Arriving in St. Petersburg, Russia

“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" Translation of Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev, quoted in Time magazine in 1956.

When I was a little boy, I couldn't imagine visiting Russia as a tourist. I thought of it as a cold, gray country filled with unsmiling people led by a sour-faced bald guy who pounded the table with his shoe while he shouted. As I grew older, I learned more, and every new revelation made it less desirable. Somewhere I heard they didn't believe in God, because they thought the government in effect superseded god. Their country was based on the philosophy of Karl Marx, who famously said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” I wasn't sure what it meant, but I didn't like it. They wanted to destroy our country and the freedoms and liberties for which it stands.

I vividly remember playing four square in my drive way with Glenn Rocha and a few other kids from my street as we talked about the Cuban Missile Crisis, repeating what we overheard our parents say, and fearing nuclear missiles from Russia (without love). Russia's “democracy” allowed them to vote for the Communist Party's official candidate or abstain. Their government forced them to work in assigned jobs, and not unlike slavery, regardless of their personal output, they all made the same income, except for the fortunate few in government and those deemed worthy by them. The Politburo, not the free market, decided what was fair.

Their athletes were powerful foes at the Olympic Games, and I hated when they beat our American team at anything. Where smiling Americans sacrificed all the fun of living in our great country to pursue the honor of winning gold for our country, the unsmiling Russians had been forced into training while children as the only chance for their families to possibly move above the sorry state of being part of the proletariat. It was a country of equality, where all were equally miserable, except the privileged few. This is what I believed growing up. Why visit a country like that even if I could?








In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan called Russia the Evil Empire and told them to adapt to the rising tide of freedom. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Reagan's policy, posture and speeches told the world he wasn't afraid of Russia, giving courage to satellite states of the USSR to stand up to Russia, too. Reagan called Russia's bluff, and raised it. He raised it again. Everyone was surprised when Russia folded, including me. It happened after Reagan's Vice President, George Bush, had succeeded him as president, but it was the relentless efforts of President Ronald Reagan that wore Russia down.






The day before St. Petersburg we had visited Finland, which stood up to Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to gain its freedom, and again after World War II, when Russia undoubtedly would have liked to drag Finland behind the Iron Curtain. While Russia's state run economy floundered, next door capitalist Finland became the country with the highest per capita income in the world. After St. Petersburg, we would visit Estonia, Poland and East Germany, remarkably brave countries that followed President Reagan's lead and threw off the shackles of communism. It was a fitting preamble and exclamation points to our visit of Russia.

Due to circumstances beyond their control, our ship arrived in port an hour or two late, which led to chaos getting ashore.

While Russia has opened St. Petersburg to tourism, it is still Russia, not Florida, so there is plenty of red tape even in the best of situations. Visitors must be escorted and officially be guests of other Russian citizens. Visas must be purchased with schedules of what will be visited and when, unless you have a hosted shore excursion. Most passengers take the path of least resistance, booking tours through the cruise line. Even our family, which almost never buys shore excursions through the ship, were among the throngs waiting for Princess to sort out tours going ashore. While they announced the excursions would leave an hour to two hours behind schedule, people still showed up at their assigned times, overflowing capacity of the meeting area and staff. Others going ashore who were not on Princess excursions could not debark until Princess shore excursions had been processed, so going with Princess was still the right choice.

To make a long story short, we eventually made it to the customs area, which was actually actually modern and quite attractive, just as they are when built by cruise lines all over the world. As might be expected in a bureaucratic country, few of the booths were occupied, so the lines were long, but the civil servant stamped our passports without incident. On the bus, we waited longer than we would have liked, because apparently someone scheduled to join us got lost in the shuffle. Eventually we left without them.

Riding through the streets of St. Petersburg, I was surprised that the traffic jams reminded me of Long Beach city streets. This wasn't a Scandinavian city of bicycles like we previously saw on this trip. It kind of felt familiar in an odd way, although the signs were written in Russian instead of in English or Spanish.

As we drove along, our guide spoke about how Peter the Great, upon returning from traveling abroad, wanted to build a more European capital which would be located on the coast to open the country to the world. He built this city in marshes using his greatest resource among an impressive store of natural resources: a massive labor force. Everyone was told to bring a bag of rocks when they came to St. Petersburg, and if a worker died, his body became part of the foundation of St. Petersburg. Peter built a city of canals that the Russians like to call the Venice of the North, although I would have to say a lot gets lost in the translation from sunny Italy to St. Petersburg. As our guide the next day, Sophia, said, quoting a local truism, “There are two seasons in St. Petersburg: the season of expectation and the season of disappointment.”

