From the 19th of May until the 23rd I went to Saint Petersburg with Evgeniya. We had a great time and it was super to have somebody there who could speak the language. The only English I have heard from the museum staff was: “No pictures!”.
St. Petersburg is a great place for a four day visit; its palaces, churches and museums are all extremely impressive.

One of my favorite churches was The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood. The exterior really looks like none of the churches I have seen, and the interior, completely laid out with mosaic, was perhaps even more impressive.

Another really beautiful church was the Saint Isaac’s Cathedral. The interior is majestic and a walk around the dome gave us a great view on the city.

We took a boat ride to check out Peterhof, a great palace and sometimes referred to as the “Russian Versailles”. I think it is worthy of that name. The fountains, gardens and palaces were perfect. It was a pity that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the palace.

Evgeniya’s friend Olga took us to Novgorod, where we visited an open air museum which exhibited traditional wooden architecture. It was great that she brought us all the way there (it was three hour drive to get there, and the state of the Russian highways didn’t make it a very relaxing trip).

On our last day we visited the State Hermitage Museum, an incredibly large museum that spans a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace.

All in all it was an amazing place to visit.

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