Saint Petersburg: Maps , pictures and information.

scubacruiserx2 · October 5, 2019

After leaving Yeliseev's , our next stop was the statue of Yuri Dolgorukiy , the founder of Moscow .

http://www.moscow-russia-insiders-guide.com/yuri-dolgoruky-founder-of-moscow.html

And across the street , the beautiful Moscow Town hall

Next up was a statue of Pushkin .

http://www.moscow-russia-insiders-guide.com/pushkin-statue-in-moscow.html

We didn't notice until later the Soviet newspaper Izvestia was on the left of the photo .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia

Instead , our attention was on this park and the theatre .

And the pony rides !

The theatre was showing the Disney version musical of Beauty and the Beast . Had we known that it was playing , we would have went there on the previous rainy evening , after dinner with our friends .

napoxoguk · October 5, 2019

21 hours ago, scubacruiserx2 said:

Kalinka ? As in Kalinka Malinki ?

Kalinka is "little guelder rose berry" 🙂 Incidentally, Malinka is "little raspberry".

Here's some of my favorites:

If you end up in Alyonka store, don't miss out on the ones shaped likea bottle and the ones with the University building on the wrapper. These have alcohol in them - yum!

scubacruiserx2 · October 5, 2019

1 hour ago, napoxoguk said:

Kalinka is "little guelder rose berry" 🙂 Incidentally, Malinka is "little raspberry".

Here's some of my favorites:

If you end up in Alyonka store, don't miss out on the ones shaped likea bottle and the ones with the University building on the wrapper. These have alcohol in them - yum!

Nice assortment ! My wife likes the one with the squirrel .

scubacruiserx2 · October 5, 2019

Our guide showed us the former Red October factory on the Moscow River

I've still got this candy bar from our last trip there .

napoxoguk · October 5, 2019

Oops - I have just noticed the building on that piece of vodka candy is not Moscow State - it's the building you had on one of your earlier pictures 🙂

scubacruiserx2 · October 6, 2019

16 hours ago, napoxoguk said:

Oops - I have just noticed the building on that piece of vodka candy is not Moscow State - it's the building you had on one of your earlier pictures 🙂

How many of those vodka candies did you eat ? 😊

Reminds us of the movie The Irony of Fate , or how was your bath ?

Edited October 6, 2019 by scubacruiserx2

scubacruiserx2 · October 6, 2019

If you visit Russia and want to take a break , the proper way is ask is " May we stop for tea " . Alina said that we were near a good place and took us to Schastye ( Russian for happiness ) .

The previous photo was from the internet . We were given place mat / connect the dots puzzle with more dots than pages in War and Peace .

After placing our order I began the daunting task of connecting the dots . I don't know why I couldn't see the forest for the trees , but my vision became as blurry as the previous photo . Taking a break from my labor I scanned the room and noticed something that I had missed . Not only was I the oldest guy there , I was the only guy there ! :eek: With the sense that I had accidentally invaded a Ladies room , I suddenly felt like I needed a cigarette - a habit that I gave up almost 40 year ago . A large group of young ladies seated near us became quite animated and drew my attention toward them - and then I noticed , they were all pregnant and some , full term . As my grandfatherly and retired paramedic instincts kicked in , I suddenly felt more comfortable . When I look at the photo below now , I don't know how I couldn't see the big picture .

Here are some other reviews of Schastye :

http://www.tripadvisor.in/Restaurant_Review-g298484-d3756507-Reviews-Schastye-Moscow_Central_Russia.html

Next : The Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer .

scubacruiserx2 · October 6, 2019

Our last stop was at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior .

It has a long and and interesting story which can be read at this blog :

http://io9.com/5981106/the-strange-history-of-the-moscow-cathedral-that-couldnt-be-destroyed

Or seen on this video :

Basically , it took 44 years to complete the cathedral which was opened in 1883 . It was blown up by Stalin's orders in 1931 to build the tallest skyscraper in the world , with a giant statue of Lenin on the top . The plans were changed when the USSR was invaded by Germany in WW II . After the war had ended , it became the world's largest swimming pool . With the end of the Soviet Union in 1990 , the cathedral was rebuilt by the will and donations of the people , including a large gift from Mc Donalds . We saw the plaques in the church recognizing the gifts of various donors . But we were not allowed to photograph the inside , however , the video shows the interior .

The front view

And the rainy view

scubacruiserx2 · October 6, 2019

A couple more photos of Moscow before we board the train to St. Petersburg .

The former Hotel Moscow , now the Four Seasons .

