June 8, by Karl and Joan

Today has been a fantastic day beginning with our trip to the old Peter/Paul fortress which is where Peter the Great began the building of the city and where the St Peters/St Paul cathedral is located. We went then visited St. Isaac’s cathedral. After a lunch of pierogis, we visited the Hermitage Museum and ended with a trip to the Kirov Ballet. It has been a very full day as it is Midnight and the sun is just now setting.

St Paul/St Peters cathedral is an amazing place. This was once a functioning church as well as the place where the tsars and their spouses are buried. It was built with the intention of having the royal family, the Romanovs, buried there. Some of the latest burials occurred 1998 when the family of Nicholas II was finally buried there after being executed in 1917 in central Russia. Other Romanov relatives were interned there in 2006 that had passed away in other countries. After the Revolution in 1917, it became a museum through the state “anti religion foundation.” All the Romanoff’s are buried in the church as the church was once part of a fortress. The first buried there was Peter the Great. He had passed prior to the church being completed but was moved there as the first burial. Also buried there was Elizabeth I and II. Katherine I and II, as well as well as their spouses. Everyone is named Katherine, Elizabeth, Nicholas or Alexander!! It is amazing to see the marble coffins with gilded double headed eagles on the corners lined up signifying they were the leaders of Russia. Most churches are now museums as the “anti religion foundation” closed all churches after the revolution. The same was true for the magnificent St Isaacs. This church (currently a museum) has the fourth highest dome in the world, behind London, Rome, Florence and Venice. It is covered in gold leaf. During WWII it was painted gray and covered with nets so the Nazi’s could not see it from the air and bomb it. All the art treasures were hidden in the basement for the duration of the war as it is very deep. It is an amazing place. In the normal Russian Orthodox tradition, there no seats, except one for the Tsar. Also the nave is square, not elongated, like churches in the West. The Russian Orthodox religion does not believe in statues, so the church is loaded with mosaics and paintings. There was one three dimensional frieze, but the faces were flat paintings.

 
The building was built during the 1850’s with the architect being selected through a competition; he was a 32 year old Frenchman. They stood the columns up first using a series of blocks and tackles setting them in place. Then the building was built around them. Construction took over 40 years! He did see it completed but then died shortly after. Many of the gilded items were done through a process that used mercury. Most of the artisans who worked on the gilded items died from the process.

Well it is getting late and tomorrow promises to be full as well.