Sundays. The Day You Aren't Supposed to do Anything.

Back in OKC, Sundays are the days you go to church (or, in my case, wake up, notice service starts in 2 hours, go back to bed and wake up to find that service is nearly over), and then spend the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing. Maybe the work you neglected until the night before it's due, but, beyond that, a whopping nada.

I'm Russia, that is not the case. Well, not for me, the person who decided it would be the best idea in the world to cram pack my life with as much culture as possible. For me, Sundays are another free day to actually explore.

Today, Hot Stuff and I walked the rest of Nevsky Prospect. Well... that's not entirely true. We didn't walk on Nevsky Prospect, per-say, but we did follow the path of it. I just wanted to show her something cool, and get a little hidden pleasure out of it myself.

So... when it come to walking, Google still sucks, so please only pay attention to the black lines.

This was our path for the day. (Admiralteyskaya M --> Hermitage --> Place of Interest --> Mayakovskaya M) Something I carefully planned. ...and yes, it was just so I could see the Japanese Consulate. The French one was a plus! Also, I wanted an excuse to cross in front of the Hermitage again...

 When we approached the Hermitage (before we had to go out of our way to cross the street), we saw a group of people gathered in the square. We were wanting to check it out and hoping it wasn't a protest. Much to our amusement, it was Tai Chi (or some form of something) in the square. Regardless of what was truly happening, it involved a yellow hippo, who was demonstrating things to the best of its abilities and jumping around. Laughter really does make a person so much happier....

This is the Hermitage (aka: Winter Palace). This is the place where Alexander II died after being fatally wounded at the place I was not telling Hot Stuff. (At this point, it was still a surprise.)

This is the monument in the center of the square.

Okay. The Hermitage was not the cultural focal point of the day, so I won't be talking about it. That, with any luck, will be the topic withing two weeks. For now, I will continue along our walk.

The picture above is the sole reason I took Hot Stuff in the direction that I did. I don't need to know the location of the consulate. I never will. But I saw the flag on my map and had to. As Japanese is my Minor, I had to. The French Consulate wasn't a main attraction for me, but it still deserves a mention. If you ever need to know where it is, just look at the map above.

Now for the main attraction.

CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
or as it is more famously known
THE SAVIOR ON THE SPILLED BLOOD

This was the thing I had been hiding from Hot Stuff, and, again, I had to provide the history lesson.

Emperor Alexander II was assassinated and his son, Alexander III, demanded that a memorial church be built on the site. (FYI, that's point C on the map.) Alfred Alexandrovic Parland presented the idea and official name, and, after getting Alexander III's approval, things got set into action.

To give you a timeline...
-1881: Alexander II dies
-1883: Alexander III approves plans
-1887: Construction begins
-1907: Church was formally consecrated

So, this beautiful church was built, but it was never actually used as a church. The only services it saw, were those in memorial of Alexander II. Nothing else. Period.

The Church's decline:

After the revolution in 1917, the church started to deteriorate due to looting and vandalism. In 1930, it was closed as a church and was used as a warehouse. In 1931, people voted to tear it down, but it never happened. A second motion was approved to tear down the church and the date was set for 1941. The Nazis prevented it's demolition and the only thing that saved it from being destroyed in the war anyway, was that a nearby shell didn't explode. After the war, it continued to be a warehouse, this time for the opera, and again, in 1956, proposals were made to tear it down.

By this point, the church was in such bad shape. But someone saved it.

The Director:

The reason that the Church of the Resurrection of Christ still stands today is all due to one man. The director of St. Isaac's Cathedral and Museum. In 1970, he was able to convince the government of the church's historical value and it was made a branch of the St. Isaac's Cathedral and Museum in 1971.

After completing phase 1 of restoration, the church was opened to the public in 1997.

Did we go in? Sadly, no. We are planning on going back. It was just so insanely cold that we passed on waiting in line to buy a ticket. I would love to go in it. The only thing this church has for art are mosaics, and, I don't know if people can see it, but inside the church is the blood stained portion of the street where Alexander II's assassination took place.

