St.Petersburg Russia

merlin

merlin

Member
Location
Saint Petersburg Russia
I thought I would post a few photos of St.Petersburg:



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Skating last Christmas on one of the many frozen lakes


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St Isaac's cathedral from across the river Neva


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The eternal flame in The Field of Mars in memory of October revolution 1917


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One of the many canals here.

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One of the lavish metro stations built during the 1950's to impress the west
 

The Church of Spilled Blood"

A few more photo's of St.Peter this time its the "Church of the Spilled Blood"

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A view along the canal whose name I can't pronounce let alone spell :)

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A full frontal view, its like a piece of confectionary really

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From a distance across the "The Field of Mars"

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The interior which I found stunning, it can't be captured on camera really
 

Church of Spilled Blood Interior

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Supposedly a very rare image of Jesus as a youth, mind you I came across an image of Jesus in a church while in India recently, in which he was smoking a cigar :confused:

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Amazing!! I love visiting cathedrals and old churches even though I'm no longer a christian. The art and architecture and history is what I love.
 
The Hermitage

The Hermitage is one of the worlds largest and Russia's most famous museum, its housed in the Tsar's former "Winter Palace" on the banks of the river Neva.
Its a huge building and would take at least a week to go round it all, I have been several times and only seen part of it, additionally only 10% of its art treasures are on display at any one time.

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/?lng=en


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The Hermitage from across the river

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one of the numerous rooms

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The main entrance staircase

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another room

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one of the ballrooms
 
Merlin, did you notice if the hermitage had washroom facilities? My sister visited the hermitage as well as other places there, said there were hundreds of people lined up to get in, the place was very ostentatious and extravagant but strangely there were no washrooms, which means tourists were SOL.
 
A Few Churches

Some of the local churches, a lot were destroyed during Soviet times, but many have been restored to their former glory, they are often used both as place of worship and a concert hall for classical music.

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This one is on the corner of the street where I am staying with my partner Lisa

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The only mosque in St.Petersburg
 
Merlin, I think your photos are just about the best I have seen posted, they are really beautiful, thankyou.
 
Cookie said:
Merlin, did you notice if the hermitage had washroom facilities? My sister visited the hermitage as well as other places there, said there were hundreds of people lined up to get in, the place was very ostentatious and extravagant but strangely there were no washrooms, which means tourists were SOL.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of toilets Cookie, a large one in the cloakroom area and others on the ground floor.
 
Gatchina

Gatchina is a small town 40 Kms south of St.Petersburg

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The main street

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One of many churches

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The palace, built as a fortress

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Palace grounds

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Palace grounds
 
Thanks for those wonderful photographs, Merlin. It amazes me how much wealth there was in those pre-revolution days, much like Versailles, maybe? Thank goodness the beautiful churches were preserved.
 
hollydolly said:
Absolutely stunning and everything looks so clean.:D Merlin what camera are you using for the indoor shots, they have such glorious clarity?
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Thank you hollydolly, I have several cameras, but most photos uploaded were taken on a Fujifilm X100, I recently bought a Sony RX100M2 which I love, its the nearest to an SLR in photographic quality I have come across. I always used an SLR in the days of film, but as I have aged I find lugging around a large camera with various lenses all too much.

Terry
 
Great pictures. Thanks for sharing. How long did you visit there? Where you with a tour group?
 
Just a few more questions. Who pays to build the churches? I can see a lot on money being spent. What is the primary religion in Russia? Do you ever get stopped to have your papers checked like we see on TV?

My uncle invited me to go with him to Russia maybe 15 years ago on his dime. He wanted to go in the summer when it would have also been warm over there. Unfortunately, that is also the busiest time of the year for airlines and it's tough to get just one week off let alone the two weeks that he wanted to stay. Thankfully for him, he got one of his golfing friends to go along and as he tells it, they had a really good time.
 

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