St Petersburg Parks and Gardens

Date of visit: 22nd October 2015

Sceneries at the parks and gardens during autumn are simply breathtaking. I was impatient to share some of the photos that I snapped from the trip, hence, as soon as I came home, I straightaway create a special entry in my blog. You may read them again here, the last day of October month 2015 where I shared few photos of Anne and I mingled at the park that separates the St Isaac Cathedral and the famous Bronze Horseman. We were there while waiting to enter St Isaac Cathedral on our last day in St Petersburg. Before moving on to the final city of the 4th leg, I wish to share some articles and links from my favorite website, Wikipedia in this entry accompanied with more of my favorite photos. 

Parks and fencing that separate the National Museum with the Church of the spilled blood, no. 1favorite

Saint Petersburg is a home to numerous parks and gardens, some of the most famous of which are situated in the southern suburbs, including but not limited to one of the largest English gardens in Europe which is in Pavlovsk Park. Sosnovka is the largest park within the limits of the city proper, occupying an approximate area of 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest one, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style following the great King, Peter's order. It is situated on the southern bank of the Neva at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.

Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes, and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.

In order to commemorate 300 years anniversary of Saint Petersburg a new park was laid out. The park is situated in the north western part of the city. The construction was started in 1995. It is planned to connect the park with the pedestrian bridge to the territory of Lakhta Center's recreation areas. In the park there are 300 trees of valuable sorts, 300 decorative apple trees and 70 limes. 300 other trees and bushes were planted. These trees were presented to Saint Petersburg by non-commercial and educational organizations of the city, its sister-cities, city of Helsinki, heads of other regions of Russia, German Savings Bank and other people and organizations.

Anne and I felt very much lucky being able to visit Scandinavian cities and Russia in the month of October. We were able to see something that is unavailable to see in our hot and humid country; that is green leafs turn yellowish due to hard cold weather. Autumns is always a great weather and pleasant time of the year. Should we were touring 2 weeks later or a month later, the leaves on the trees might have gone bald. In addition, St Petersburg has a serene views of calming waters that you may to enjoy while passing rows and rows of its canals. 

St Petersburg Railway Stations

Date of visit: 23rd October 2015

Amazingly to know and shared the knowledge here that there are 4 train station altogether in St Petersburg City. We’ve been at 2 stations since we arrived at the city from Helsinki, Finland and departed to Moscow 2 days later, where the 2 destinations gave us that chance to be in 2 stations. Since we were not permitted to enter the Finland station when we arrived, I’m sharing photos snapped at Moscow station for this entry. Moscow station has a stringent security checks-in which is similar with the airport check-in system. I find it quite interesting to experience such a safe travel in Russian city.

Moscow Station is known as Moskovsky Vokzal locally. It is the city's oldest and busiest rail station which is located in the very centre of the city on Ploshchad Vosstaniya, at the junction between Nevsky Prospekt and Ligovsky Prospekt. It is a terminus for the Saint Petersburg – Moscow Railway and other lines running from Central and South Russia, Crimea, Siberia and Eastern Ukraine. The station is served by two metro station, the Mayakovskaya and Vosstaniya Square stations of the Saint Petersburg Metro, with both stations linked to the station building by an underground corridor. Ploshchad Vosstaniya is on the red line and Mayakovskaya is on the green line. It is a short walk from the station to several hotels, including the Hotel Oktiabrsakaya, the Ibis St. Petersburg Centre, the Corinthia Hotel St. Petersburg, and the Nevsky Express Hotel.

Moscow station is the oldest preserved station in the city, erected in 1844 till 1851 to a design by Konstantin Thon, an official local architect of Imperial Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. The station was named “Nicholaevsky” after Nicholas I of Russia was the reigning monarch and the greatest patron of railway construction in the realm at the time of construction. The name was rechristened as “Oktyabrsky” to memorialize the October Revolution in 1924, the station was not given its present name until 1930.

Although the large Venetian windows, having 2 floors of Corinthian columns and a two-storey clocktower at the centre explicitly reference Italian Renaissance architecture, the building incorporates other features from a variety of periods and countries. A twin train station, currently known as the Leningradsky railway station, was built to Thon's design at the other end of the railway, in Moscow. While Thon's facade remains fundamentally intact to this day, the station was expanded in 1869 and again in 1912. It was completely redeveloped internally in 1950 and 1967. A bronze bust of Peter the Great in the main foyer was unveiled in 1993, replacing a ruined Lenin statue.