I only have one more thing to say about today, besides the fact that it was cold and semi unproductive. There was a bridge near the church that had locks all over it. Can you tell me what it signifies?

I will post the answer tomorrow.

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.

A Few Days and Little Productivity Later...

I am not typically someone who keeps up with blogs or journals or... well, anything really, but something here is beginning to change me. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse, but there is definitely something going on here and that is EXTREME boredom.

There is really only so much class and attempted study I can take before my mind goes numb, and when my free time is spent watching reruns of "Top Gear" and "No Reservations" you know that there is really no hope for me. Most of this is due to the restrictions I have the unfortunate opportunity of living with. The rest is my own lack of self motivation.

I have decided to break this streak of unproductiveness and, after spending the best $3 I could have spent (minus the well deserved, world's most expensive can of Dr. Pepper), I have the means by which to put my master plan into action.

If everything goes as I would like, the next nine weeks are going to be the most culture filled weeks of my life. And my grand total of 6,895 non-duplicate pictures just from this trip will rise significantly. I have probably done this before, but allow me to explain... I have this problem of taking thousands of pictures each time I bring out the cameras. I then go through them and delete all the bad ones and all the duplicates until I have the pictures I think are worthy of having a place in my folders documenting my time here. ...and I've gone photo happy. Who knew I had that in me, because I certainly didn't.

So what is the master plan??

I'm not going to tell you.

I have this habit of planning to do something and never getting around to it. For example, I was supposed to go to the Hermitage my second week here. That still hasn't happened. I can, however, tell you this. Assuming Hot Stuff is up for it, the first part of my journey is going to be linked with what is probably the most well known street in St. Petersburg: Nevsky Prospect. My goal, is to walk this entire Prospect from its beginning at the other side of the bridge I can see from my apartment (if I open the window), all the way down to the Hermitage.  Of course, more is going to be involved than just an amazing leg workout, but, as I said before, if I told you, the likelihood of this actually happening significantly drops.

Wish me luck readers. Life is going to get a lot more colorful.

Russian Museum

After my last post, I realized that I never actually posted about the Russian Museum. Apparently my studies and outings are making me forgetful. lol

Our trip to the Russian Museum was great, and having a Student ID actually gives you something in Russia. In this case it was a discount making our trip FREE (my favourite number). The museum is rather large and certain wings were under construction during our visit. It was still a treat and we are hoping to return when they have been reopened.

After having sorted through the thousands of pictures I took there, I thought I would share a small number of them with you. They are in no particular order and only show some of the artwork you can find inside of the museum. This does not include many of the things associated with the Russian Museum, but I promise to post them later regardless of if Hot Stuff and I are able to return.

This is the ceiling.

I'm sorry for how long it took me to post these. I feel terrible about that. Hopefully part 2 will come soon.

It's so Nice to Actually SEE Autumn

Where I am from in the good ole US of A, four seasons don't necessarily exist. There is definitely winter in some form, and most definitely summer, but spring and autumn get, at most, a week. But in Mother Russia all seasons exist in distinct forms. (The most distinct of these is winter, but we will get there in a future post.)

Yesterday, Hot Stuff, Shoe Queen, two others and I took the train to Pavlovskiy Park. It was a magical place, this park, and so rich with yellows, greens, and tints of red and orange.

The leaves were falling off the trees making a walk through this park almost like walking through a light snow. I felt like I had ventured into wonderland for a moment, and while the British girls were commenting on how they hadn't seen certain things since being in England, I thought about commenting on how certain scenery was rare or non-existent in Oklahoma. While it was magnificent in it's beauty, we did manage to have some fun and practice our "Russian poses". For the sake of keeping my companions identities a secret, I will not be posting them. But I can still show you what I mean in the form of something else...

