I am so ready for bed. Today wasn’t even that strenuous but I think it may be just because it's Monday. Official academic classes at Smolny start tomorrow, but we had language classes today at 11 and at 1 like during our two week intensive. The day went by slowly, but I followed along and left feeling satisfied I made it through another day of Russian classes.
Despite the grey, rainy weather, Sean, Jackie and I set off for the Peter and Paul Fortress immediately after classes got out at 2:30. We got off at the metro station Gorkovskaya, and walked through a park that would have otherwise been lovely minus the soggy ground that was a mix of dirty snow and drowning grass. We made it to the Fortress only a few minutes later, having passed by a mosque, streets filled with stores, a few monuments and statues, and a cafe/bar/club in the park that was made of stone and, as a result of its built-in location to a hill, resembled a hobbit house. We made a mental note to come back there at some point.
When we made it through the park, we crossed the street and then walked along St. Johns bridge and then through St. John’s gate which eventually lead us into the fortress. The sidewalks of the bridge were lined with old lamps with designs on the tops, and the railings of the bridge had a nice metal design throughout. We saw ducks playing in the water underneath us, and there was even a small statue of a rabbit on one of the wooden trunks sticking out of the water that was sprinkled with coins. Perhaps for good luck? The bridge to the fortress had views of different parts of the city that I hadn’t seen before, and I could see what seemed like miles of the Neva’s white, melting ice weave throughout the islands and curves of the city’s landmasses.
The fortress was built at the same time that St. Petersburg was in the early years of the 18th century, and it’s location on Hare Island was where Peter the Great had hoped would be the center of the city. I don’t know too much about it other than that the fortress has never had to face any enemy and that obviously the island on which the fortress is built is not what Peter had hoped it would be. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool once you get inside.
My main mission for visiting the Peter and Paul Fortress was so I could enter the Peter and Paul Cathedral and visit the site where the last Romanovs, along with everybody else who was executed with them in Ekaterinburg in 1918, are buried. On our way to the cathedral, which has a golden steeple-like spear that is so tall you can see it from mostly anywhere in the city, we passed by many buildings, most of which I did not know. We did, however, walk past a rather bizarre statue of Peter the Great. He was sitting in a chair in front of some orange yellow palace. The statue of Peter the Great’s body was enormous, with large fitting clothes to match, but his head was disproportionately small, and his hands, which stick out from his giant coat, are skeleton hands. It’s actually kind of creepy, but I liked it regardless.
When we finally entered the Peter and Paul Cathedral, we found ourselves in a big open room. This main room was the inside of the cathedral don’t forget, so we were surrounded by pastel colored ceilings, religious paintings, heavy, sparkly chandeliers, and gold every which way you turned. The back wall straight ahead was a golden shrine to some religious figure (please don’t ask me who), and the reflections of the light on the gold are somewhat blinding. The first thing you may notice, however, are the above ground tombs scattered all over the floor. Most of them are behind metal barriers, but there are a few that don’t have any barriers at all. In fact, I had to weave around these tombs at some points so I could get better pictures of the tombs that did have some sort of fence around them. My only problem with these tombs was that the cyrillic writing on them is written in such an old fashioned script that I couldn’t read the tops of some tombs (were they even in cyrillic??). We had maps though, so every once in a while you’d hear one of us shout “I found Alexander II! He’s over here!” or “I think Peter the Great is right in front of us...” It was SO COOL to be in the same room as all these Romanov rulers. Of course, they’re all dead and we were just looking at their tombs, but it is still a very powerful to know that you’re standing right next to where they’re remains are. Its hard for me to imagine that they’re actually IN there. For all we know they could be empty, but I guess you just have to believe.
We found Alexander II and his wife, Nicholas’ parents, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and many others before we began searching for Nicholas’ grave. I have seen pictures of it on the internet, and when I looked around the main room of the cathedral and didn’t see it, I opened the map. Once we found where he was on the map, I searched for it’s corresponding location in the cathedral. Within seconds I spotted a small room hidden at the end of the cathedral. That must be it! I sped walked up to the room, leaving Sean and Jackie in my dust. I approached the room, but I was forced to stop for there were lines prohibiting visitors from getting any closer. Part of me was really mad that out of all the tombs in this damn cathedral that Nicholas and his family's were the only ones I couldn't get close to, but at the same time, another part of me tickled with satisfaction that MY Romanovs get more special treatment in this cathedral than Peter or Catherine the Great.
