Peter the Great set out to create a city that would be the envy of the world and to take the Romanoff Dynasty to a new level. His success can be seen everywhere in St. Petersburg.
The Czarinas Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine the Great created an astonishingly beautiful palace in a town that, at one point, was named for the most eminent writer of Russian literature (who was the grandson of Peter’s black general) – Alexander Pushkin.
St. Petersburg has more beautiful buildings than you can possibly want to look at. It’s reputation is fully justified.
But, then there are some unusual sights, like this odd looking bird! Can anyone tell us what it is?
A highlight of our day, however, was a visit to the Cathedral of Peter and Paul. It is the burial location of the royal family all the way from Peter the Great to Nicholas II and his family (interred here after their bodies were discovered in the 1980s). It’s now a museum, so our guide was puzzled as to why there seemed to be a religious service in progress, including wonderful singing by a Russian choir. We learned that there was currently a meeting in St. Petersburg of the Russian nobility and they had requested a service in what had been, after all, their personal cathedral.