I think that applies to not simply the weather but also the plight of the people. As we drove past apartments, our guide pointed to those built in different eras and described what they were like inside. Those built under Lenin when communism was young were larger and relatively comfortable. Lenin was a mass murderer, killing tens of thousands of political dissenters, but he must not have been a bad real estate developer. As times went by, many of those units came to be shared by several families, sharing common spaces like kitchens and bathrooms while cramming a whole family into one bedroom for sleeping and private space. Under Kruschev, the apartments got smaller, with low ceilings to squeeze more units into the same city block. They kept getting smaller, and a joke is that the small units are great for the housewife, because she can remain seated at the kitchen table while she takes things from the stove or puts dirty dishes in the sink.

Now, with the emergence of capitalism, deluxe units have become fashionable. Large and comfortable, they unfortunately are beyond the reach of most citizens. If you're an ex-KGB agent running a nightclub or oil company, however, then you can live in style. As we continued on toward the monument of excess known as Peterhof, I found myself hoping that the unfairness of their transition toward the freedom we love doesn't get sidetracked in Russia. Even more, I pray that my own country doesn't get blown away from the freedom and liberty we have always cherished by the winds of change. Karl Marx said, “The proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism.”

An Evening at Catherine's Palace

The intrigues of Russian royalty fill many long books, and it would be unrealistic to attempt to cover them all here. Suffice it to say that Peter the Great divorced his first wife and eventually married Catherine, who was not Russian but rather from a part of Sweden that is now Estonia. They had nine children together, but only two survived to adulthood, which was the sad state of medicine at that time.

While St. Petersburg was being built, they lived in a three room log cabin, where she tended house and he gardened as if he was not the Tsar of Russia. Perhaps that love of common life as much as her great beauty, intelligence and warm personality attracted Peter to Catherine, who was the daughter of a commoners rumored to be escaped serfs.

Peter continued with enormous construction projects, and as with the tradesmen who worked for Mad Ludwig in Germany decades later, I’m sure a lot of people were happy to have good jobs making his big dreams reality. In 1717, he and Catherine commissioned Catherine’s Palace, another amazing place we were privileged to visit while in Russia.

Despite his common touch, Peter the Great changed his title from Tsar to Emperor, and he made Catherine his Empress, a title he did not take from her despite the fact that they became estranged in 1724 when he learned of her involvement in some court intrigue that involved selling favors based on political connections, something completely anathema to his idea of a meritocracy.

Peter had modern ideas, believing people should rise in positions due to competence rather than noble birth. Had he not died at the age of 52 due to health complications suffered as a result of rescuing drowning soldiers from freezing water in the winter of 1725, perhaps Russia would have developed more along the path of America’s example.

While built for Empress Catherine I and improved by Empress Elizabeth, Catherine’s Palace is most closely associated with Empress Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great. Under her reign, the noble class was strengthened, and she relished the glamorous life.

On our evening excursion to Catherine’s Palace, we were granted a glimpse into that world, along with about 90 others, so let me share a little information about Catherine the Great. Born in 1729, four years after the death of Peter the Great, Sophia Augusta Frederica was a child of Prussian nobility. Attempts to arrange a marriage between her and Duke Peter von Hostein-Gortopp, who was in line to be Emperor of Russia, were thwarted when her mother was accused of spying for the King of Prussia by Empress Elizabeth.

However, Sophia eventually was invited to visit the royal court and went out of her way to impress Empress Elizabeth and the Russian people. A bright girl, she studied the Russian language intently, and in 1745 at the age of 16 she married the Duke and became Duchess Catherine.

She read extensively and enjoyed friendships with some of the great thinkers of her day, including Voltaire. She stayed current with all the news throughout the world. The marriage, however, was less than ideal. Duke Peter had a mistress, while Duchess Catherine took many lovers.

In 1762, Empress Elizabeth died, and the Duke became Emperor Peter III while Catherine became Empress Consort. The Emperor left St. Petersburg to live with his courtiers in Oranienbaum, and rumor had it that he planned to get rid of Catherine. She beat him to the punch, staging a “bloodless coup d’etat.” Three days later, however, Peter was killed by Alexei Orlov, who supported the coup. Whether Catherine was involved or not, Russian royalty and the populace went along with the succession, along the lines of non-Russian Catherine I succeeding Peter the Great upon his death.

Catherine saw no reason to improve the lot of her subjects, but in international terms, she was a powerful leader, winning wars and modernizing along the lines of Europe.