It's the building featured on the Stolichnaya Vodka label .

scubacruiserx2 · October 7, 2019

We choose premium class for our return which includes a smaller , quieter room from the main station , with internet .

And fewer people in our car

We left Moscow promptly at 19:40 . Here's the announcements :

Dinner was served not long after

Followed by sunset

We swapped seats for a snooze and arrived in St. Petersburg at about 23:40

Host Bonjour · October 7, 2019

On 10/5/2019 at 4:27 PM, scubacruiserx2 said:

Our guide showed us the former Red October factory on the Moscow River

I've still got this candy bar from our last trip there .

Ahhh, now we see the Aloynka allure...wow, the photo and illustration likenesses are striking! Could there have been some spying involved when searching for imagery to create packaging, you never know. (Oh and thx for the great chocolate imagery too, except, not great when there's none for us to eat, lol!!🙄) I like a good spy story to go with my chocolate...which brings me to....

I would call this Propaganda Candy. But I'd eat it anyway, however suspiciously 😉

I'm going to look for the Aloynka here, or perhaps I can find it in the city or if not, Brighton Beach might have it. I love the Russian Stoli labels, sold so much of it once upon a time when family had a store in Queens.

Kalinka was just the way my friend Dina familiarized my name, I think because C sound in cyrillic is K and the 'ka' is the way names are made endearing or familiar among friends and family; her husband was Chris but she called him Krisusha. She was Dinka. It's equivalent would be, sort of, like adding the -san to someone's name in Japanese except that knows no male/female versions where in Russian, there are difference. Hence, Colleen/Kalinka, Chris/Krisusha but, I dig Kalinka Malinka and believe it or not, I have a raspberries connection to my name from a work colleague. I know. Weird. Or not? 🤣

More excellent images...I'd heard about the swimming pool, I have a Stalin bio here waiting to dive into on my bookshelf. I'm still not over all I read about the Cultural Revolution and Mao after I got back from China.

Train looked nice. The lottery? I think I'm too jaded, color me skeptical of train lottery roulette (1-36 random numbers?) sounds like a hustle to me but maybe I'm (probably) jaded. Now I need some of that red wrapper chocolate 😉

Awesome posts everyone, spaseba!

scubacruiserx2 · October 7, 2019

A certain "Big Smile" store online has the Russian candy available. Should have brought some home from last trip.

"I'd heard about the swimming pool, I have a Stalin bio here waiting to dive into on my bookshelf. "😀

As far as the lottery goes, we did not want to play any Russian games of chance especially after finding out what "Russian Roulette" was.

scubacruiserx2 · October 7, 2019

We really liked having a Visa and staying in Russia.

You get to see and learn more at a slower pace. When there are no ships in port, you have very few people at the Hermitage, Peterhoff or Catherine's Palace. We toured alone with a SPB Card or a private guide and could go where ever and whenever we pleased.

Recently we went to S.A. and Antarctica. We were warned by our ships captain, our private guide and a local, to watch our camera's in B.A. We have never felt this way in St. Petersburg or Moscow.

We were in St.Petersburg on a cruise in June and will be writing a review of that visit next time.

scubacruiserx2 · October 8, 2019

We booked a cruise going to Norway , Iceland and Scotland on the HAL Zuiderdam just 2 months before it sailed . A couple of days later we thought why not book a Baltic before the other cruise . This was our 7th visit to SPB so we felt comfortable booking late . It did move our departure date up a couple of weeks so rather then getting a new visa we decided to go with a private guide . The sunset was at 2300 with clear skies on the night before our arrival - so different then 3 days of rain that we had on our last cruise visit there .

IMG_1808%202_zpsravmbwzg.jpg

We were surprised to see #16 , The Other Side Gastro Pub , listed in the port guide . We know the owner and that he had sold the place and moved back to the US in 2013 . We had hoped to eat there see him and his family while in town .

This is the Other Side and owner in 2009 on Victory Day .

The former owner Emailed us and was as surprised as we were that the Port Guide showed the business as open since he's still in the US .

Edited October 8, 2019 by scubacruiserx2

scubacruiserx2 · October 8, 2019

Its very crowded and shallow in the Gulf of Finland an you have to pass through the floodgates to get to or leave SPB .

Our terminal

The Viking Sun

The Celebrity warning

Because our Russian Visas had expired we had to wait until 8:30 to get off the ship .

scubacruiserx2 · October 9, 2019

On our previous visit to SPB us and our grandson had Visas and had planned to stay there and begin and end our cruise from there . Our favorite apartment was rented so we went to plan B a 3 day stay from the cruise ship Eclipse . On the first we walked to the gate where we met our guide and left before any of the tours .