Arctic Adventure Part 11 - Russia odds and ends

St. Pete has a surprising number of churches. Surprising because most westerners assume that Uncle Joey destroyed all the ones the Germans left standing (siege of Leningrad). Not so (well at least some survived).

 the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood
(marketing or branding is a concept the Russians don't grasp well, but that isn't what's behind the name)

marvelous building, despite the awful name

The scene is a mosaic.  Look at the style and stunning perfection of the brickwork.

The exterior is a show stopper, the interior - no less so.

looking up at the ceiling

If you took all the gold out of Russia, it would be a drab place indeed. Sometimes it feels like you're touring Ft Knox

The sharp-eyed reader will notice that I've actually combined pictures from two churches together

Of course, nothing you see here  is solid gold

It's all gilding

Still, you never have to polish it.

So did it always look this good? Nope. After the Revolution in 1917 it was well and truly looted. In fact it was so run down that for many years it was used as a garbage dump. Then along came World War II. As usual with WWII, nothing good came from it.

This section of the exterior wall has been lovingly repaired

This section, however, has been deliberately left as it was at the end of the siege of Leningrad - all shot up. 

When they did the renovation work it came as somewhat of a surprise that the building was still standing at all.

one of several unexploded German artillery shells

In the 1970's this church became a branch of the St. Isaac's Cathedral Museum (a big Russian orthodox basilica across town that survived the war in better shape). St. Isaac's came up with the money for the restoration work. Somehow they managed to find craftsman specialized in mosaic work (Angieskov's List?).

All the scenes depicted really are mosaics.

See?

Stole this picture from the web. If you're wondering why my pictures look drab it's because this picture has been overly color enhanced.

So why all the detailed mosaics? Couple reasons. In the day, 95% of the population was illiterate. Mosaics could tell a story pictorially. Tile also lasts a whole lot longer than frescoes do (ask any of the beleaguered restoration artists working at the Vatican). You might assume that the story depicted is the bible (after all, you're standing in a church). Except that you aren't.  Not really. And therein lies the real story of church of the blood splatter. 

This is Alexander II

Nothing like wearing shag carpet on your shoulders
By Неизвстен - http://www.runivers.ru/gal/gallery-all.php?SECTION_ID=7085&ELEMENT_ID=460860, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28911934

He ascended to the throne in 1855 and ruled until he got whacked in 1891. In a sense, you could think of Alex II as the Russian equivalent of Abraham Lincoln.  One of his nicknames was "Alexander the Liberator". In 1861 he was responsible for the emancipation of the Russian serfs. This freed over 23,000,000 poor serfs and gave them full and complete Russian citizenship. He implemented a huge number of internal reforms (too numerous to list here). Americans, however, remember him as the tzar that sold us Alaska in 1867 for $7.2 M ($200 M in today's dollars). You'd think with all the reforms he would have been enormously popular.  In fact he was, but not by all the aristocrats and land barons who lost a serious amount of power (and slave labor). A lot of the upper crust and most revolutionaries wanted him dead. The number of assassination attempts on his life read like Castro's. In the end they got him with a man delivered bomb (not a suicide bomber, a bomb thrower). He didn't die immediately and was brought to the winter palace (where he died within minutes).  

The church was erected on the spot of the explosion by his successor Alexander III.  That's why I said that the church isn't really a church.  It's more of a shrine.  

No baptisms, funeral services, weddings, or other traditional church services were held in the Church on the Blood, as this was not in Alexander III's plans. However, weekly requiems (for Alexander II) and sermon readings attracted large numbers of worshippers.

If I'm not mistaken, the murals depict the life and times of Alex II intermixed with bible passages.

Some random St Pete images:

Monument to Nicholas I (a bit of a twit)
Was the first statue in Europe to be supported by the horsie's hind legs only.
By Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51462670

As an aside - the old axiom about the number of legs a horse statue has in the air depicts how the person died is only valid 1/3 of the time.  For example, Nicky I (above) died of pneumonia, yet the statue would have you to believe that he died in battle.

I love a statue that has a built-in pigeon

Some of the visible coppers

This is one (of two) decorative lighthouses outside the Russian Naval Academy.  They're very famous landmarks.

Somehow I doubt this KFC would pass US corporate building standards.

Leaving Russia

 (a bit of a relief, to be honest) we got to sail by some interesting naval stuff.  Taking pictures of this stuff 40 years ago would have gotten you shot.

For some reason, it seems that Russians don't recycle old warships.  They just let them deteriorate and sink in place.

I'm guessing this is the admiral's yachtski

One of the problems that has always plagued St Pete (270 times since founding) is flooding.

The water on the left runs all the way to the Baltic

For years nobody could predict when these floods would occur (they're not from rain). It seemed logical that a hard easterly wind was the culprit, but the flooding may or may not occur.

However, research has established that a much more complex hydro-meteorological system is to blame - with cyclonic low-pressure fronts originating in the North Atlantic drawing larger volumes of water into the almost land-locked Baltic Sea.

This sets up a series of long, low-frequency waves in the water - akin to a tidal bore - as the cyclone moves further inland, which become higher when they meet the shallows of the Neva Bay and then ultimately spill over into the low-lying areas of St Petersburg.

The solution, while obvious, was not an easy accomplishment - a 16 mile long dam with gates.

Drone view
Our ship passed right between the gate doors

Can you imagine the squeak a hinge this big could make if not properly greased up?

The curved gates are huge.  Each gate is 426 feet long.  When they want to shut down the on-coming water surge - first they flood the dry-docks the gates rest in when not in use. Then they float them out into the closed position. It's a beautiful piece of engineering.  But it isn't Russian. It's Dutch.  Who else would have such in-depth knowledge of flood prevention? 

On the way back out to the Baltic we passed by this old Russian fort (Fort Alexander).  It's now derelict, but it hosted some very bizarre events in recent history.

The fort was built in 1845 and housed 137 cannons 

Due to it's isolation, back in 1897 the Russian Imperial Institute for Experimental Medicine decided it would be the perfect spot for research on the plague. 
According to local sources, massive, kinky, drug fueled raves have been held here. The soldier ghosts must have been aghast.

Next up - back to Norway.