St. Petersburg - A Last Look

Thursday, 27 September 2018

Our final afternoon in St. Petersburg (and in Russia).

We started our afternoon tour at the Church on the Spilled Blood, also known as the Resurrection Church of Our Savior.. It was built as a monument on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. It is arguably the most vibrantly decorated church we saw in Russia. Even the exterior is filled with mosaics and colorful tiles. The church has been fully restored, but has not been re-consecrated as a functioning church.

A closer look at one of the sides of the church.

Because Alexander's death occurred on the side of the canal, the church projects into the canal. This was taken from where the church foundation juts into the canal.

The interior is richly decorated and completely restored.

Looking up at the central dome.

The church lacks the traditional multi-tier iconostasis, but this version seems even more impressive.

Above the altar.

A column panel embellished with carvings from many different stones.

Just around the corner from the Church on Spilled Blood was this small, but beautiful, dome. According to Google Maps, it's a handicraft museum, but info is sketchy and incomplete. Regardless, I thought it was beautiful.

We had booked an afternoon cruise along the Neva River and canals of St. Petersburg. This is the Anichkov Bridge where Nevsky Prospect crosses the Fontanka River. The Horse Tamers is a set of four sculptures at the ends of the bridge.

From the bus on our return I was able to get a picture of one of the sculptures.

Winds had cause the waters of the Gulf of Finland to backup into the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg, so the water was particularly high. The clearance under the bridge was tight.

It was a tight squeeze under the Anichkov Bridge.

The beautiful Panteleymonovsky Bridge.

This was where we had to turn around because there wasn't enough clearance to go under the bridge. This kept us from getting into the Neva River and what was supposed to be the main objective of our tour.

The Lomonosov Bridge

We boarded our tour bus near the Alexandrinskiy Theater, which has a sculpture of Apollo and his chariot above the portico. Russians do love their horse sculptures!

This was a somewhat disappointing end to our time in St. Petersburg and in Russia, but overall we had a great tour, and would have loved to have been able to spend more time in a number of places we visited.