Nevertheless, my frustration with the lines didn’t genuinely get a chance to manifest itself before that emotion was completely swept away by another. What that emotion is, I don’t think I can put my finger on, but it definitely contained a whole lot of excitement and awe. Almost five years after having started my term paper on Nicholas II in my sophomore year of high school, I finally found myself right in front of his tomb. If I knew at 16 that my term paper for my Modern European history class would to a large extent determine the course of my life and eventually lead me here, to St. Petersburg, Russia five years later, I think I would have fainted. Who knew. Who knew?! I cannot believe that I have finally made it here. I have wanted to come to this place for years now, and I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to live here for a semester.
You know, to be honest, I don’t think it’s really sunk into me yet that I’m in Russia. I know that may sound silly at this point, but I think I’ve been living in another reality since I got here, and while I still believe I’m a little bit out of the loop in terms of where I am and truly comprehending that moreover, I think that writing all this down, all this about the moment I found myself staring at the memorial to Nicholas and his family, that I’ve gotten the closest I ever have to really GETTING it. I mean, this is what started it all! This is why I’m here in the first place! Of course, I’ve changed so much since I was 16 (at the same time without changing AT ALL, if that makes any sense), and my interests in Russia and politics have definitely deepened and expanded beyond Nicholas II and the last Romanovs, I will always, ALWAYS come back to their story. They’ve been building a nice little nest in a corner of my heart for some time now, and I am so glad that the Romanovs of my imagination finally had the opportunity today to meet the Romanovs of real life.
I think I sound a bit ridiculous. After reading this, you’d think that finding my passion for Russia through the last Romanovs is the closest thing I have to a religion. In a way, it is true. I’m obsessed, and while I can and have listed off the reasons why I like them, there’s still a part of me that wonders how in the world, why in the world, I found somethings as specific and weird to love as them and Russia. At this point, Russian history and my love for the story of the last Romanovs is such a huge part of my identity that I can’t imagine myself without it. Yet, at the same time, part of me still cannot believe that this is who I turned out to be. I love so many things. Part of me would still love to work for People or Vanity Fair. Other parts of me wonder if I would feel most fulfilled in life if I simply worked with homeless dogs, if I studied sociology and worked with people my age, if I would have fun being a marriage counselor (that seemed so entertaining before), if I should have fostered a passion for community service at an early age. But, if I ever have moments where I doubt myself and what I love to do, these moments never last too long. I’m sure that I would be happy doing many things, but there’s nothing I would rather be doing MORE than studying this country that, even after years of classes and now a first-hand experience of the culture, has continued to confuse and amaze me. I say this now, and while I have been confident about my career choices for a while, I try to keep an open mind about where my academic interests will take me. Something just as random could come up and inspire me in a different way, but I’m pretty sure that if anything were to do so, it would come up WITHIN Russian studies. We’ll see, but today was just so surreal. I got the closest any human could ever possibly be to the Romanovs (realistically) at this point in time, and I can only hope that somewhere, somehow, they knew that their #1 fan had finally come to say hello.
I stood there for a good few minutes, before and after having snapped some bagillion pictures, but I didn’t want to hold Sean and Jackie up. Without further ado, I blew the Romanovs a kiss goodbye, and jogged to catch up with my friends. We walked out of the main room, exited through a gift shop, and stopped to look at some picture gallery before leaving for good. Our next stop in the fortress was the prison. To be brief, this place was creepy, but not overly so (Alcatraz was much worse). Our time visiting the prison was spent walking though halls upon halls and walking into different cell rooms. On the outside of the prison cells, which were actually really large rooms, were plaques with the names of its famous inhabitants. Most of them were involved in some radical, terrorist political group from late Imperial Russia, but there were some randos thrown in there as well. Some of the most notable prisoners included Dostoevsky, Gorky, Trotsky, and Lenin’s brother. The prison cells had the metal frames of the beds still intact and attached to the walls, and some of them even had props and lamps in them. The drizzling rain and abundance of clouds outside certainly added to the prison’s gloomy feel.
After the prison we headed back to the metro. We were hungry, it was raining, everything was wet, and it was time to go home. When I got back home I ate dinner with my host parents and then added more photos to Facebook, so check them out of if you're interested.
Tomorrow Jackie and I plan to continue to check things off our Petersburg bucketlist. She also has the day off tomorrow, and with academic classes starting this week (which means real homework), we want to get as much in as possible while we can.
Until next time!
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