St.Petersburg
I can't believe I am back here. Thank God. I was here last May but it feels like only 3 weeks. It is awesome seeing all my friends and they also can't believe I am back. Drinking vodka (wuhdka) with them when I arrived was awesome. I have been seeing several sights in the city that I missed last year. Everyday has been incredible so far. I am on such a high. The girls are en fuego. It is simply unbelievable. I might have to come here every year. I am having my first lunch in Russia. Nearly finished with my hot borscht and next are the Blinis (pancakes) with cream. It's all good.
This is a sculpture of Peter the Great made right after his death. If you touch his coat button and his finger you can wish anything you like. I wished that I was in St. Petersburg, Russia and amazingly it worked! haha.
This huge ship was the #1 battle ship for Russia with the newest technology that was used in the 1904 Russo-Japanese war.
Nice picture of Anna in front of the Aurora. Anna was such a big help last year in making my trip to St. Petersburg the best. It is great seeing her again. She is the best tour guide and has introduced me to many people in town.
Natasha owns the bed and breakfast downstairs from my apartment who has been amazing. Great seeing her again. Thanks for everything!
The best thing you can do here is taking the boat out at 1 am for an hour and see the bridges open up with all the lights. It is amazing being on the water and it was a perfect night. Anna's husband owns a boat so it was Anna, Andre, Natalia and I on the water.
We are about to start the boat trip. It is pretty cold so we have blankets. Anna is smart and bought a small bottle of vodka. Natalia had a little, Anna none and I finished the bottle. Love it!
It is so awesome seeing Natalia again. She is the best. Don't worry you still look good after the boat ride.
So good seeing Anna and my friends again in St. Petersburg. 'Nasderovia' which is "cheers" when drinking. I said it several times drinking that vodka bottle. It's all good.
I took a few pictures going under the bridges but none came out well. Here is one of them to at least show us going under the bridges after they opened up about 1:30 am.
Most of the days have been sunny and just a bit cold. This was a nice day with people on the boats. The incredible church of spilled blood is at the back of the picture.
This palace in the center of town is amazing. The Yussopov's were extremely rich so they have an incredible collection. Felix Yussopov was the owner of the house (on the left) and for political reasons had to kill Rasputin (on the right). Rasputin was a healer that was very close with the Czar Nicholas at the time since the only heir was a hemopheliac. He helped the boy live several times when times were bad. The other side of Rasputin was a player who was with many women and drank a lot. So in December 1916, Felix had to kill Rasputin and did it in this room in the basement of the palace. All the food and drink was poisoned but it didn't work. He had to shoot him. No one knows if he did it or if his military friend Dimitri did but very interesting story.
I always talk about the amazing Alhambra fortress, palace and garden in Granada, Spain. The quote is 'If you die and didn't see the Alhambra, you didn't live'. I saw it in 2000 and will be back in June this year. So Felix loved the Alhambra palace and so this room is a replica of the Alhambra palace from Granada. Awesome!
This Jewish (JCC) building is amazing. It was built in 2005 and has several aspects including a university, hillel, old age programs and different items of jewish history of St. Petersburg. I met some young people in the Hillel department thru Eugene who is a jewish friend of Natasha (who owns the B&B downstairs from where I stayed). Awesome seeing the jewish life in St. Petersburg which has 100,000 jews today. It is so sad that Jews couldn't practice their religion before the Soviet Union fell. It still took 10 years for people to be able to feel comfortable practicing Judiasm. This center is a huge help in order for young people to receive the Jewish traditional values that will be with them for their entire lives.
Eugene and I went to a Jewish exhibition which was great. We met Maria who is an American, born and raised in Detroit by Italian parents. She never quite fit in during her childhood with foreign parents and talked differently. She came to St. Petersburg in 1999 and felt at home, looks Russian and now is on her 8th trip here. She will be back here next year for 2 years for post graduate work. Nice having a drink with her and talking about our love for Russia. She speaks Russian well and I hope to get to the point of my 8th trip here and to speak Russian well.
St. Petersburg has only this one jewish site for prayer that includes this incredible temple called the Choral Temple and a smaller temple behind it for the orthodox. It was built in 1893 and until the early 1990s, it was not used much since anyone seen in it would have their career ended by the KGB. Only older people who didn't care what the KGB would do to them attended. The temple was restored in 2003 and it is incredible. This is the second biggest jewish temple in Europe. The first one is in Budapest, Hungary. So great to see it.
The temple is great. There are assigned seats in the front for the benefactors and founders with their names imprinted on seats. The woman sit above (behind me at the top). The Choral temple received an organ from Boston (which sits above where the women sit) and even though it has never been used, the Chabad Orthodox will not pray in this temple but in the small temple in the back that has not been restored.
Great look inside the temple
So this is where the Chabad Orthodox pray.
This huge painting of the Wailing Wall is on the side of the walkway from the Choral Temple to the smaller temple in the back. Feels like being in Jerusalem. Very cool.
