Peter and Paul Fortress

I said I was going to talk about St. Petersburg next, but I was lying. But you see, they haven't gotten to taking us around the city, and they haven't given us any time to do it ourselves, either. If you'll just wait till Sunday, I think I'll be able to give you a much more informed post. Also, on Monday I'm going to try to post some (maybe a lot) of pictures to the flickr site, which there should be a link to somewhere on this page.

Anyway, today we went to Peter and Paul Fortress, which was built on an (artificial, I think) island in the Neva by Peter the Great during some kind of 21-year war with the Swedes. The fortress is essentially a large wall around the perimeter of the island, with a cathedral in the center. More buildings have since been added, but none of them seemed particularly interesting.

Peter and Paul Cathedral, on the other hand, has some great stuff in it. For instance, the remains of every tsar from Peter I to Nicholas II (and the rest of his family, too). Here are two stories that go along with it:

The spire of Peter and Paul Cathedral is 122 meters tall, and gilded, with an angel on the top that acts as a weathervane. For one thing, Peter decreed that no building in St. Petersburg could be built taller than the spire, which has something to do the fact that, well, the buildings are pretty short by big-city standards. For another thing, the scaffolding was so expensive that when the angel needed to be repaired, they instead found someone to climb the spire (no mean feat, as you'll see once I get the picture posted). As payment, he was given a mug embossed with the double-headed eagle, which entitled him to drink whatever he wanted anywhere in Russia for free. Apparently a gesture derived from this story is still in use, and means something along the lines of "hit me with another." That part of it was explained rather early in the morning, though, so I'm still unclear on the details.

The first thing to see when you go into the cathedral is on the left, under the stairs to the belfry: it's the tomb of Peter the Great's son, Alexei. Peter had him tortured to death in the cathedral on treason charges, then buried him under the stairs to the belfry. All the other tombs are raised, so that no one can walk over them: to do so would be a great sign of disrespect. Wikipedia further reveals that Alexei was only being tried for treason because he mysteriously decided to flee to Italy. After Peter had convinced him to come back to Russia, Alexei was tortured until he admitted to some kind of conspiracy. Then Peter had most anyone associated with him impaled and/or broken on the wheel, and Aleksei was sentenced to death.

Take that with a grain of salt, though. I was only skimming.

Also, Alexander II is buried in a jade tomb instead of white marble like everyone else, owing to the fact that he freed the serfs.

After we were done with that, we went to a concert by the St. Petersburg Men's Choir. They were fantastic. Then I walked home along the Neva, which also took a long time.

Tomorrow, if I can convince myself to wake up at 6:30, I'll be going to the Russian renaissance fair.

I'm not kidding.

I am very tired.