July 19, 2007 – Part II

Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad.

Me and the Peter the Great Bronze Horsemen Statue.

Karen and Kay in our compartment on the train to Moscow.

Our next stop was the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningradback in St. Petersburg (see photo above). The monument was built in 1975 so it has a very “Soviet” feel to it. The museum shows a very emotional documentary (No words spoken; just this heart-breaking music being played in the background) that visualizes the 900 day siege during WW II (Or the Great Patriotic War as the Russians call it).  It’s hard to imagine over 1 million people died during the seize.

We then traveled to St. Isaak’s Cathedral.  It’s the 4th largest cathedral in the world.  Today, it is a museum but the architecture is amazing!

We walked across the street to visit the famous Bronze Horsemen Statue of Peter the Great (see photo above).  The statue was ordered to be built by Catherine the Great.  It took 12 years to create the statue but it was completed in 1782.  A cool fact about the statue:  During the Second World War the statue was not taken down, but was protected with sand bags and a wooden shelter. In that way, the monument survived the 900-day siege of Leningrad virtually untouched.

Our next stop was the Nikolayevski Palace to see a Russian Folk concert.  The theme of the concert is “Feel Yourself Russian” and you certainly leave the theatre feeling Russian after watching the amazing performance of extremely talented dancers, singers, and musicians!  Wow is all I have to say!

We ate a quick dinner at Subway! I need to point out that this was the only “American” food place that I ate at while I was in Russia and I didn’t have a choice.  Our tour guide had pre-ordered the subs for us and made the decision to eat at Subway since it was quick and easy (we needed to get back to the train station quickly so we wouldn’t miss our train to Moscow).  I wasn’t that impressed with the sub I ate – I thought it was gross and it definitely didn’t taste like one of our subs in the United States.  They put ketchup on the subs and I hate ketshup!  Icky!

Our last stop of the evening was to go to the train station and board the overnight train to Moscow.  The temps dropped a bit so it got a tad bit chilly before we left St. Petersburg.  We boarded the overnight train at 10:30 pm to leave St. Petersburg at 11:00 pm.  We are supposed to arrive in Moscow at 7:00 am.  Once we boarded the train, the girls and I socialized a bit (see photo above).  We all started to get tired soon and we went to sleep.  I was on the top bunk again and this bunk was smaller than the first train.  I didn’t sleep well at all so I was VERY grumpy the next morning! 😦