Russia became one of the most powerful nations in the world, which is quite remarkable considering what it had been about a century earlier when Peter the Great came to power.  After the French Revolution in 1789, Catherine II rejected many tenets of the Age of Enlightenment, preferring the old ways of nobility ruling by right of birth, which had certainly been good for her and her cousins throughout Europe.

Coming on the heels of our visit to Peterhof, which was amazing but definitely overcrowded, this was like being honored guests at a royal reception. We took a leisurely stroll through the lovely gardens, greeted by a uniformed band. We toured the carriage house, where gorgeous carriages that once carried royalty are on display.

Once inside the Palace, we took a leisurely, uncrowded tour of the amazing rooms. The amber room, with walls made entirely of amber designs, was both garish and amazing. A flute player by an incredible fire place entertained us as we passed one room, and a harpsichordist played in another ornate room. It was really a treat.

Eventually, we arrived in the giant ballroom, where we had string quartet and champagne awaiting us. Dancers entertained us, and even Empress Catherine herself made an appearance.
(Okay, I know it wasn’t really her, but it was cool.) She invited us out to the garden, where a horse drawn carriage arrived carrying a couple who further entertained us with dancing.

Afterwards, we headed to a restaurant on the grounds, where we had excellent vodka, mediocre caviar and bad wine before a great dinner was served.

The gentleman sitting next to me and his wife didn’t drink vodka, so they gave me theirs. With Amy’s, that meant I had four, but Jay and Julie quickly made like communists and redistributed my wealth, so we each had two. All the while, a band of folk musicians featuring a singer who had the range of Pavarotti entertained us with great music and dancing.
Not all of the music was Russian, but it was all delivered with good-humored energy and flare worthy of a command performance. Not at all stuffy, the band came across as happy celebrants, welcoming honored guests to the hospitality of Russia.

This was an expensive excursion, and I would never have selected it if Julie hadn’t insisted, but I highly recommend it if you take this cruise. How often will any of us be in St. Petersburg?

Though it was close to midnight, it was still dusk, and we all had contented smiles on our faces as we rode back to the ship on the bus. We'll always remember fondly An Evening at Catherine's Palace.

Helsinki Churches and History

While taking the public bus allowed us to walk past the line for the shuttle bus, we ended up in another line.

For some reason, it took a long time for passengers to buy tickets or day passes.

I went up the steps with exactly 27.2 Euros, which was the total price for four passes, but the driver nonetheless took time with pen and paper to figure out how much we owed. It might have been his first day on the job, but even then he was obviously a slow learner.




The ride into town wasn't long, and the seats were comfortable.
We arrived at Senate Square, where we snapped some photos next to the granite fountain featuring a nude bronze mermaid called Havis Amanda (Sea Nymph), who rises from the water to symbolize Helsinki's rebirth.

When unveiled in 1908, French sculptor Ville Vallgren's work met with protests, especially from suffragettes who had won the vote and equality for women in Finland in 1906.

They called the statue “a common French whore,” and the artist said the model was a Parisian mademoiselle, putting a thread of truth in the objection to what they claimed to be an objectification of women.

She nonetheless remains prominently on display, looking rather innocent now, as well as beautiful, and she has become the unofficial symbol of Helsinki.


Up a long flight of majestic steps sits the Lutheran Church. Designed by German neoclassical architect Carl Ludwig Engel as the crown jewel of his Senate Square project, it was supposed to have only the center dome.

Engel died twelve years before it was completed in 1852, however, and his successor Ernst Lohrmann thought there was a flaw in the design. 

He claimed the roof might collapse if he didn't counterbalance the center dome with smaller domes on the four corners of the central part of the structure.

Built while Finland was part of Russia, it was originally called St. Nicholas' church, and the inclusion of the smaller domes tied it more closely to the architectural style of Russia in general and St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg in particular.

We arrived shortly after an organ concert had started, so we weren't able to go inside, but looking in the windows told us it was nice but rather unremarkable inside, and we didn't return.


On a hill a short distance from Senate Square is the Russian Orthodox church, Uspenski Cathedral. Its exterior is even more Russian in design than the Lutheran Church.

Completed in 1868 under the design of Russian architect Aleksei Gornostajev, it looks older than that inside, but for me, the exterior was still far more impressive than the interior.



The Russian heritage is obviously important to Helsinki, but they have stronger ties to Sweden.

From the time of the Vikings, Sweden dominated Finland, which was part of Sweden (with an occasional incursion by Russia) from 1323 until 1809, when Sweden ceded Finland to Russia.

