August 15, 2006- Who Knew?
(photos:Catherine's Palace,
Peterhof,
Synagogue,
Hermitage on canal)
We made contact with Talia and wished her happy birthday. After I sang her the Happy Birthday song in English she asked me to sing it in Hebrew. I was thrilled to do it. Fees for phone and email are very high and there are no high-speed connections in the rooms. I think you”ll be getting this from Helsinki.
We started our day with a cruise on the canals and rivers. St. P is in much better shape than Venice after which it’s patterned. One reason is that it’s newer. The other is that the canals are separated from the buildings by a road. Flooding is a problem even here. There is a seasonal backwash caused by winds from the Gulf of Finland, which is part of the Baltic Sea. Every 100 years (1924, 1824, 1724) there have been catastrophic floods. In winter the river Neva freezes from the end of November-March. Shipping stops on the river but the main ports on the Baltic are open. Peter the Great was so adamant that bridges would spoil the beauty of the waterfront and should not be built that he gave every family a free boat and sailing lessons. He built the canals among the 101 islands that existed at his time. Now bridges abound (no two are alike) and the islands were filled in and merged so there are only forty-two today. Who knew?
We passed the pink and white Stronganoff Palace, Hermitage and Winter Palace, and emerged into the Neva River. The dramatic widening of the waterway would have been enough but now we were surrounded by the water side of the Hermitage, the Admiralty, and Peter and Paul fort and cathedral. Domes and minarets of a mosque loomed nearby, a result of Nicholas II allowing religions other than Russian Orthodox to build places of worship. The ship, Aurora, was anchored at a dock as a reminder of the Revolution. It’s one hundred four years old and was used to fire on the Winter Palace in October of 1917. David was excited to see the old Leningrad Hotel (now the St. Petersburg) where he’d stayed while visiting “refusniks” in 1985. In 1989 a fire destroyed most of the hotel. Investors were brought in to give advise on what to do with the poorly restored remnants. They suggested it be razed.
No Disputin’
We tied up at the Yusupov Palace to visit one of the few that survived totally intact with all its furnishings. The family was one of the wealthiest before the Revolution. Their lineage was from Ivan the Terrible in the 1400’s and they’d been growing their money with the help of free labor from serfs ever since. Before serfdom was abolished in 1861 they owned 30,000 serfs and fift-four estates. Their holdings included five-hundred mines and numerous factories. We entered the small apartment where Felix Yusupov used to entertain his personal friends. A member of the Romanoff family, he was troubled by the hold Rasputin had on Nicholas and Alexandra. It was rumored that Rasputin was having an affair with Alexandra but it was more likely that his hold on her was due to his ability to calm the family when their only son and heir fell ill with hemophilia. Rasputin spent time at a monastery but was never ordained. He dressed like a monk and was said to have hypnotic light blue eyes. He was charismatic and professed to be a healer and miracle worker but was a womanizer and heavy drinker. He adhered to the philosophy that a person could not repent unless he sinned. Since repentance was imperative, sinning was necessary. He managed to convince women of that view with great success. But at the center of it all the Yusupovs and their friends felt that the forty-seven year old Rasputin was controlling the family and by extension the country. Russia had lost a war with tiny Japan and was weakened after WWI. Nicholas Romanoff was a kind and sensitive man but not a strong leader. They decided to kill Rasputin to save the reputation of the royal Romanoffs.
On Dec. 16, 1916, Felix invited Rasputin to dinner in his private quarters. Four friends were standing by. One, a doctor, poisoned the wine with cyaninde. Rasputin drank it but didn’t die. Felix ran to his friends with the news and they instructed him to shoot Rasputin. When that was done Felix went upstairs to report his progress. When they all went to remove Raputin’s body it was gone. He had not died but crawled up a flight of stairs and out the door. They found him bleeding on the street. They wrapped him in the drapes from the room where he’d been shot, put him in the car, and drove him out of town to a pre-arranged spot on the river where an ice hole had been cut. They dropped him into the water and thought his body would be found in the spring. Unfortunately their bad luck held and the drapery snagged on the ice. A couple of days later the body was found. An autopsy showed that Rasputin died of drowning. There was no shortage of suspects. Nicholas II, called Felix Yusupov and his cohorts to the palace and told them to disappear. They figured it would be a good time to take their families to the warmth of the Crimea.
In Oct. of 1917 the Revolution began in St. Petersburg. The Yusupov wealth was nationalized but the family had fled. Over the years they survived by selling what jewelry and art they had taken to the Crimea then transported with them to France. Recently the granddaughter of Felix visited the Palace and presented them with her portrait. She will never be able to claim her inheritance from the government. Felix augmented his income by writing three memoirs the most popular of which documented the murder of Rasputin.
Branching Out
On our way to visit the gardens of Peterhoff we drove past the one and only synagogue in the city. It is a salmon and white ornate structure built in the Russian style with onion domes and looks like a church. The only difference is the absence of a cross at the top.
The group had a surprise Metro ride before we left town and saw the famously ornate stations on the red line. One had pillars made of molded glass and bronze and crystal chandeliers. Most stations are very plain but Stalin saw to it that “the people” had a few touches of luxury. All stations are clean. There’s no graffiti.
Lucky for me I only fall asleep when seated. Whether it is a ten or twenty minute ride or one hour, when I sit on the bus I’m out like a light. I apologized to one woman today for falling asleep in the middle of a conversation.
Peterhoff was built by Peter the Great as a summerhouse on the Baltic. It’s famous for its abundance of gravity fed fountains and gardens styled after the Palace of Versailles. When the Germans retreated from the ports they held on the Baltic after WWII they destroyed Peterhoff, the system of fountains, and tore out the gardens. Today’s Russians are very proud of the reconstruction.
One of the smaller buildings is called Catherine’s Block. Our guide hates the way “block” is used. It’s too institutional. This building was a large elaborate “cottage.” Catherine of the self-imposed greatness convinced her lover and his brothers to kill her husband there. Lovely girl. Russian history is so predictable.
You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned our meals. They’re adequate but not memorable. There’s an abundance of mayonnaise in salads and one person was going to start another Revolution if we were served beets again. Dessert is iced-cream or fruit. Our guide, Nadia said that Russians aren’t big on baking. What happened to bobka and rugelach? One of our group is an oenophile and makes his own wine. He tasted Russian wine and bought a bottle of Italian.
We’d signed up for a Cossack show at our hotel for tonight. It appeared to me to be a loud opera with break dancing and no plot. My uncles would dance like that when they had enough to drink at weddings. When I fell asleep during the first rowdy act I decided to pack it in. Cossacks aren’t dear to my heart. Remember Fiddler on the Roof? Come to think of it we would have nowhere to visit if we eliminated all the fine countries that killed our relatives or threw them out. At least Scandinavia has a clean track record.
There are forest fires burning close to the city and the locals are hoping for rain. They fear the smoke will reach into town as it has in the past. Tonight we can smell it through the open window of our barely air-conditioned room.
We have a full day tomorrow, our last in Russia. We finally go to the Hermitage.
Toby
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