I need to stop agreeing to having tea at dinner because I can’t fall asleep at night. I told my host mom this at dinner, and after all the walking I did today I’m sure I’ll be asleep before 11 pm.
After breakfast today (kasha and blini), I took the metro from the nearest station, Vasilieovstrokaya (sp?), to Nevsky prospekt where I was supposed to meet my group before we went on an excursion to the Church on Spilled Blood. Getting onto the right metro and getting off at the right stop was fairly easy. I only had one ride before I needed to get off, but still. Small victories! It doesn’t seem like the St. Petersburg metro is going to be THAT bad; it’s certainly not worse than the one in New York or Paris.
Once I got off at my stop, I went in search for the exit when I ran into two of the students in my program Jackie and Will. We found the right exit and met up with our group, and then we all set off along Nevsky prospekt to the church. I remember congregating outside and spending at least a good few minutes listening to whatever Elena was saying or doing whatever it is that I do when I don’t pay attention before I turned my head to the right and saw the church peeking behind some buildings. It is so big, so colorful, and so hard to miss that I shocked myself for not having tried to spot it in the first place. That’s what I’ve noticed about traveling to places that have famous monuments or certain streets that you read about in detail and eventually dream up in your mind. They are just buildings or monuments after all. They’ve been there for years (sometimes hundreds), and they’re not moving anytime soon. I have been so excited to see this church, and when I finally caught a glimpse of it, just chillin’ there, I felt extra crazy when all I wanted to do was jump up and down and scream something when, in reality, people are shopping and walking to work or school all around me as if the church they’re were walking pass was your everyday shrub. IT’S NOT A SHRUB, GOD DAMNIT. Of course, there are so many people that revere this church and its not like I get hysteric when I drive into Boston or anything. It’s all taken into perspective. Whatever, I was still ecstatic.
Now, a few words about this church (its just such a cool story). So basically, one of Russia’s most reform-successful and beloved tsars Alexander II (also known as the Tsar Liberator) was blown up by terrorists on the street and in his memory, his son Alexander III decided to build a memorial church on top of the exact spot where the Narodnia Voila terrorist group threw a bomb first under Alexander II’s carriage unsuccessfully, and when the Tsar got out of the carriage to check things out, right at his feet. And just cause I want you all to read Robert K. Massie’s book, I’m just gonna quote that
“Alexander II’s legs were torn away, his stomach ripped open, his face mutilated. Sill alive and conscious, he whispered, ‘To the palace, to die there.’ What remained of him was picked up and carried into the Winter Palace, leaving a trail of thick drops of black blood up the marble stairs.”
Because I know all of you find some pleasure in reading about gory things. Teehee. But seriously, how fricken cool!
Moving on, the church itself is beautiful. I’ll have to compare it to St. Basil’s when we go to Moscow in April, but this one is definitely smaller. It’s still full of religious pictures and crazy colored onion domes though. The inside is what you would expect of such an extravagant church. We went on a tour in Russian, which means that I didn’t understand much, but at least I know the story behind it. There was a giant door that looked like it was covered in jolly ranchers, a notable chandelier (loostra Dana Sorkin!!), and a little wooden structure built around the divit in the ground where that famous bomb landed and that famous Tsar stood. Other than that, there were very pretty frescoes (is that what they were?) and what I did catch from the tour was that amongst the Russian style there was a little Italian influence mixed in... I’ll take it!
After that a bunch of us went to an exhibition featuring different things from the siege of Leningrad. Like I mentioned in a previous post, the anniversary of the lifting of the siege is tomorrow, so the city is celebrating. What we saw were some imitation bulletin boards with really cold Soviet posters and some black spike things on the ground. Hmm, what are they called? Forest would know. They were all over the ground when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy in We Were Soldiers. Clearly I know my military history.
Anyways, after that we just wandered the city. I named this post Winter Winds because it was freezing outside. Like the kind of cold where I could feel my face when I talked and my knees contract with stiffness when I moved. I am always a little dragon when I go outside because I can see my breath every time I breathe.
