russia: gatchina

The way I'd booked my train tickets, I had a day in St Petersburg but wasn't going to sleep there. My trains arrived and departed from the same train station, so I decided to leave my bag in luggage storage, and do a day trip.

Gatchina is a city of more than 90,000 residents, around 45 kilometers south of St Petersburg.

The city was first documented in 1499, when it was known as Khotchino. Then it was known as Gatchina. Then it was called Trotsk. Then it was called Krasnogcardeysk. The name was changed to Lindemannstadt when the Germans controlled the area during WW2. The name was finally changed back to Gatchina near the end of WW2.

By any standards, that is a rather long list of names for just one city. Most of the name changes occurred in the 20^th century, I wonder what those who lived through the changes think of all the names.

During the first couple centuries of documented existence, Gatchina was part of Sweden and Russia, as the two empires were fighting over the area for a loooong time.

In 1765 Catherine the Great bought the town and manor, then gave them to Count Orlov, who is said to be responsible for organizing the assassination of Tsar Peter III. 

The assassination is what made her empress of the Russian Empire, so it was basically a huge thank you gift.

Over the next twenty something years, Orlov built the huge palace (which has 600 plus rooms,) as well as the gardens surrounding the palace. After Orlov died, Catherine bought the palace/estate from the family, and passed it on to her son, the future Tsar Paul I. Paul focused his changes on developing the town from a village, giving it Imperial City status after he was crowned.

After the death of Tsar Paul I, the palace and city stayed in the possession of the royals, most of whom made at least a few changes to the palace. Some of the rulers spent more time in the palace than others, though Tsar Alexander III seems to have made it his main residence, and spent the majority of his life there. It was this tsar who introduced the modern concepts of indoor heating, telephones, electric lights, non-freezing water pipes, and a proper sewage system.

The last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II spent his childhood at Gatchina, but ended up making Tsarskoye Selo his main home.

In the early 20^th century the city was the home of one of the first airfield in the country, and was a center of aviation and engine technology, according to Wikipedia.

After the civil war, and ending of the imperial system in Russia, the palace became a museum, which was open as such until 1941. The Germans who left after controlling the area for around three years looted the palace and vandalized the gardens when they left in 1944.

When initial damage estimates were taken, much of the palace was considered irreparable.

Restoration was done in part of the palace, it took more than 60 years. Wikipedia tells me a good portion of the palace is still closed and unrestored, and this area includes the parts most important to Tsar Alexander III. The government was able to get back some of the looted artwork, though far from all of it.

I took one of the first elektrichkas from St Petersburg to Gatchina, arriving when it was still dark outside. At this time of year, even after the sun has officially risen, everything seems really dark for a few hours. Argh.

The front of the train station has a view of the street leading right to the palace, with the city itself basically behind and off to the right of the palace. I started walking, since I needed to kill a couple hours before the palace opened to tourists.

The city center of Gatchina isn't big. When I say city center I guess I mean the tourist center, which is really close to the palace and grounds. On my way to this area I passed a stelae designating Gatchina as a city of military glory. This stelae was just like most of those I've seen, with the stelae in the middle, and four cubes on four corners, with the sides of each cube showing a 'view' of what has happened in the military history of the city.

I passed a church, but there was a service taking place as I went in, so I took no photos inside. I passed multiple bakeries, most of which were just opening up. I was very tempted to buy multiple items as they all looked good, but for once in my life I used willpower not to do so. All these areas were in a pedestrian area, which was decorated for the holidays.

I took advantage of the lake of people to take a photo of myself sitting on a sled being pushed by a snowman, hee hee. I imagine many of the locals and visitors take the same  photo. 

I found another church, where another service was taking place, so I didn't even go in this one. Even though I'd been walking for a while, and the sun had officially risen, it was still so very dark and gray. This is the kind of light that shows up in photos as blue, yuck. When I looked at my watch I realized it was time to walk back toward the palace and gardens, as opening hours were coming.

I was thrilled to discover that there was no entry fee to the gardens at this time of year. Granted, everything was covered in snow or ice, and the lighting was all flat or dark gray. Sigh. Even so, I wandered around for a while, enjoying the peace and quiet. I didn't explore all of the grounds though, I would consider coming back in summer, as I assume the landscaping would be quite nice. I decided to go in the palace before seeing all of the garden area for one main reason: I was cold. It was windy and cold, and my fingers were not having a fun time with trying to take photos outside.

The entry fee to the palace was only 500 rubles, which I think is a cheaper off season price. There was no foreigner price that I could see, which made me happy. As with other royal palaces in Russia, there is a huge coat check area, I was also able to leave my snack bag there.