Finland Station (Finlyandskiy Vokzal) is quite famous as it has been the site of Lenin's arrival on his return to St. Petersburg in 1917. Finland Station has gained a new lease of life as the terminal for the new Allegro express trains to Helsinki. The station is on the north bank of the Neva River, about 2km north of Nevsky Prospekt. The station is served by Ploshchad Lenina Metro Station on the red line, which is 2 stops north of Ploshchad Vosstaniya. The only hotel within walking distance is the Saint Petersburg Hotel.

Vitebsk Station (Vitebsky Vokzal) is St. Petersburg terminal for trains to/from Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Baltic States. Vitebsk Station is a beautiful historic building located in the southern centre of the city, just under 2km from Nevsky Prospekt. There are 2 metro stations connected to the mainline concourse, Pushkinskaya on the red line and Zvenigorodskaya on the purple line. Hotels within walking distance of the station include the Fifth Corner Hotel, the Asteria Hotel, the Brothers Karamazov Hotel, and the Neptun Hotel. It was formerly known as St Petersburg-Tsarskoselsky station, and is the first railway station to be built in Saint Petersburg and the whole of the Russian Empire. The station, located at the crossing of the Zagorodny Avenue and the now vanished Vvedensky Canal, was inaugurated in the presence of Nicholas I of Russia on 30 October 1837 when the first Russian train, named Provorny, departed from its platform for the imperial residence at Tsarskoe Selo.

Main ticket area & waiting area

Ladoga Station (Ladozhskiy Vokzal) is St. Petersburg's newest railway station. Ladoga Station is a sprawling modern building to the east of the downtown area, about 2km across the Neva River from the eastern end of Nevsky Prospekt. Ladozhskaya Metro Station, connected to the mainline concourse, is on the orange metro line, four stops from Dostoevskaya in the very centre of the city. In the vicinity, about 1km from the station, the Ladoga Hotel is the only hotel within walking distance.

St Petersburg - The State Museum St Isaac Cathedral

Date of visit: 23rd October 2015

At the onset, I wish to state that it's difficult to imagine St Petersburg without St Isaac's, like Rome without St Peter's, London without St Paul's or Paris without Notre Dame. The church has become St Petersburg city icon and has been placed side by side with Peter & Pauls Cathedral as dominant features and acquired a great significance in St Petersburg skyline. The gilded domes of St Isaac's are generally regarded as a symbol of St Petersburg along with the small ship on the Admiralty spire, the Angel crowning of Peter & Paul Cathedral and the Bronze Horseman.

Line to queue at the entrance ticket counter under the drizzle that morning

Completed in 1858, St. Isaac's took over 40 years to build and furnished. It was built strictly to European Empire style facades and colonnades which are made unique by the employment of red Karelian granite. The interiors is also furnished with an Orthodox tradition with Catholic influence and extraordinary extravagance in the choice of materials. Different types of semiprecious stone brought from all over Russia form its interior walls and columns, whilst an abundance of original art and sculpture goes only a little way to filling the vast hall of the cathedral. It was designed to accommodate about 14,000 standing worshipers. Beside a visit to view in person the Cathedral interiors, travelers may also buy an extra ticket to climb the 300 steps up to the colonnade. We didn’t take that optional visit due to time constraint but we were told that from there, we may enjoy some of the best views of St. Petersburg available.

The best optimal time to spend for a tour of the cathedral and colonnade should take around two hours. It's certainly worth getting an audio guide for the cathedral, and possibly climb the colonnade if you are entirely unfamiliar with the layout of the city. But, we bought book instead which tells about the cathedral and the city from the souvenir stall seated at the corner of the church museum. It help us better to understand about the place and we could always read in the train ride or even at home as reference.

Ceiling painting in the central dome "The mother of God in glory" by painter, Karl Briullov where the Virgin Mary is represented among the saints

Saint Isaac's Cathedral is called "Isaakievskiy Sobor" in Russian, is the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in the city. In fact it is the largest Orthodox basilica in Russia and the fourth largest cathedral in the world, by the volume under the cupola. It was built in dedication to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Emperor Peter the Great, who had been born on the feast day of that saint.

