Peter, Paul, and Mary?

When Peter the Great became Czar, he realized he needed a port on the Baltic Sea to create a lasting and powerful Russian empire. He traveled north from Moscow, and decided that several hamlets and villages along a local river in the north would be a new city. While the city has undergone several different names (Leningrad being the famous past moniker), today it is known as Санкт Петервург. Reputedly, upon arriving in what would be called St. Petersburg, Peter built the first building with a handful of serfs, his home, in six days. He lived in that same building (a modest, one story, four room log cabin) for six years; he was that modest a man. In fact, he was so modest, that when he died he had it decreed that the house be preserved forever, so every generation that would follow him would know exactly how modest he was. Peter the Great was the epitome of the most modest man that could ever have lived.

We arrived at Peter's house twenty minutes past five. But let me back up a bit. (Cue Wayne's World back in time hand motions and sound)

I woke up at 12:30, exhausted. I need to stop going to bed so late. Looking forward to the day when Brian and I are on the train and can sleep until all hours of the day without missing anything. At one we left for the Hermitage, again.

On the way, we stopped for some pizza at a place on Nevsky Prospect. As we walked out, we noticed how just one night after Scarlet Sails, not only was the Prospect open to traffic again, but every bit of debris had been cleared off the street; and there was a lot of it. I don't remember the number of times I kicked broken bottles with my sandaled feet while I wasn't looking down.

Along the road my dad pointed out a sign. On it read: "Citizens! During artillery fire, this side of the street is more dangerous." When Leningrad was under seige, the Nazi division that was firing the majority of artillery into the city was firing from the South, and we were on the north side of the street. I can't imagine what it would be like to live under seige for a week, let alone for 900 days...

At 2 we had entered the Hermitage. In one of the first hallways I found an echo chamber that allowed me to talk into a wall while my family could hear me 15 feet away as my voice echoed up and over the ceiling. Very fun. As we took for granite (pun intended) room after room of Greek and Roman statues, and breezed past the deadly boring Egyptian sarcophagi, we came upon a rare find. Michaelangelo had sculpted one sculpture while in Russia. This was it, a crouching boy.

We ran through as much as the museum as we could do in two hours. We looked at 5,000 years of Korean art; multiple rooms displaying Hermitage Palace Interiors; Russian, Italian, Netherlandish and Flemmish art; French art limited to 15-18th century creations; and Dutch paintings. The dutch section had an entire room with a magnificent collection of Rembrandt. That alone would have been worth it. Pictured here is the Return of the Prodigal Son, one of Rembrandt's more famous pieces.

My dad has been dying to see the house that Peter built. We hiked from the Hermitage over the bridge Brian and I had watched Scarlet Sails from, around an inlet in the river, over a smaller bridge, and found a fortress between us and our goal. It was the Peter and Paul fortress, named for Jesus' disciples of the same names, and it was one of the first constructions of St. Petersburg, because when Peter created it one could not have a city without first building a fort. We walked through it, wondering what had happened to Mary when they named it. A Caralon began to play inside, marking the 5th afternoon hour. We left ten minutes later, and ten minutes after that, we found Peter's house. But it had been closed for 20 minutes. So close.

When six rolled around we were done chillaxing at Peter the Great's house, and we went to a Tepemok branch we discovered nearby (because who doesn't want some Tepemok?), passing a beautiful Mosque on the way. We also noticed a museum devoted to Soviet era artifacts, which is very well hidden from public view (the Russians aren't exactly proud of their Stalin/Communist history). We had been planning to go to this museum tomorrow, and had stumbled upon where it was, so we can get there more easily tomorrow. We also found an Uzbek restaurant that we want to go to tomorrow after the Museum.

We went back to Tepemok for a second time before heading to the Metro, and we were back at Nevsky at 7:15.

7:30 in the hotel.

11:00pm still in the hotel.

11:30 went to a restaurant on a rooftop next to our hotel called Terrasa, met our parents there, grabbed some dinner. Beautiful views of the city, amazing food,
and they brought us fluffy blankets to keep us warm while we ate!

At quarter to 1 we were back in the hotel, and we were asleep by 2:30.