In general, Gatchina palace wasn't nearly as fancy as some of the others I've seen, but it was still over the top of anything I'd ever consider for my own home. I wonder what it was like before the Germans looted the place. I did like the Greek Hall, which curves around and was particularly aesthetically appealing.

I'm not sure if there is a specific route for going through the palace, to see everything. I'm pretty sure I missed some areas, as I kept coming to 'intersections' where you had to choose which way to go, and who knows if I went the 'right' way.

In the middle of the palace there is a big marble stairwell, which is quite impressive, if you're into that sort of thing. Even though this palace was less grand than what I've seen previously, there were still grand ceilings and chandeliers, as well as nifty intricate wooden floors.

If you join a tour group through the palace, I'm pretty sure your tour guide will be in fancy dress (costume.) I saw a number of groups following people dressed in period appropriate clothing, none of which looked comfortable. Despite that, they were all smiling, which is impressive in a country where people generally don't smile at strangers.

After leaving the palace, I went straight back to the train station, as I knew there was a train leaving soon. I could've stayed in town longer, but if I'd missed that train, the next one was three hours later, or something like that.

When I got back to St Petersburg I made my way (by metro and walking,) to the Transfiguration Cathedral, which is quite big. The original chuch was built in the mid 18^th century, then was destroyed by a fire in August of 1825. Only the exterior walls and a few sacred objects were saved. A rebuild was done immediately afterward, lasting four years. Further renovation took place on the facades and interior took place from 1946-1948, after WW2 affected the church.

The transfiguration Cathedral is on a short list of churches in Russia that have had religious services through their entire existence, even during the wars, and Soviet times.

This church is dark yellow on the outside, with Greek looking columns in front. Very grand, but not too complicated. Wikipedia tells me this is Empire Style.

After that I walked to another church, but this one was much smaller, and far less grand. Even so, I liked it. From there it was a walk back to the place where I'd eaten dinner the few days earlier. I knew the food was good at reasonably priced, and it was warm enough for me to kill a couple hours.

The walk from dinner back to the train station was long, dark, and windy. Thank goodness for warm clothing :) As always, I know I'll be back, it's just a question of when.

russia: petrozavodsk

I'm not sure what made me think about visiting Petrozavodsk. I think I saw it on a destination sign in the train station during one visit to St Petersburg, and I liked the sound of the name. Petrozavodsk (population 260,000+) is the capital of the Republic of Karelia. The city sits on the west side of Lake Onega, one of the biggest lakes in Europe, around 430 kilometers northeast of St Petersburg.

Petrozavodsk continues the theme of Russian cities with multiple names. The city was originally known as Petrovskaya Sloboda, which means Peter's settlement. 

The name was changed 10 years later to Petrovsky zavod, (Peter's factory,) to note the reason the settlement existed in the first place: an iron foundry. For several years during WW2 (1941-1944,) the city was called Äänislinna by Finnish soldiers.

Prince Menshikov founded the settlement in order to build the foundry, which was needed to produce cannons and anchors for the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy during the Great Northern War (1700-1721.) The foundry was first named after the river on which it was located, then the foundry was also named for Peter the Great.

In just 15 years after founding, Petrozavodsk became the largest settlement in the Republic of Karelia, and included a wood fort, a covered market, and mini palaces for the tsar and Prince Menshikov. After Peter died, population numbers went the other way, until Catherine the great founded a new ironworks not too far away. She needed cannons for the Russo-Turkish Wars.

Petrozavodsk was incorporated as a town in 1777, officially becoming Petrozavodsk that year. There isn't much listed for history beyond the 18th century on the Wikipedia article about the city. 

I arrived in Petrozavodsk before sunrise, to a surprisingly grand train station. It didn't look very big from the tracks, but when I went inside I found that there were two levels, only one of which was visible from the backside. Even though the station looked rather grand, and had a lovely main hall, it was also quiet empty, almost sterile.

Since I arrived before daylight I hung out in the waiting room for a few hours, since I didn't want to walk in the dark. Just after walking out of the station I found a bakery, which turned out to be one branch in a chain that had branches all over the city. 

I was very pleased with the options available, as well as the prices.

I walked to the hostel I'd booked, it wasn't a pleasant walk. There was a lot of snow and slush, with some ice as well nearly the entire way. I was really grateful to have waterproof shoes, as I had no choice but to walk through a lot of water and slush while I walked. Apparently Petrozavodsk had had snow recently, and the weather had warmed enough to partially melt everything without completely melting it. Yuck. This on top of a whole lot of wind and a few sprinkles of rain.

