St. Petersburg

St. Isaac's church with Isaac on the horse out front of the church. This is the 4th largest church in the World.
The Church of Paul and Peter, it is set like a fortress with water surrounding it. It has all the Czars, Queens, and Kings buried in it.
This is the Church of Spilled Blood. It is now a museum. Everytime I saw this picture before our trip, it just looked Russian. It is more beautiful in person than any picture I have ever seen. Across from this church was an open "tourist" market. I got a Christmas Russian doll set. That is the wooden figure that keep getting smaller and smaller.
These are 2 tombs from the church of Peter and Paul. I wanted you to see these tombs because they are each from 1 big stone. The green is jade, and I can't remember the red stone. They each weigh several TONS. Where are the bodies you ask? All bodies are not in the tombs up top of the church for people to look at, they are buried under the church in crypts.
Ryan taking his own picture with Peter the Great. The statue is very different. They actually took a real print of his head, and didn't notice that is was quite small to the rest of his body until after the statue was put together. The body was not done to size. You were supposed to rub his long fingers for luck, I didn't pertake of the rubbing!

Russia was a different country to visit. The historical buildings were beautiful. The rest of the city still had a very communistic look and feel. It is amazing how so many people lived for such a long time. We spent 2 days in St. Petersburg, and it was well worth it. We took 3 different tours and for the most part, we didn't overlap that much, except for the "tourist" market. We took a canal cruise through the outlying city, we did a walking tour through the subway, and the a historical all day tour through the city and the Hermitage. The Hermitage is one of the best museums for famous painters and painting. I took pictures of the paintings. I will try and do another blog just of the paintings. We spent 3 hours in the Hermitage and didn't see much of it. They said it would take a couple of years to see everything in the museum.