St Petersburg, Russia
When I was a child and growing up, we seemed to always be taught to think of Russia as this “big bad country that hated Americans”. I do not know why this was the case, or what left me with that impression decades later, but it is what it is. Therefore, decades later when showing our passport and tour authorization to officials when disembarking a ship in St Petersburg, Russia with our two children, we kept pinching ourselves (and each other) thinking “We are in Russia!”. The feeling was surreal, but after two full days, we can say we absolutely loved our experience there in our endeavor to get the MostPerMile out of life.
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Touring
Choosing to book an extensive two-day tour through an approved tour company, we were able to bypass Visa requirements if under three days and get right along with touring the beautiful city of St Petersburg. While mainly using a bus for transportation, we also got around on a hydrofoil, walking, and an escalator, if you
can count that as a mode of transportation! In fact, Admiralteyskaya (translated in Russian as Адмиралте́йская) is a metro station that houses one of the longest escalators in the world! The hydrofoil was an excellent option to go to a palace and gardens during our visit, which we saw them all over town during our tour there. Our tour guide, Svetlana, was called “Lana” by all of us, and was truly fantastic.
Ballet
Concluding day one, we had opted to add on dinner and a ballet. Besides, when your children have never been to a ballet to begin with, what better way to introduce them to one? We were dropped off at a restaurant and shown where to meet at a certain time. After concluding dinner, we were picked up by our tour bus and guide once again to go see the ballet Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky in the Mikhailovsky Theatre. Being in Mr. Tchaikovsky’s hometown, we felt one of his ballets was clearly the natural choice.
Sights
Our tour over the two days included city highlights. Some of these highlights encompassed a driving tour through the historical downtown with the nice views on the bridges and squares, exploring several palaces and visiting the Neva river embankments. We had several short walks along with stops for pictures, being sure to strategically place our restroom visits as well. In fact, having a boat tour provided essentially a city tour from the angle of the water!
Our excursion in St. Petersburg and Paul Fortress also included an inside visit to the Cathedral. We traveled to Peterhof via hydrofoil and then toured the Lower Fountain Park and Upper gardens. We later traveled to Tsars Village (Tsarskoe Selo) and had an excursion in Catherine palace including the Amber room and walk through the park. The next day we did a boat ride — City tour from the water angle.
… and More Sights
Our excursion included the Hermitage museum (with early entry) which was nice before it got crowded. We were guided by Lana through the expansive halls, with details given clearly in English along with the related historical aspects. While I am not a history buff, my husband is, and he most likely absorbed much more of the information than I could ever fathom.
Our excursion in Church on the Blood was amazing! You see the outside of the church and it is always what we had envisioned Russia to look like. Once inside, the murals were simply amazing. I believe I read it was the most square footage of murals inside a building anywhere in the world! We also visited various other sights in the area, all encompassing exquisite works of art in many forms while playing a huge part of history for the area, and sometimes world.
The Yusupov palace was also a stop, which was once the primary residence of th eHouse of Yusupov. This was later the site of the murder of Grigori Rasputin in the early morning hours of December 17, 1916. We also had an opportunity to visit the the Gregory Rasputin exposition within the Ysupov Palace.
Culinary
One of our highlights was a visit to a local grocery store.
Since we were getting the opportunity to enjoy some meals in Russia, seeing a local grocery store helped us get the MostPerMile in the culinary aspect of St Petersburg. Even the meals were an excellent immersion experience, as we would have had no idea what to order had we attempted touring the city on our own. Luckily things translated to chicken kiev, eggplant salad, and some sort of apple pie dessert.
In fact, after seeing so many greats works of art, paintings, and murals around the city, it was not surprising to glance around the walls of the restaurants to see such beauty in there, as well! It was a great reminder to not just focus on the food, but take in the ambience of where we were dining.
We concluded the two days of exploring St Petersburg with an excursion in Saint Isaac Cathedral. An amazingly packed two days, to this day we are still pinching ourselves we were actually in Russia and desire to return again. Here are a few more pictures of our time in St Petersburg below:
Children
Finally, a note about doing a lengthy two-day tour with children: Go with the flow!! If they want to fall asleep on the bus, or hydrofoil, or restaurant, let them!
The world will not end if they miss some moments of explanations. As parents, while we want them to learn as much as possible on vacations, we also do not want to exhaust them, and definitely do not want to drive them to the point where they are so overwhelmed they have a meltdown or take away from the experience of fellow tour passengers. So use your best parental judgement and find that unique balance so that everyone on your tour group is able to make the MostPerMile out your excursion together!
Possible Curriculum Correlations in Texas:
(11) Culture. The student understands similarities and differences among people. The student is expected to:
(A) identify similarities and differences among people such as kinship, laws, and religion; and
(B) identify similarities and differences among people such as music, clothing, and food.
(15) Culture. The student understands the significance of works of art in the local community. The student is expected to:
(A) identify selected stories, poems, statues, paintings, and other examples of the local cultural heritage; and
(B) explain the significance of selected stories, poems, statues, paintings, and other examples of the local cultural heritage
(4) Geography.
(F) identify the location of major world countries such as Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Japan, North and South Korea, Indonesia, and Australia.
(14) Government. The student understands the processes that influence political divisions, relationships, and policies. The student is expected to:
(A) analyze current events to infer the physical and human processes that lead to the formation of boundaries and other political divisions;
(B) compare how democracy, dictatorship, monarchy, republic, theocracy, and totalitarian systems operate in specific countries; and
(C) analyze the human and physical factors that influence the power to control territory and resources, create conflict/war, and impact international political relations of sovereign nations such as China, the United States, Japan, and Russia and organized nation groups such as the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU).