By the time I got to my hostel I felt like I was sopping wet, even though I wasn't. Well, not completely. My pack wasn't dry, neither were my pants, argh. Thank goodness I was able to check in immediately, which allowed me to warm up and dry off.

Eventually I went back out, to start exploring the city. The first photo I wanted to take was on what looked to be a frozen sports field, a result of the snow partly melting then freezing then melting, etc... The field was down off a street, I nearly slid down a hill of mud getting there. Then I nearly slid across the entire field while trying to get to the middle of it. Fun, but messy.

Scrambling back up the hill I got back to street level, and walked to my first official sight in the city: Lenin. He sits in the middle of a traffic circle, on Engels street. I don't know why, but I find it ironic that his statue is on Engels street instead of Lenin street, which isn't far away.

Another 'side' of this traffic circle is a park, I think it is named after a tractor plant that used to be here. One end of the park is a war memorial, complete with names on plaques and an eternal flame. It wasn't completely clear of snow/slush, but I could see some of the names. There were also some fake flowers there, but even fake flowers wilt in lousy winter weather. 

I left the park by walking along the pavement on one side of the park, which eventually brought me to Kirov Square. There were a few large holiday decorations set up in a small area, basically so friends and families could take photos. Very cute. None of those made me think of Petrozavodsk, so I kept walking.

Just off one side of the platz was a curious looking monument, kindof like a tree. The 'leaves' of the tree represented the sister cities of Petrozavodsk, which I thought was pretty cool. Definitely a unique monument.

Not too far off another side of the platz was a memorial to Friedrich Engels and his buddy Karl Marx. Since they developed Marxist theory together, the memorial makes sense, but it still isn't something you see very often.

I left Kirov Square and headed toward the lake and the boardwalk along the lake. The boardwalk has been developed relatively recently, so the whole thing is still in really good shape. I started my walk with the statue of Peter the Great, with his arm allegedly pointing at the exact spot where the city was founded.

All along the boardwalk are modern sculptures, some of them more interesting than others. I liked the one of a couple throwing out a fishing net, I wasn't such a huge fan of the cannon pointing out toward the middle of the lake. Listed on the map was a pyramid, so I walked to it, only to discover a very small pyramid. The top point didn't even go up to my waist, it was really small in terms of what you think of when you hear the word pyramid.

At that point I could already feel the lack of light, telling me sunset would be starting soon. Argh.

I walked back to my hostel, stopping at a supermarket to pick up dinner supplies (ramen noodles,) and another branch of the bakery I'd visited in the morning. Yay for yummy treats in miserable weather.

The next morning I eventually packed up and checked out, leaving my backpack behind the front desk of the hostel for the day. When I walked outside I discovered a day that seemed to have much better weather than the day before.

It was just after sunrise, so while it was still fairly dark, I was also able to see the colours of sunrise when I looked east along a street. 

It felt like the first colour I'd seen since arriving in Petrozavodsk, because of the lousy weather. I kept going along the street, which brought me to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral pretty quickly.

The church is in the middle of a small park, and to me looked different from other Nevsky cathedrals. This one wasn't brick. It was painted yellow, with columns on the front 'porch.' I liked it immediately, and liked it even more when I went inside. The interior was painted sea green, and there were no frescoes. The iconostasis up front was gold, with very little other colour. 

I usually prefer the inside of an Othodox church to be painted with frescoes, but for some reason I liked this one quite a bit without the frescoes.

From the church I walked toward the next sight on my list for the day: a Lenin statue. On the way t the statue a snowstorm blew in, lasting about ten minutes. During that ten minutes visibility went from a long way to not far at all. Big fat heavy flakes being blown into my face and covering everything in sight, then it stopped just as suddenly as it started.

Sadly, Lenin was next to a building that was behind a fence topped with barbed wire. There was a gate, but the gate had a security booth, so I didn't even try to go in and get closer. Darnit.

I kept going, heading in the general direction of another sight on my list: a bust of Yuri Andropov. I've heard that he was from Petrozavodsk, but Wikipedia tells me he was born elsewhere. The reason the bust is in Petrozavodsk is because he was leader of the local Komsomol (Communist Youth Party,) in the city.

From there I walked back to the lakes hore, to see how different it looked from what I'd seen the day before. With the way the weather kept changing (clear skies, snow storm, rolling gray clouds, etc...) I knew the water would change the way it looked every few minutes. I also took the chance to stop in the bakery again for more snacks. There are never enough bakery snacks. Ever.

