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That title is a mouthful if you say it 10 times real fast! It turns out that we have been in two St. Petersburg’s in one month as we finally made it to St. Petersburg, Russia! We were just in St. Petersburg, Florida where we attended our youngest son’s college graduation. This port was the primary reason we took this cruise as we’ve visited a few of the Scandinavian cities before. Just before we left on the trip we found out that the only way to get off the ship in Russia is with a Russian Visa and/or with an organized tour company, so we booked our excursion through the ship.
St. Petersburg built a new cruise ship terminal a few years ago and there were 5 large ships, including the Crystal Serenity which has been in sync with us the whole trip, in port today. The terminal building also houses the immigration checkpoint that we need to pass through each time we get on and off the ship.
Today our tour is to the Yusupov Palace and a Canal Cruise around the city. The Yusupov family was one of the richest in Russia, some say richer than the Tsar himself! They acquired their wealth over generations through extensive land grants in Siberia, and they owned a string of profitable mines and fur trading posts.
The palace that we visited, the Yusupov’s owned numerous palaces around St. Petersburg, was made famous as it was the place of the murder of Rasputin. Grigory Rasputin, a peasant and self-proclaimed holy man, had gradually won favor with the Tsar’s family through his alleged supernatural powers. His control over the decisions of the family and the Russian ruler himself, put him in a potentially manipulative position and posed a very real threat to their power. Consequently, Rasputin was murdered at the Yusupov Palace on the night of December 16, 1916, and his death proved to be an almost greater mystery than his life had been.
The Palace was ornate and filled with antiques from the late 1700s. The elite class lived a pretty high life back in the day and ultimately this is what brought the era to an end. The working class would end up revolting and while it did end up changing their politics, unfortunately it also led the way for the Communist movement and we all now how that worked out for them.
After visiting the Palace we took a canal tour of the city traversing the many canals while passing under ornate bridges. The bridges are low and we had to be careful while taking pictures to “mind the bridges” or you might get knocked in the head!
The main channel was huge and there was a lot of activity going on. We saw a number of palaces and, because of the summer solstice, the crowds were out in full force. There were boats going this way and that, cars everywhere, young kids waving at us from the bridges, lots of canal boats as well as pleasure boats out for the day.
After the canal cruise the bus fought its way through the horrendous St. Petersburg traffic to get us back to the Marina. All in all, it was a nice day and a good way to get an overview of the city. Plus, it was Dale’s birthday and we managed to work out way into the Polo Lounge restaurant which made a very nice gluten free cake (actually yummy chocolate mouse) cake, complete with “Happy Birthday Dale Charles” frosting and the staff singing Happy Birthday. Very nice!
Margaret’s Top Picks:
St. Petersburg Day 1 Full Gallery: