St. Petersburg, Russia was the one place that we were really excited to see. And to tell you the truth...we were a bit disappointed. Our first day here made us feel like the Russian people were only showing us the best parts and were keeping things from us. Like they had something to hide. We even had the hardest time trying to get rubles, their type of money. They wouldn't exchange our dollars for their money like the other countries would happily do. We were even told by someone that it was against their law to trade money. What is that all about, whatever!! So needless to say, we were a little turned off by Russia our first excursion. When we first got off the ship, we had to get a special Visa just to visit their country and once your excursion was over, you had to come straight back to the ship. You weren't aloud to wander around on your own unless you got your own Visa months ahead of this trip. I find that they are very controlling. Just little things like that turned us off about Russia. The people there didn't even seem happy. It just seemed like a dark dreary country, it didn't help that it was cloudy either. Enough about my rantings. Here are some nice buildings we saw on our first excursion. We were in Russia for two days, so we did 3 excursions. Our first one was called Cathedral on Spilled Blood & Waterways. We did the waterways first. St. Petersburg is a bunch of islands joined together by bridges.
I just love the "onion" shaped buildings. Most are churches.
This is Peter and Paul Cathedral
While we were on the canal boat, we saw a young boy on one of the bridges waving to us and then he would run along side of the boat and go to the next bridge and wave. He did this for quite a long time. Our guide said that they do that for the tourists and want tips at the end.
I got a picture of some Russian military men. I felt like if I got caught taking their picture that I was going to get in trouble. Thank goodness none of them saw me taking the picture.
After our canal cruise, we went to this magnificent church. It is called The Church on the Spilled Blood or Church of the Resurrection. Nice name huh? There's a good reason of course. Inside there is a spot where Alexander II had an attempt on his life and some of his blood was spilled. They covered that spot with big rock and built this church around it in honor of him, hence...the church on the spilled blood. This building was the most beautiful of them all. Inside there is not a single painting...instead...there are 308 mosaics. Breathtaking!!
Inside here is where the stones cover up the spilled blood of Alexander II. We were able to take pictures inside this church for a small fee. Most churches we've gone to, we weren't able to take pictures inside, so this was a nice treat.
The walls were all covered with these beautiful mosaics. There was not a piece of wall not covered.
I think this was the 12 disciples and Jesus
This was Christ as a young boy
And here's a video of some of the inside of the church.
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