The church on St Isaac's Square was ordered by Tsar Alexander I, to replace an earlier Rinaldiesque structure. A specially appointed commission members examined several designs, including the one that submitted by the French born architect, Auguste de Montferrand, who had studied under the Napoleon's designer, Charles Percier. Montferrand's design was criticised by some members of the commission as they said it is dry and allegedly boring rhythm of having 4 identical pediment tasteless portico's. It was also suggested that despite the proposed gigantic dimensions, the edifice would look squat and not very impressive. The members of the commission, formed from a well-known Russian architects, were also particularly concerned by a necessity to build a new huge building on the old insecure foundation. But, the emperor, Tsar Alexander I who favored the ponderous Empire style of architecture, had to step in and resolved the dispute toward's Montferrand's favour.

Under Montferrand's close supervisions, the cathedral took 40 years to construct, that was from 1818 to 1858. To secure the huge project, the cathedral's foundation was strengthened by driving 25,000 piles into the fen-land of Saint Petersburg. Innovative methods were created to erect the giant columns of the portico. You may see a corner in the museum displaying some of the method used, i.e. the falsework (see below photo) for supporting the structural works. The construction costs of the cathedral came at a final incredible sum of a million gold Russian Rubles. Sadly that when the Soviet government took over, the building was stripped of its religious symbol. In 1931, it was turned into the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism where the dove sculpture was removed, and replaced by a Foucault pendulum. On April 12, 1931, the first public demonstration of the Foucault pendulum was held to visualize Copernicus’s theory. In 1937, the museum was transformed into the museum of the Cathedral, and former collections were transferred to the Museum of the History of Religion, in the Kazan Cathedral.

Pictorial story of the refurbishment works

During World War II, the dome was painted over in grey to avoid attracting attention from enemy aircraft. On its top, in the skylight, a geodesic intersection point was placed, to determine the positions of German artillery batteries. With the fall of communism, the museum was removed and regular worship activity has resumed in the cathedral, but only in the left hand side chapel. The main body of the cathedral is used for services on feast days only. As of 2016, the church is still maintain as a museum.

The neoclassical exterior of this cathedral expresses the traditional Russian Byzantine formula of a Greek-cross ground plan with a large central dome and four subsidiary domes. It is similar to Andrea Palladio's Villa La Rotonda (a Renaissance villa built in Vicenza, Northern Italy), with a full dome on a high drum substituted for the Villa's low central saucer dome. The design of the cathedral in general and the dome in particular later influenced the design of the United States Capitol dome, Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin and the Lutheran Cathedral in Helsinki.

Sculptured according to the story of devoted Apostles Peter and Paul on the large western door 

Large western doors, about 20 tonne in weight

The exterior is faced with grey and pink stone, and features a total of 112 red granite columns with Corinthian capitals, each hewn and erected as a single block. These columns were placed 48 nos. at the ground level, 24 on the rotunda of the uppermost dome, 8 on each of four side domes, and 2 framing each of four windows. The rotunda is encircled by a walkway accessible to tourists. 24 statues stand on the roof, and another 24 on top of the rotunda.

The cathedral's main dome rises about 101.5 metres and is plated with pure gold (see above photo). The dome is decorated with twelve statues of angels by Josef Hermann. These angels were likely the first large sculptures produced by the then novel process of electrocuting, which was an alternative to traditional bronze casting of sculptures. Montferrand's design of the dome is based on a supporting cast iron structure. It was the third historical instance of cast iron cupola after the Leaning Tower of Nevyansk, built in 1732 by the order of Peter the Great and 1000 year old Mainz or St Martin Cathedral, built in 1826 located near the historical center and pedestrianized market square in the city of Mainz, Germany.

For avoidance of doubt, I'm referring to a few articles in Russian website and Wikipedia for this entry and discovered a lot of new discoveries (to me, especially) about the olden days design choices and preference. And more amazing is, only today I discovered that there's a leaning tower in Russia beside the leaning tower of Pisa, Italy that I visited long ago in May 2006, almost 10 years ago. For your information, there is one (leaning tower) in my very own country that I'm yet to visit, that is "The leaning tower of Perak". Yeah.. palm face guys! I made a vow that I will spend the next 2 years, 2016 & 2017 to explore and blog about attractions available from Malaysia. I promise!

St Petersburg - Summer Garden

Date of visit: 22nd October 2015

Anne and I were in agreement whenever we encountered parks in our attractions list. So, this Summer Garden, another creation of St Petersburg's founder, Peter the Great has been in our original list. We roughly knew how to come at this area while we strolled the city a night before. But we entered the park from the back entrance since we came from Church of our Saviour on Spilled Blood direction. We passed by a visit to the State Museum, though it seated side by side with the church as we thought we would spent a long time in this lovely garden. Suited it's name "Summer Garden", what you expect to see won't be there in Spring time. To our disappointment, we did not see any flowers blooming and the remaining statues that are available in the garden seemed to be locked. Whatever it was, the garden is still way too beautiful for an Asian tourist like us 2 to witness a tree leaves changing colors in autumn. It's priceless!

