Visitors from Canada!

My Dad and Mr. Ewing

Manly photo #1 Me and a tank

The four of us out for dinner at Baku, the Azerbaijani restaurant

Manly Photo #2 Me and the Aurora

The war memorial

Statues of Soviet Soldiers

Apologizes to everyone for not posting a new blog in awhile, but Leah and I have been busy playing tour guide to my dad and one of his friends from Canada who came to visit us in Petersburg.

They arrived on Saturday the 11th of April and were set to fly out on the 17th (Friday). Once they arrived and checked into their hotel, Leah and I orientated them with the city by giving them a bit of a walking tour of the major attractions. After showing them the outside of the Church on Spilled Blood, the Hermitage, Palace Square, Kazan Cathedral, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Bronze Horseman and the Admiralty we took them to a good Georgian (not the State) restaurant and had some delicious Shashlik.

Sunday the 12th, Leah and I took them to the Artillery Museum which is one of the attractions that we had yet to visit. It was quite interesting to see as the entire courtyard is full of Soviet Era tanks, missile launchers and artillery pieces. It was a very manly place to go and all the guys at home will be proud of me getting my picture taken in front of all the big weapons. We then took them across the water to the Peter and Paul fortress, showing them the burial place of the Russian Tsars (including and following Peter the Great), the Russian Mint, the Trubetskoy Prison and the Museum of St. Petersburg. We then walked through the Field of Mars and through the souvenir market to the Church on Spilled Blood. By the time we were finished sightseeing for the day we worked up quite an appetite and decided to go to the delicious Indian restaurant that we had gone to for my birthday dinner.

Monday the 13th we decided to tour the Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral, where Mikhail Kutzov, the Russian Field Marshal who is credited with defeating Napolean's Army is burried. Inside the cathedral you can see numerous banners that were captured by his forces and the keys to many of the French fortresses that he took over. After the Kazan Cathedral we took my dad and Mr. Ewing to St. Isaac's Cathedral, and up to the colannade at the top for a great birds eye view of the city. We then walked along one of the canals to the Yusupov palace. The Yusupov's were a very wealthy family in Tsarist times (rumour has it that they were even wealthier than the royal family themselves). In the basement of the Yusupov palace was also the location that Rasputin was killed. The palace is in great condition and is easily the most elaborately decorated of any of the palaces that we have been in so far. For dinner, Leah and I decided on taking them out to the Idiot, which is easily one of the best restaurants in St. Petersburg. The entertainment for the night was watching numerous huge Russian men talking on cellphones going in and out of the restaurant, not ordering anything or sitting down. (My dad and Mr. Ewing were convinced they were Mafia.)

Tuesday the 14th was spent inside the massive Hermitage. You can easily spend multiple days inside looking at the various collections spread over three buildings. Extra attention was paid to all of the famous paintings that my dad had wanted to see. Before he became the principal of Leah and my high school, he was an art teacher and so had studied and saw all of these famous paintings in books so I'm quite sure he was excited to see them in person. After touring the Hermitage all day, I took them back to our Gostinitsa to show them how and where we lived and to meet our roommates. We then went out to one of our usual dining spots - Yaposha Sushi, where we had a nice meal, albeit without salmon; as for some reason they had run out of salmon for the evening....

As if the art collection located within the Hermitage wasn't enough, on Wednesday I decided to show them the Russian Museum. Unlike the Hermitage, the Russian museum's collection of paintings are solely by Russian artists. I then took them to Gostiny Dvor, the large mall that used to be a bazaar when St. Petersburg was founded, and then we met up with Leah downtown on Nevsky and decided to try a new restaurant called Baku that serves Azerbaijani food. It was an excellent choice as the food was absolutely amazing, very flavourful and the restaurant itself had great atmosphere. The inside was decorated as a mosque, and was very colourful and comfortable.

The 16th was the last official tour day of their visit as they were set to fly out of St. Petersburg for Frankfurt at around 6:00am the next day. With so many attractions left to see we decided to go to the Cruiser Aurora, our school at the Smolny Cathedral and the War memorial. The cruiser Aurora was a very interesting sight, moored in the river it is a free attraction that not only makes for great pictures but you can also go on it and even into the free museum in the inside of the ship. The cruiser was comissioned in 1903 and served in the Russo-Japanese War. Then, in 1917 a blank shot, fired by the Aurora, was the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace (Hermitage) where the Provisional government were seated in the dining room. We then took a taxi to our school at the Smolny Cathedral and met up with Leah and proceeded to the St. Petersburg War Memorial. It is a massive memorial that is difficult to describe in words. It consists of a museum under the memorial, and a huge stone pillar with the dates of the Second World War at the top. The memorial is also decorated with sculptures and carvings of Soviet soldiers. After the memorial we were set to head back to our Gostinitsa where we were going to meet my Chinese friend Xiefei for supper, but unfortunately we ran into some problems at the metro station. A group of pickpockets managed to steal the passport of my dad's friend and so began another adventure for us, but that will be described in our next blog entry.