’ was its name and I unreservedly recommend it to anyone who happens to be passing by.
Hare Island & Neva River
Known as Hare Island is the smallest of the islands formed in the mouth of Neva River. It could well be honored as the most significant place in the whole of Saint Petersburg, as this is exactly where the city itself started. Back in 1703, soon after Char Peter captured the mouth of Neva River from the Swedish, he chose the island for building the Peter and Paul fortress, around which the new capital of his new empire was thereon going to flourish. Most of the fortress’s installations remain in perfect tact today, and it’s a definite must for a visitor to Saint Petersburg to see.
Having gone for a walk on the island, it was then time to go for a walk on the river. Don’t take me wrong… I don’t claim to have any sort of magic powers like Jesus… I mean a walk on the frozen surface of the river. Probably, for some of you out there living in such northern latitudes, this must be a common thing to do. For me, however, it was something very novel to see an entire river being turned into a public park. Families, couples, tourists, and all sorts of people were having their casual stroll back and forth on the river’s solid surface. A group of old people were sunbathing, leaning against the fortress’s wall with their shirts off. Some braver ones were having a swim in a little pond broken open from the ice crust. Another guy was driving round and round in a big hovercraft, for no apparent reason, seemingly for the sake of having fun.
Saint Isaac’s & Kazan Cathedrals
Wandering around Saint Petersburg, one cannot but notice the lustrous, golden domes of the numerous churches, boldly towering over the city’s roofs. On this first day, we chose to pay a visit to two of the most famous and impressive ones of them.
The first was the Cathedral of Saint Isaac. This is the largest Cathedral in the city and one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world. It was constructed throughout the first half of the 19th century and, during the Soviet times, functioned as the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism. During the 2nd World War, its gilded domes were painted grey so as to not be attracting the attention of the German bombarders. Nowadays, the building has resumed its role as a temple and regular masses are held in it, though, all the same, it keeps being exploited for money-making.
As we made it there quite late, the staff at the ticket counter let us know that we did not have enough time to both enter the temple and ascend to its top. We chose the latter. The ticket cost 200 RUB. After climbing the 200 plus something steps to the base of the dome, we got to marvel at an astonishing panoramic view of the entire city.
The second cathedral we got to visit, just from the outside, was the one of Kazan. This temple is named so due to being dedicated to some super-holy, ancient icon, known as Our Lady of Kazan. The architecture is of a very different style from the one of Isaac, though as impressive.
Nevsky Prospect
Alexander Nevsky was a kind of an ancient Slavic hero prince, deemed to be the founder of the modern Eastern Christian Slavic culture, after whom the main commercial street of Saint Petersburg is named. The street was planned by Great Peter himself as the beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow. Now it’s the heart of the city’s commercial and amusement life: the place where the Petersburgians go to spend their money. We wouldn’t omit to go for a walk in this renowned street.
We visited Singer, which is, apparently, one of the most popular bookshops in the city, hosted in an old neat building. And then we had dinner at a Greek restaurant named Syrtaki. The food there was quite ok for a Greek restaurant outside of Greece and the portions decent, but the atmosphere was artificial and the staff too stressed and phony. I wouldn’t recommend this place unless you are a rich, fat tourist accustomed to spending your holidays confined in the premises of a Greek beach resort.
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