The Summer Garden is usually reached by leaving Nevsky Prospekt (means St Petersburg main street) near Gostinny Dvor and turning north up Sadovaya Street. Then after passing the Mikhailovsky (Engineer's) Castle, the Summer Garden comes into view on the right. The Garden sits on an island formed by the Fontanka, Moika and the Swan Canal and has the railings of its northern perimeter running along the left bank of the Neva. It occupies a plot of almost 12 hectares, although it originally stretched down nearly as far as Nevsky Prospekt. It is often favoured by the locals for romantic walks, and summer siestas, it is a place that also attracts many city visitors all the year round.

Porphyry Vase, a gift from Charles XIV of Sweden to the Tsar 

The Garden was created in 1704 by the direct decree of Peter the Great and it became an exclusive urban park for the elite. For over a century only the nobility and those with court privileges were allowed to use the Gardens, until Tsar Nicholas I, he has permitted the public to enter, but only by adhering to a strict dress code which continued right up to the Revolution. Honestly, it was not a difficult task at all in finding the Summer Garden as the city council has placed numerous proper signage and information board regarding all important attractions available in St Petersburg for visit, including this place. When we arrived through the entrance, there's a display board sharing all information about the summer garden to the visitor. It is indeed very helpful. 

Russian called the Summer Garden, in their native tongue as “Letniy sad” which name was shared with the adjacent Summer Palace of Peter the Great. The park was personally designed by Czar Peter in 1704, supposedly, with the assistance of the Dutch gardener and physician Nicolaas Bidloo. Starting from 1712, the planting of the Summer Garden was further elaborated by the Dutch gardener Jan Roosen, who was the chief gardener of the park till 1726. 

A pair of swans in Carp Pond

A well-known French architect Jean Baptiste Le Blond, who arrived in St. Petersburg in 1716 has added to the park the flavour of a “jardine a la fracaise” literally means garden in French manner. Its epitome is generally considered to be the “Gardens of Versailles” designed during the 17th century by the landscape architect Andre Le Notre for Louis XIV and widely copied by other European courts. The Summer Garden was largely completed in 1719. The walks were lined with a hundred allegorical marble sculptures, executed by Francesco Penso, Pietro Baratta, Marino Gropelli, Alvise Tagliapietra, Bartolomeo Modulo and other Venetian sculptors that were acquired by Sava Vladislavich. In the late 20th century, 90 surviving statues were moved indoors, while modern replicas took their place in the park. Even that was covered and locked to avoid vandalism (I guessed) at the time of our visit.

A delicate iron-cast railing, separating the park from the public walk of the Palace Embankment, was installed between 1771 and 1784 to a design by Georg von Veldten. The grille is suspended between 36 granite columns crowned with urns and vases. The grille considered to be a pinnacle of art-casting and one of the symbols of St Petersburg. In the 1820s, a grotto pavilion, attributed to Andreas Schlüter and Georg Johann Mattarnovy, was rebuilt into a coffee house. On the bank of the Carp Pond, a magnificent porphyry vase, a gift of Charles XIV of Sweden to the tsar, was installed in 1839. 

Kindly take note that the park was chosen by Alexander Pushkin as a setting for childhood walks of the fictional character Eugene Onegin. Many of the sculptures now adorning the Summer Garden date back to the early 18th century. In the 19th century, the intended arrangement of the decorative sculptures in the Summer Garden was forgotten, quite a few of the sculptures were no longer extant, and those remaining were moved from place to place, thus destroying the original design. In late 20th century, all sculptures were rearranged and today they stand in accordance with the aesthetic ideas characteristic of the beginning of the 18th century.

To end this entry, I wish to conclude that no matter where you are happen to be, the park has brought so much contentment to not only people's heart but to the floras and the faunas. Parks are considered a place where people search for a place to rest, enjoying a free fresh air, children are able to wander, run and play, a place for deep thinking searching for inspiration etc etc. It is a permanent home to some species of birds and faunas. People meet here for a happy reasons and I found so much peace and solace coming to kind of place with Anne, a friend that I treasured much in this world. 

Abandon water fountain near the cafe