After the "Folkloric Show" Tuesday night, we returned to our overnight accommodations on the boat, then got up early Wednesday morning for a second day of Russian sightseeing. (Dave called it an "ABC" tour -- "Another Boring Castle," "Another Boring Cathedral," etc.) The first stop on Wednesday's tour was about an hour bus ride from the boat, but only about 12 minutes outside the city limits. It was good to get outside the historic part of town and see houses of the rich...,
housing for the poor...,
life in the suburbs...,
and church in the suburbs.
But, of course, what the Russian tour guide wanted us to see was more opulence. Our destination was Peterhof Palace, built by Peter the Great in 1725. It was expanded by his daughter, Elizabeth, in 1755. Work on the fountains continued into the 1800s. Below is a portion of the palace from the back.
Here's what it looks like from the front.
It's hard to see the fountains in the picture above, but this is what they look like when they're not going.
But, every day at 11 a.m., they're turned on for a few minutes. The interesting thing is that there are no pumps -- the fountains are operated by pressure from an underground spring.
Next, we went to the Yusupov Palace, which was constructed in 1770. The Yusupovs were extremely wealthy Russian nobility. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures because by this point I was experiencing some of Dave's "ABC" sensory overload. You have to be in the river to get a complete picture of the outside of this palace (a different river that those we were on). The picture below is as much of the front as I could get without falling in the river, but the palace is much larger than this.
There were a lot of lavish furnishings, but this is one of only a few pictures I took inside.
We finished our day at Peter and Paul Cathedral (Петропавловский собор), which is on an island in the Neva River (see the May 19th Neva River pictures).
This cathedral is inside the Peter and Paul Fortress. The fortress was used mostly as a prison for political prisoners, but the cathedral houses many imperial tombs -- including that of Peter the Great.
The highlight of the day was 5 Russian monks singing in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. We weren't allowed to film them singing, but you can listen to them below. The guy with the very low voice at the end is the guy at the right in the picture below. They said no one has ever been known to be able to sing as low as him.