Napoleon had sanctioned Russia's invasion of Finland the previous year.


In 1899, Russian was declared the official language of Finland, but as you might guess, that didn't go over well.

We didn't see many Russian words on our visit, but even though only about 10% of the population speaks Swedish, all the street signs are written in Finnish and Swedish.



In 1917, when the Russian Revolution broke out, Finland took control of its own destiny, winning independence.

In 1939, Finland declared neutrality in the war, but the Soviet Union invaded them and took 10% of their land the next year under the Treaty of Moscow.

In 1941, Finland declared war on the Soviet Union, and in response, Britain declared war on Finland, so Finland was the enemy.

While World War II is considered to have ended in 1945, Finland and the Soviet Union didn't sign a treaty until 1947.

Fortunately for Finland, they maintained their independence as a capitalist society, and by the 1970s, they had the highest per capita income in the world.


Between the churches is a bastion of capitalism, the Harbour Market.

It seems like we always end up in these open air marketplaces wherever we go, tasting free samples of local produce, meat and fish, and we bought some huge raspberries that were delicious.





We did not see Temppeliaukio Rock Church, but Gina and Laszlo did as part of their Helsinki Highlights and Cuisine Tour, and they said it was very cool.

Completed in 1969, it is built inside a massive block of granite, and the copper dome makes it look like a space ship crashed into the ground.

Peterhof

In the latter years of the 17th Century, in a rather primitive, isolated country called Russia, the boy who would grow to be known as Peter the Great learned carpentry and built boats as a fun hobby, becoming a skilled craftsman in the process. As a young man, he traveled to Holland and England incognito to work in shipyards and further his knowledge.

At 6'8” and undoubtedly speaking with a Russian accent, the presence of this young man wasn't a well kept secret. He sometimes traveled with an entourage of “right nasty” men who weren't the tidiest of sorts, sometimes using paintings for target practice. An earlier version of a touring rock band comes to mind. When he took the helm of yachts loaned to him by King William III of England, Peter sometimes banged into other boats, causing great damage on some occasions. Nonetheless, the King of England gave Peter as a gift to take home one of his most modern ships, used previously for transporting dignitaries between Holland and England. Why?

The King wanted to sell goods like tobacco grown in England's New World colony, Virginia, to the vast, untapped market Peter ruled with his weak half-brother, Ivan. England also wanted to explore potential trading routes through Russia to the silk and spices of the east.

Peter returned to Russia from his travels with not only warm feelings for the modern world of England and Europe, but also the desire to make Russia more European and less rustic. With his love of boats, he wanted a navy. He decided to build a new capital, St. Petersburg, on the coast, replacing Moscow, which was too far inland to welcome the outside world.

During his travels, Peter had visited Versailles. He decided to build a palace even greater than Versailles, and he did so about 30 kilometers from St. Petersburg , making it a lovely stop for European royalty on their way to the new capital city.

Peterhof is even larger than the French palace he modeled it after. Peter himself actually liked to stay in small, rustic cabins, but he wanted to impress the world that Russia was a great country, and what better way to do that than with the greatest palace in the world?

On the morning we visited, rain poured down as bus loads of tourists sheltered by their personal umbrellas hustled past booths selling umbrellas, Cokes, postcards, hats and flash memory cards. Jay needed another flash memory card, since he had filled his camera’s card and had no place to download it, so he stimulated the Russian economy with some Euros.

Because our large shipload of people arrived late, we probably created more congestion than normal, and the rain didn't help matters. Before we even entered the doors, several people on our tour were lobbying our tour leader to cut our trip short, because they had other tours scheduled for that afternoon. We heard their pleading over the headphones our guide provided us to inform us on the tour. I took it upon myself to say, on behalf of the majority of tourists, that we did not want our tour cut short. By the end, I must say our guide took a reasonable tack, and while I would have liked more time in the gardens, we enjoyed the full tour.

Everyone is required to wear booties to protect the intricately patterned wooden parquet floors. No flash photography was allowed inside, and for some reason, we didn’t take any pictures at all, but we enjoyed seeing the interior. The gorgeous fountains and gardens, however, are the true highlights of Peterhof.

The spectacular fountains are powered entirely with gravity, which to me is a true engineering marvel designed over 300 years ago.  During World War II, the Nazis took over Peterhof from 1941 to 1944, and when they left, they did their damnedest to destroy it, creating another ashen monument to their depravity. The restoration is truly remarkable, and Peterhof, as you can see, is a wondrous site to behold.