Some people were hungry, so we went into a stolovaya. I can’t remember if I learned this in class or if what I’m about to write is an educated guess, but I’m pretty sure a stolovaya is a legacy from the Soviet Union. Basically they’re cafeterias where you point to things you want and pay at a cashier. I had already eaten lunch, so I bought some water (did I tell you that you’re not allowed to drink the water here?) and soaked up all the wifi I could handle. Our next stop was an electronics store where I attempted to buy an internet modem that I could use at home (my host family doesn’t have internet). I went up to one of the employees and asked if he had an internet modem, and what do I get? The fastest Russian I’ve heard yet. I maybe looked at him for a second when he stopped talking, gave up, and turned immediately to my friends and said “HELP ME.” Someone came to my rescue thank god, but it turns out I needed to have my real passport (not a copy) with me in order to even purchase the thing, the fools. We get our passports back tomorrow so no big deal, but common. I’m a child of the 90s. I want my Facebook, email, snapchat, and BBC and I WANT IT NOW (somebody slap me!).
After that we walked down Nevsky Prospekt and went to a book store (which really looked like a palace. Wait, was it once upon a time??), sports clothes store (I wanted a hat but it cost $80 yeeeeeah right), and then, by complete accident, we turned a corner and found ourselves magically in front of the Winter Palace and at the corner of Palace Square. I don’t think anybody else stopped walking, but I literally stopped in my tracks and threw my hands up and down onto my head as I shouted, “WOO HOO!!!!! ITS THE WINTER PALACE!!!!!” Better than Christmas.
SO much better than Christmas!
I couldn’t feel my hands as I dug my camera out from my backpack. Of course I thought it would be smart to use my wide lens and leave the other one at home (it wasn’t smart), so most of my pictures from today are big close ups. No matter, I skipped to the Winter Palace/Hermitage with Red Bull in my LL Bean boots. All I could think of was how I spent 2 MONTHS this summer researching how the British and American press reacted to the reforms of 1905, and how those reforms were triggered by Bloody Sunday. Briefly, Bloody Sunday refers to when, at the end of January in 1905, a priest organized a large group of St. Petersburg’s working class to march to the Winter Palace to present the Tsar with a petition for change, listing very carefully all their grievances and pleas for help. However, when they finally made it to Palace Square and approached the palace, the palace guard mistook them for a threat and ended up shooting the workers right then and there (TSAR NICHOLAS II DID NOT ORDER THE SHOOTINGS).
Isn’t that spooky? I was walking over the same cobblestones on which people were shot in 1905. Their blood was on those cobblestones at some point. I love history for a lot of reasons, but this has got to be one of the largest. It’s really hard for me to visualize and genuinely understand history in terms of time and space, if that makes any sense. I remember standing in front of the Champs Elysees and the Bastille in Paris too, just like today, trying to picture what happened in these places in 1789 and 1945. I can imagine how things were, but I can’t REALLY grasp it most of the time. It’s a feeling you get- some people say it’ll give them chills. It’s those times, those split seconds, when you come ridiculously close to understanding what happened there (I’m sorry this is really hard to explain) that have made me love history; those split seconds when your entire body and mind get it.
Enough with the cheesiness.
I think I was so franticly excited and cold and my body was so tired when we went to Palace Square that thats why I didn’t get that feeling today, but I plan on going back a bunch of times throughout the semester just by myself to sort of, uh, meditate? (Yes, I’ll go with that) and hopefully I’ll be able to soak it all up more effectively then.
On the way back I started to wonder where the Bronze Horseman statue was located. About three seconds later I looked through the trees randomly and spotted what I thought was the Bronze Horseman himself! I spied correctly. We took pictures, I remembered the poem, and then we split up to go home. Twenty minutes later I was a street over from my apartment where there are a ton of cafes and shops. Jackie and I bought winter hats (the Russians really like to have giant pom poms on the top of their hats), tapotchku (Russian slippers that you have to wear in the house) and then we went home.
And here I am now. Tomorrow we’re having language evaluations. GAH.
Wish me luck!
P.S. To my Russian 201 class: today I saw a чёрный бумер!!!! я очень вас люблю а я скучаю (is that the correct conjugation?) по вам!
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