Scarlet Sails

This morning it was two days before the longest day of the year, we are right in the middle of the White Nights Festival. This is St. Petersburg's largest yearly festival, and tonight was called Scarlet Sails. It was the last day of classes for every high school in the city yesterday, and tonight was their celebration. But the day did not seem to want to turn out that way for us at first.

I woke up begrudgingly at 9:15. I suffered through a breakfast in the hotel of unknown cheese and unidentifiable meat placed on tasteless bread. I did, however, discover with joy the Russian word for milk which, for those of you who have read (or seen) and love A Clockwork Orange, is Moloko.

We left the hotel at 10:15 and rushed towards the Hermitage, to go inside this time.

We arrived just past half past ten and cut the line with the special tickets we were smart enough to purchase in advance. There are 6 buildings that make up the Hermitage museum. It is the largest museum in the world, comprised of over 3,000,000 individual pieces of art, spanning every time period from classical Roman and Greek sculpture to 5,000 years of Korean art to Samurai swords to French Impressionism to Cubism to Russian Art. They say that one could spend 8 hours a day in the Hermitage, and not finish seeing every piece for 3 months. High vaulted ceilings and ornate chandeliers adorn the walls that are laden with treasures of the past.

Spending most of our time looking at Picasso and French Impressionist artwork (with some dabbling on my own into the samurai world of yesteryear) We tried to rush through the collections but we still managed to spend several hours inside. We left just shy of two, leaving the rest of the Hermitage to tomorrow, when we plan to explore some more.

We decided to go inside the Church of the Spilled Blood on our way home, and stopped en route at The Other Side, a cafe/bar, for lunch. We had a few dishes and had a very philosophical discussion regarding the purpose of museums and whether they meet that goal or not.

Arriving at half past three, the Church of the Spilled Blood is even more impressive up close. Massive onion domes painted with ornate patterns adorn the top, while intricate paintings and mosaics line the sides of the building. But the gorgeous outside is nothing compared to the interior of this masterpiece of architecture.

The Church was built on the site where Czar Alexander was murdered, thus the title. Every picture depicted on the inside is a mosaic, not a painted image. Jesus is prominently displayed in the tops of domes and in the end portions of the large room that is the church. Saints line the pillars and archways. Disciples join Jesus in prayer and teaching. Six Large, impressive, ornate chandeliers hand from the ceiling. Gold encrusts every ornament.

Angels, Aureolas, and Altars surround you. No space above eight feet off the ground is uncovered by tile. The altar boasts candelabras under a Byzantium-style archway. A gorgeous tile floor stands prominent in the middle of the floor. Some images on the walls depict important scenes from the Old Testament, too. Moses and the Burning Bush and Abraham's near-sacrificing of Isaac are two that come to mind.



We walked back to the hotel, got in just before five. My brother and I took a long siesta while my parents went to the opera.

At 9:30 Brian and I left for some Tepemok, our favorite blini place. We spend about 45 minutes failing to find a Tepemok. But just when we had given up hope and decided to join the crowds headed back towards the Hermitage for the Scarlet Sail (and there were hundreds of thousands in the streets, Nevsky Prospect was closed off and had become entirely pedestrian), we saw signs about Tepemok and wound our way towards the Neva River and found a Tepemok in the process.

When we made it to the river, it was only by avoiding police blocks and road blocks that kept unticketed people out of the concert being held in front of the Hermitage. We took a very roundabout route but made it to the river. We stood on the bridge for an hour or so, but gave up just before midnight when we learned the boat came at 2...

We stopped at Barrel (yesterday's semi-strip club) for a shot of vodka before we lay down in the hotel. At 12:45, however, Brian barges back into the room and says, "put your shoes on, we're going to this thing." He'd spent the previous few minutes looking up videos of Scarlet Sails. Tonight's festival was huge - a tradition since 1922 displaying a large ship with red sails in the harbor, who's hull had been partially constructed by Peter the Great himself. Tonight's event was supposed to be one of the biggest in St. Pete all year, if not the biggest.

We ran back to the bridge and shoved our way into the crowd. At 1:30 the lights went out. Fireworks shot to the sky. Several barges were firing them in unison. At two o'clock on the dot a shadow appeared in the distance. A live orchestra nearby was playing Tchaikovsky (I believe). The fireworks began again, and bright spotlights illuminated the ship. The crowd went nuts. This ship is not huge, but it is quite impressive. Bright red sails draped the masts as it came forward in the harbor and turned for all to see, before heading back to it's docking place. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, being at the biggest night of the White Nights Festival. Millions of residents came out to see this. Easily the majority of the city tonight was packed into a few downtown blocks. It was unbelievable.

Brian and I ditched as the event was ending and made our way back with the crowd to our hotel. We were back by 3 and asleep by 4.

Ps. Comedy portion of the day: I've always wondered what the exact art was... now I know?