Lenin and the ballet

Ballet! Today after our classes finished and we were getting our coats from the coat check at Smolny (yes, we have a coat check complete with a nice old lady that gives you a number and smiles) there was a cute little babushka (grandmother) who was sitting in the lobby with a bunch of tickets to the Mikhailovsky Theatre, a map of the theatre’s seating, and numerous posters. At first we completely ignored her requests to “smotri! pazhalusta!” (look, please), until we became curious and took another look at her tickets (yes they are authentic). Ballets included the likes of the Nutcracker, Swan Lake and a few others. After looking at the prices (she was selling the tickets at cost) and the seating (really awesome seats) we decided to go ahead and buy a bunch of tickets. Leah and I bought tickets to the Nutcracker for Valentines Day, and our roommates Laura and Jessi also bought tickets to the Nutcracker, while Natasha and Erin purchased tickets to Swan Lake. We are all looking forward to dressing up and becoming part of St. Petersburg’s high society for an evening.

Finland Station
After buying our tickets from the old lady we then began another adventure…..to pay homage to Lenin! After walking to the Metro station we normally take home, we took the route to Finland Station where Lenin arrived from Finland and gave his famous speech that ignited the 1917 Revolution. After exiting the metro station you walk out to see a massive square, and at the end, stands a large statue of Lenin (see picture). The square has been taken care of and even had sand on the ice to prevent slipping (a rarity in St. Petersburg), and there were numerous carnations that had been placed at the base of the monument. We took some photos and then entered the train station and after a bit of a confusion trying to find out where exactly the train car was, we found it complete and encased in a large glass box on the actual train platform.