Midnight at St Petersburg.

One of the palaces on the Neva River, photographed at midnight.

The overall sky was a dark blue velvet. No stars.
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Belarussian Bagpipes.

People interfering with black swans?

No, practicing for St Petersburg Day.
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No, not Milo.

Venus de something else. Padua?
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Um...

A tough life, it seems.
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The Hermitage

Not a use of the word 'hermitage' that the average hermit would relate to.



Part of the front stairwell.

Detail.

If things look gold, they are.
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Black sheep? Yellow Tulip?

Every group has one.
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St Petersburg

A fascinating place. Lots of rivers, canals, parks and shoulder to shoulder old houses.



A lighthouse.

Jeans

There used to be a time when tourists took jeans to Russia to sell.

Not now.
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Photo Opportunites

Leonid, the second. And Leon, too.

There are lots of people around the tourist sites who are period dressed. You can pay to be photographed with them.

Ivan the Terrible's Bell

202 tonnes of bell. Never rung.

The foundry flooded during the casting process, you see.

Ivan's bell tower.
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Other churches

At the Kremlin.

St Basil's mad brother.
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Kremlin

I hadn't realised that teh Kremlin was a medieval fortified city rather than a building like the White House. Two kilometers of wall, five cathedrals, assembly buildings, museums etc.

Street florist.

Nicked!

No, not quite. We were trying to find a local landmark and the policeman kindly lead us up the street to it.
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A very up-market grocery store

St George

St George is apparently the patron saint of Moscow (Russia?)

St George's cathedral and an oddly palmate war memorial.
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Some Moscow images

Supposedly Peter the Great but the statue was first done as Columbus and offered to various US cities who declined to buy it from the artist. So the face was changed and made into Peter the Great.

No-one seems to mind that he is wearing the uniform of a Spanish sailor.

A pond that was supposed to have been the inspiration for Swan Lake.


Lock up your daughters - a fortified convent.
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The Kremlin at night.

Big but not all that imposing.

Beyond the square is the old KGB building, now renamed but employing teh same people doing similar things. On the roof is a heliport that used to be used to ferry prisoners to Siberia. Russian joke: What is the tallest building in Moscow? The KGB building - you you go to the roof you can see Siberia.

BTW: Red Square was named in the 17th century. It has nothing to do with red but relates to a Russian word meaning beautiful.
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St Basils

Nothing really prepares you for the confection that is St Basil's cathedral.

Soccer, football, whatever...

Lots of security about town for the football final in two day.

Happily we will be in St Petersburg by then.

The stadium for Wednesday night.