After staring at the water for a while, I walked to the regional history museum. The museum is on another side of the traffic circle with Lenin.

When I walked in there were a whole lot of people hanging out waiting for I don't know what. I assume they were part of a planned tour, but I just found them annoying. Thankfully, I had an easy time buying a ticket (and a city magnet and postcards,) then going through the museum on my own.

I didn't think the museum would be very big, but it was quite a bit larger than I expected. The exhibits started with the geology of the area, then moved on to the history of civilization in the area, moving chronologically. I enjoyed seeing how different eras were classified, and what was shown in the exhibits for different eras.

I'm always a sucker for group photos from past decades and centuries. There is just something about being able to see how people dressed and looked back in the day. (Plus I really like being able to see how photography styles have changed over time.) There were some large dioramas with rooms in a house, and there were plenty of military medals. All in all, a very well done museum.

After leaving the museum I walked back to the lake yet again. By this point it was completely dark, so I got the chance to see how the boardwalk was lit up, and how the water reflected the lights. Very pretty, but also pretty cold and windy.

On the way from the lake back to the hostel, I stopped at the bakery again, then the supermarket. When I got back to the hostel I cooked myself dinner, and charged my phone for a while. Even though it was in the dark, the walk back to the train station from the hostel was a lot better than the walk when I'd first arrived in town.

I'd like to go back to Petrozavodsk, at a time of year when there is more daylight, and more heat.

russia: st petersburg

I love St Petersburg, I always look forward to another visit to the city. So far I've been lucky enough to have every visit occur at a slightly different time. Eventually I hope to be able to see the city during every month of the year.

When I started my holiday break, I didn't have everything sorted out. I only had the first ten days decided, so the last twelve days were still up in the air. When I finally sat down with a calendar and paper, I realized my cheapest way of getting to St Petersburg was to be on a night train on New Years Eve.

Since this date was a fair amount cheaper than the days before and after, apparently the night train is not the place to be on New Years Eve, which is a pretty massive holiday in Russia. Since I don't generally enjoy holidays, I was pretty excited to be in a place where any celebration was going to be fairly limited.

My train left at 2130 or so, I was asleep well before midnight. I didn't wake up, so I have no idea if anything special happened at midnight. Nor do I care.

Anywho, my train arrived on time (of course) in St Petersburg. I sat in the train station for a couple hours; the place was surprisingly busy, even though the shops and cafes were closed. At this time of year, the sun comes up quite late, I did not want to wait for daylight.

I started walking around 0730, the streets weren't nearly as quiet as I expected. I don't think people were going new places at that point, but I think a lot of people were finally heading home. I just took advantage to see the holiday lights were fewer people around to get in my way.

As I walked along I noticed that a few places were open, but most had small signs on their doors saying they'd be opening late, if at all that day. I admit to stepping inside a chain cafe to get something to drink and warm up for a couple hours. From there it was a quick walk to my accomodation.

I wasn't able to check in early, but I was able to drop off my pack, and sit in a communal area for a while. Since I wanted to spend as much daylight as possible outside, I walked to my first sight instead of taking the metro.

I went to see Lenin. Yup, another statue of the guy. There are so many of him, I've now decided to try to see one or two of them in each visit to St Petersburg. The city was named Leningrad for a while :)

This particular statue was in front of a government building, and was behind a set of gates. Darnit. So much for taking a photo with the statue. I was surprised that the statue was pretty small, considering it was in front of a government building. Those tend to be bigger, in my experience. 

Oh well, I took a photo through the gate and kept walking.

From there it was another loooooong walk, to another Lenin statue :) I walked all the way from a park near Smolny Cathedral to the big platz in front of the House of Soviets. Google maps tells me it was a little over ten kilometers, and I know it took over two hours. Since it wasn't raining, and I was wearing a warm coat, I was fine.

I got to see the so called Moscow Victory Gate, which is in the middle of a huge traffic circle.

Since this was New Year's Day, there was less traffic so I was able to take a photo without cars/buses in the frame. I suppose I could do the same thing at 3 in the morning in the summer, but this way was easier.

The walk took me past a beautiful library, I've never seen architecture like that on a library. Maybe during my next visit I should go inside and see what that's like. My walk also took me through Park Pobedy, which wasn't nearly as pretty in winter as it was during the summer.

That being said, there was no snow, which probably made a big difference in aesthetic appeal.

There is a big Lenin statue in front of the House of Soviets, but it had been surrounded by construction fencing for over a year. And the time before then when I'd seen the man, he was in the middle of a spring festival, so it was impossible to take a photo with him. Anywho, I finally got the chance to take the photo I wanted, yay!