Regardless of how much fun we had with these pictures, I was just happy to finally be able to enjoy a season I don't really get to see. If we had thought ahead (and if it wasn't so cold) we could have brought a lunch to enjoy in this park. Oh, well. I know Hot Stuff and I would like to go back. There was a museum there we opted not to go into, and people know how I am with museums. (For those of you who don't know, I took over 3,000 pictures at the Russian Museum, and we didn't even get to see it all, or see the other entrance and park.) That will have to wait a while though. Hot Stuff and I have another park we have already set our eyes on.

I hope we are able to go more places soon before the snows come. Regardless, you will finally be able to see the beauty of the Russian winter. ...or, at least, I've been told it's beautiful.

We are really bad at this....

Hot Stuff and I have been known for our tourism fails that have resulted in us face palming knowing just how stupid we have been. Well, as it turns out, tourism isn't the only thing Hot Stuff and I fail at.

The other day, we decided we would prepare for the cold that is to come in the very near future and take our trip to H&M. As we have been afraid of gaining all of the weight we have been doing so well to lose, we decided that walking from Spasskaya metro station to H&M would be a great idea.

This would have been a scenic journey as well as great exercise if not for one thing; we didn't exactly know in which direction we were headed. We did not end up on Nevsky Prospect, but rather found ourselves at Baltiskaya.

On the bright side, we did get over 2 miles of a walk in before finding this lovely point of reference. The negatives are obvious and, in Hot Stuff's case, rather painful. Hoping to avoid future embarrassment and pain, we took the metro from this point forward, but this directional mishap brings me to a very important point.

Whenever you go walking, WEAR THE RIGHT SHOES!!!!

The last thing anyone wants is to ruin their feet, which is always a possibility when a lot of walking is involved. So in the land where high heels are the shoe of choice from preteens to the elderly, how do the Russians do it? How do they keep their feet in good enough shape to wear heels everywhere?

Answer:
They don't. I've seen a few battle wounds peeking out from the absolutely adorable shoes, and they are not pretty. Not even Natalie Portman's feet in Black Swan looked this bad. The feet that I have seen are bloody, scarred, pus filled, and, in some cases, bright yellow. If I can see this above the shoe line, I don't want to know what the rest of the foot looks like.

I am not one to talk though. Even after knowing this information, I found myself replacing shoes that will not be making the trip back home with me, and I didn't buy comfortable, sensible walking shoes. No. That would have been perfect. Instead, I bought heels. Now, I do have a test when I buy heels, especially if I know I am going to be walking in them, and I also know a few tricks to keeping my feet in better shape, but that changes nothing.

Also, shoes have an expiration date. Even the most comfortable flats will wear out eventually and still cause your feet problems. So keep your shoes in good shape and, when it's time, say goodbye. Don't make your feet angry. Because feet aren't pretty and you are forced to walk funny when they're angry.

Friends!!! ...and other random boring stuff.

Today, in Russian class, the professor asked us what we did over the weekend. When she got to Idiot, he said that he had been out clubbing with his Russian friends. Hot Stuff and I were thinking, "How could he have more Russian friends than we do?" It was then that we realized why, and it was all our fault. We set up Idiot with Creeper McCreepertons hoping to improve Idiot's Russian. Instead, we unleashed a mass of creepy onto the streets of St. Petersburg. ::face palm::

While Hot Stuff and I were leaving the Institute (hoping to avoid Idiot at all costs) we came across The Shoe Queen and after inviting her to the theater some time this month, we all spent the afternoon together. Even though she isn't Russian, we are happy we at least have made an international friend. The Shoe Queen is a really nice girl and we hope we will hang out more in the future. I also hope that we can visit that market again. I found Dr. Pepper in Russia!!! (...at $3.25 a can....)

Hot Stuff and I returned to her apartment after our afternoon and, after homework, filled our time with SF. We are sad, yet thankful that our time with SF is almost over. We finally know what books we need and, as soon as the library is functional again, we will need to spend all the time we can studying. We have just under three months left here and we have finally been informed of what it is exactly that we need to study.... I do not agree with this system. I want my Russian to get better and, as the classes are pointless, we should have had material a long time ago. As well as those helping sessions, but I don't see those anywhere.

Here's to hoping things get better. ^_^