Welcome to page 3 of our St. Petersburg adventure.

After lunch was done, everyone again piled into the van for our last two stops of the day. Again, it was only a short time before we pulled up in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

Saint Isaac's Cathedral is the largest cathedral in the city and was the largest church in Russia when it was built. It was dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great who had been born on the feast day of that saint. The 101.5 metre (333 ft.) high golden dome can be seen from anywhere in St. Petersburg.

  

Inside, the columns and floor are made up of multicolored granites and marbles reportedly gathered from all parts of Russia. The interior was originally decorated with scores of paintings but when these paintings began to deteriorate due to the cold, damp conditions inside the cathedral, the architect ordered them to be reproduced as mosaics using ceramic tile.

    
  

Suspended underneath the peak of the dome is a sculpted dove representing the Holy Spirit. As well, a large, brightly colored stained glass window of the "Resurrected Christ" oversees the main altar. The church, designed to accommodate 14,000 standing worshipers, was closed in the early 1930s and reopened as a museum. Today, church services are held here only on major religious occasions.

      

Our last stop of the day on our St. Petersburg tour was the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ or the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood as it is better known. The name refers to the blood of the assassinated Alexander II of Russia, who was mortally wounded on that site on March 13, 1881.

      

The Church is situated along the Griboedov Canal. As the tsar's carriage passed along the embankment, a grenade thrown by an anarchist exploded. The tsar, shaken but unhurt, got out of the carriage but another conspirator exploded another bomb, killing himself and mortally wounding the tsar. The tsar, bleeding heavily, was taken back to the Winter Palace where he died a few hours later. Construction of the church began in 1883 under Alexander III, as a memorial to his father to mark the location where the assassination took place.

The walls and ceilings inside the Church are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics. The main pictures are biblical scenes or figures, but with very fine patterned borders setting off each picture.

          

Inside, an elaborate shrine is on the exact place of Alexander's death, inset with topaz, lazurite and other semi-precious stones. The cobblestones on which the tsar's blood was spilled are exposed on the floor of the shrine.

    

So, our touring ended at 4:30 p.m. Ksenia and our driver were rather anxious to head back to the ship as some major downtown roads were going to be shut down for a few hours at 5:00. I believe it had something to do with the Economic Forum. We arrived back at the Century at 5:00, in plenty of time to spare for our 6:00 departure. After thanking Ksenia and our driver for the great day, we bid them both a fond farewell. Our final run through Russian customs was uneventful to the point that the two young girls manning the post never even looked up as they accepted our little red cards back.

After stopping by our stateroom for a few minutes, we joined Bert and Laverne for a burger down by the pool. The ships 6:00 departure was delayed over an hour as several Celebrity tour buses were overdue due to the road closures and traffic in St. Petersburg. All of the wayward buses finally arrived, the lines were cast off and away we went.

Just wanting some quiet time, Lee and I then sat on our balcony for a couple of hours watching our departure from Russia. As we sailed away through the shipyards and out into the Gulf of Finland, St. Petersburg with its six million residents became a panorama that stretched for miles along the shores behind us.

    
    

An hour or so after leaving, we passed right alongside the town of Kronshtadt on Kotlin Island thirty kilometers west of Saint Petersburg near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Traditionally, the seat of the Russian admiralty and the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet were located in Kronstadt guarding the approaches to Saint Petersburg. The Kronstadt Sea Fortress used to be considered the most fortified port in the world. It has never been taken by an outside force.

  

Today, the island forms the center of the 25-kilometer St Petersburg Dam which is a complex of dams for flood control under construction from Lomonosov on the mainland to Kronstadt and across to the opposite mainland at Sestroretsk. The dam spans the entire gulf and is intended to protect St Petersburg from storm surges.

We were too tired to join our cruise buddies in the dining room tonight so it was off to bed at 9:00 p.m. However, shortly after climbing into bed, Lee got the giggles. That got me going and we were both yukking it up when there was a knock on the door. Carole and LeVerne had stopped by for a visit so we parked the giggles and invited them in for a half hour. After they left, no more giggles and it was back to bed for our first good solid sleep in three days.

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