After this, I went to get dinner. After spending the night on the train, then a whole lot of walking, I was tired. Instead of going to Namaste, I chose to go to a new (to me) restaurant. Gustogram had good food, good prices, and good service.

As usual, I crashed early after getting back to my hostel.

The next morning I got up and packed up, and eventually checked out. I was able to leave my bag at the hostel, which was handy. 

I thought about walking to my first sight, since the weather was good, but chose to ride the metro instead. It's never wrong to ride the metro in St Petersburg, even though it's not quite as pretty as the system in Moscow.

This metro ride took me to a completely new part of the city. To get to this Lenin, I walked across a car wash platz, and into a stone carving area. This Lenin definitely goes on the list of most unique versions of the man. It was a carving of his head, but the carving was big enough that it was almost as big as me!

When I got back on the metro, I decided to ride a few stations on this particular line, as I hadn't seen them previously. Nifty.

Then I went to another Lenin! If you're keeping track, this was Lenin #4 for the weekend. It took some walking, and he was almost hidden in a tiny tiny tiny park. When I see statues like this I always wonder why he is there, since there is no attention drawn to this statue.

As it was less than two weeks after the shortest day of the year, the sun went down fairly early in the day. 

As I walked along after seeing Lenin #4, I ended up walking toward sunset. I took a photo because it struck me that this particular view could've been in any big city in the world. There was nothing about the view that showed it was in Russia, let along St Petersburg.

I hopped back on the metro, and rode to the middle of the tourist area on Nevsky Prospekt. My first plan was to visit the Museum of Printing, but that turned out to be closed until after Orthodox Christmas. I ended up going to another nearby museum, which happened to be another former royal palace.

The first residence built in this spot for the Stroganov family was built in the 1720s. The second home had two floors, and was built in the 1740s. The current palace was built (or at least construction began, )nearly fifteen years later, in the mid 1750s. Through several generations of the family everything went well, until the October Revolution. Since that ended royal governance of the country, it also ended the system of nobility. The complete change of everything they knew must've been tough for all the noble families at the time. 

Going from being completely comfortable, having plenty of friends and food, to losing all of that would be rough. For the poor folks in the country (most of the population, of course,) it was just going from one system where they didn't have much to another system where they didn't have much. 

After the revolution the remaining members of the family emigrated, the family line no longer exists. At the same time the palace was nationalized, and was handed over to a botanical institute for 10 years. After that, the ministry of shipbuilding was in the building for fifty years. 

The palace was given to the Russian state museum system in 1988, becoming a branch with some of the zillion exhibits in the system. 

I've walked past the entrance to this palace quite a few times, but until this trip I never noticed it as a place to visit. The door is right on the street, it doesn't give the impression of being a former palace until you're inside.

I was happy to visit a former royal palace that cost only 500 rubles, there was no foreigner fee. The inside of the palace was similar to the other former palaces I've seen: a lot of big, grand rooms with really bright decorations. 

The smaller rooms all had solid colour walls, with artwork disaplayed. The big, grand rooms had chandeliers and wallpaper and gold everywhere. None of the furniture I saw looked the least bit comfortable, but since I wasn't living in those times, who am I to say?

The advantage of visiting a place like this on a national holiday was that there were fewer people around. I was able to take a few photos of the huge rooms without anyone else in the room. That rarely happens, so I guess holidays do have their use after all.

My favourite room was a library. There were books all over one wall, more than I'm used to seeing in palaces. I wonder if anyone ever gets to touch/read any of the books.

After leaving the palace I walked to get dinner at the same place as the night before. From there it was an easy walk back to my hostel to pick up my bag, then another walk back to the train station.

I know I'll be back to St Petersburg, I just don't know when.

russia: moscow: ice festival at park pobedy

This was the first time in three years I was in Moscow during the two weeks of the annual ice festival at Park Pobedy.

I didn't originally intend to be in Moscow at all during my holiday break, but that's what happened when I got around to booking trains and planes.

You could barely call this winter in Moscow this year. We've had very little snow, and temperatures have been something like 10 degrees warmer than usual.

I have no idea how they kept the ice sculptures from melting, since they weren't indoors.

What was indoors was a series of sand sculptures.

There was also a chick wearing a costume of I don't know what.

As I visited not too long after dark, on a Tuesday, I paid 350 rubles for entry.

I love ice festivals. Even when they're lame (like the 'Ice Fantasy' Claire and I saw in St Petersburg a couple years ago,) I still love them.