Cue the Culture

So, yesterday wasn't so much an eventful day in culture as it was a history lesson for Hot Stuff. I'm slightly saddened by this, but I know that it is only getting better from here.

Normally when we go somewhere fun and exciting the conversation is a lot like this:

Hot Stuff: "So my host mom told me that......" or "So I found out that...."

Me as my eyes wonder: "My word... That is pretty......"

Yesterday was different and not exactly typical for us. The day didn't exactly turn out as I had hoped, but I am still calling it a success on many levels. We got to see really cool things, eat some pretty good food, and I got to give a lesson in history on probably the most important man in Russian history. ...or at least that's what the Russians apparently think.

Round 1: History

If I were to ask you who the most important person in Russian history was, I bet you would not tell me the correct answer. That's fine. People have different opinions on who had more of an impact. The person I'm thinking of though, is this guy.

Okay. Okay. So that's really Nikolai Cherkasov, but I'm talking about the man he's supposed to be in this picture. Alexander Nevsky. And I am here to tell you all about him. :: evil laugh ::

Right now you are probably thinking, "Again? I thought I was done with history in high school...", but you really should know all of this.

So the short version....
Alexander was born in 1220 to Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and never had a chance of becoming the Prince of Vladimir (it was a big deal). At the age of 16, representatives from Lord Novgorod the Great (really the name of a place) summoned him to be their new prince. He was a great leader from them and saved them from attacks from the North (getting the surname Nevsky after one of the battles), despite being exiled for a year and making his people pay tribute to the Golden Horde. He also made a treaty with Norway, Sartaq Khan made him the Grand Prince of Vladimir/Supreme Russian Leader (told you it was a big deal) in 1252, and died on his way back from the capital of the Mongol Empire in 1263.

That was his life, but something else happened.

Due to a vision, someone dug up Alexander Nevsky in 1380 and found that his body was pretty much untouched. Perfect dead body after 100+ years = sainthood 167 years later. I would have given it to him immediately, but I'm not the Orthodox Church and churches have rules. This guy even has a feast day. November 23.

Round 2: Actually Going Somewhere

I needed a refresher on my Russian history and after finding this information out, I was all like, "WE HAVE TO GO TO PLOSHCHAD ALEXANDRA NEVSKOVO!" Just FYI, this is a metro stop in St. Petersburg. It also happens to be the beginning/end of Nevsky Prospect. I was thinking we would be able to find something about the guy there. After all, it's named after him.

When Hot Stuff and I left the metro station, we were greeted with this:

A giant statue of Alexander in the middle of a busy street. We did not go up to it. There was a lot of traffic and the only way there is to carefully time your crossing. We did however see what, on my map, looked like a park. As it turns out, we had actually managed to set foot on the grounds of Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

Originally, this was the location of Alexander's relics and silver sarcophagus, but the sarcophagus has a new home at the Hermitage Museum. There were churches on site (obviously), but they were being repainted. Pictures will come later.

This monastery is also the place to buy fresh bread made by monks and is the home to cemeteries containing some pretty famous Russians. Unfortunately, it costs money to see the famous people, so we will be returning and I will tell you who rests there then. We did, however, find a free cemetery on the grounds.

As it turns out, this was a resting grounds for deceased members of the Communist Party. Some of the ornamentation was actually kind of cool and some of the names displayed the true fashion of keeping the name in the family. What was really interesting, though, was this one lady we found buried there. Unless you knew the person, you don't know how old she was when she died. All that is displayed is her name, year of death, and the year she became a member of the party.

Determined to return, we left to continue our walk to Mayakovskaya metro station. When we reached our destination, we had a little under an hour to kill so we ate lunch at a rather classy Pizza Hut. We were supposed to go to a movie, but, as we were forgotten, by the time the check arrived it was too late for that. Instead, we continued our walk. Since Hot Stuff needed to know the location of the Spanish Consulate, we decided to walk there.

Trying to find the consulate, we passed a pretty church...

...a new "Glass Monster"...

... and an Imperial Tours Maserati.

We finally found it!! (No, the "Spanish Center" is not actually the consulate, but it is the closest anyone who doesn't actually have business there is getting.)

We decided to return home and passed a statue of this guy: Adan Mickiewicz. We had no idea who he was, but I was correct in assuming he was Polish. It turns out, he was a rather famous Polish poet, essayist, and translator.

And, last but not least, when you find the spelling errors, you will laugh as much as we did.

It was a pretty eventful day. Today, we will be finishing the rest of Nevsky Prospect. I'm actually supposed to be meeting Hot Stuff at the metro in 5 minutes. I'm going to be a little late. Oops.