My first morning in St Petersburg was too hot by far and I got off to a bad start by having a pitched battle with a first a metro machine that refused to sell me a smartcard and then a metro machine that was extremely reluctant to sell me tokens. Add to that my local station having steel blast doors between the platform and the train so I had no idea where it was, how full it was or which way it was moving – or, to be honest, any idea that there was in fact a train behind them at all. By the time I emerged at Gor’kovskaya for the Peter & Paul Fortress, I was not at all in the mood for the city. I couldn’t find anything, it didn’t seem to have the central hub that Moscow has in the Red Square/Kremlin complex and did I mentioned that it was extremely hot?
Welcome to St Petersburg.
At the other side of the park, the main road and the bridge was the Peter and Paul Fortress. Now, this was something I’d wanted to visit but first I wanted to find somewhere in the shade to sit down and have a snack. But there’s no shade. The sun was high in the sky by mid-morning and the high walls offered no shelter. At the south-western side of the fortress was an expanse of sand where locals with leathery skin sunbathe on the side of the Neva River but grassy patches turned to dust on their way to the water’s edge, providing dirty faux-beaches for more sunbathing. The idea of paddling in the river was very appealing – the idea of finding somewhere to sit where I could dangle my feet was even more appealing. And I didn’t find anywhere. I settled down against a dusty wall for a quick picnic and to scribble a little tale of rage and hatred on the index cards I was carrying around as a diary-on-the-go for ease of sticking in my scrapbook later.
Sated, cooler, less angry, I found my way into the walls of the ancient fortress. It’s basically a city park. You need a ticket to go into most of the buildings but there’s nothing to stop you ambling around and enjoying the exteriors. And I really enjoyed the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. It’s not too spectacular-looking. It’s pretty much rectangular and bright yellow but the tower on the front is a massive gold spike with gold roofs, the world’s tallest Orthodox bell tower, the tallest building in the USSR until 1952 and the tallest building in St Petersburg right up until 2017. The bells were playing music – as I write this, I forget what the tune was but I recognised it and I also recognised the limitations of the bells because it was not the most harmonious rendition I’ve ever heard. Nonetheless, the music soothed my still-ruffled soul a little and when it had played the tune two or three times, I found a seat on the steps opposite the tower and began to sketch it.
It’s by far the worst of all the sketches I did in Russia. The spike on the top of the tower was far too high to fit on the paper, the simplicity of the building becomes horrendous complexity once you try to capture it, I still haven’t painted it and a Chinese tourist stood and watched as if I was a spectator sport or a selling them in the street. I looked up at him sideways and made a sarcastic comment of some kind but he didn’t understand and continued watching – until he realised I genuinely can’t draw, I think. You don’t get to see this sketch.
Then I went to investigate the cathedral. Can I go inside? How do I go inside? Where do tickets come from? They come from the boathouse, the little building selling souvenirs standing on its own in the square. I could have a ticket for the cathedral or for barely any more, I could have a combined ticket which would allow me into any building I took a fancy to. It seemed to make sense to choose the combined ticket so in I went.
Now, this I recognised. I’ve been to Russia before and I’d spent most of Moscow recreating what we did on that trip, with little or no recognition at all. But I knew the Saints Peter & Paul Cathedral the moment I stepped through the door. That’s mostly because I have a photo of the interior taken from close to the doors but also because I remember being told that these columns, whatever they look like, are not real marble. And when you get close enough to see the scuffs and damage – this cathedral is more than 300 years old; it’s had a few scuffs over the centuries – you could see very clearly where the marbled painting was hiding wood or plaster inside.
And then there was the gold. This cathedral, like most of them, is very gold. But whereas a lot of the Moscow cathedrals had been heavily and extensively decorated and were dimly lit, this was all light and air. In the Kremlin’s Dormition Cathedral I’d stood and imagined centuries of coronations taking place. This one is a little less cheery. This is where almost all Tsars are buried. right back to Peter the Great.
In the small chapel next to the door is the memorial to the last Tsars – Nicolai II and his family, who were murdered in 1918. You’ll hear a lot more about that when I reach Ekaterinburg. Their bodies were thrown in mineshafts and mutilated with acid. They were rediscovered during the Soviet era and in 1998, on the 80th anniversary of their death, were reburied with all due ceremony. Two bodies – Tsarevich Alexei and one of the sisters, probably Maria – were dumped separately, so that if the main grave was ever found, the number of bodies would mislead the discoverers into thinking it couldn’t be the Romanovs. Those two bodies have yet to be reburied. Last year would have been a good time to do it, 100 years on.
From the side north door of the cathedral, a corridor led to another church-like space. I’m not 100% sure what this one was and I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to look like because it was undergoing renovations. It looked a bit like a church that’s been finished but is awaiting the painting, the gilding, the iconostasis, the chandeliers and all the rest of it that turns it from a room into a cathedral. This seemed to be another burial place: not of Tsars and Tsarinas but perhaps the next level down, bishops or men of great renown who weren’t royal.
I didn’t go in any other buildings. The purpose of other buildings wasn’t as clear as the cathedral and it was so very hot. I started looking through the various gates at the river sparkling under the hot sun and began to wonder if I could find a boat trip on the river. And I did but not until a couple of days later, so that’s for another blog. Boat trips do leave from the narrow bit of river between the fortress and the park but they appear to only be in Russian and the best place to catch a tourist boat trip seems to be from the pier outside the Peter the Great monument.
And that was most of my first day in St Petersburg!
