Day two was more walking around but this time in daylight!
Another example of using a word we know to decipher Cyrillic. B is used as V but also U. C is S, P is R, backwards pi is L, backwards N is ‘ee’, R is ‘ya’. AVSTRALEEYA
Russian Churchs has really weird names like “Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood”. It was built on the site that Tsar Alexander II was assassinated (in 1881, don’t confuse him in Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, who was murdered in 1918). It is built in Romantic Nationalist style and includes lots of onion domes and mosaics inside and out.
Some great site were the English named stores which were either very generic or ‘crazy happy fun store’. Another great sight was this bookstore. It had fake lawn for flooring. Jed promised I could do this at home. 😀 Plants, water features, minimal lighting. A forest room!!
The Peter and Paul Fortress is named after Peter the Great and Paul the I, both Emperors of Russia (one at the start of the 18th, the other at the start of the 19th century). Peter founded St Petersburg (see, see, the name!) and built the fortress (or citadel) to protect the city. Interesting fact of why St Petersburg changed to Petrograd then to Leningrad then back to St Petersburg. Burg is Germanic which wasn’t that popular in 1914 (DAMN NAZIS), then Peter, i.e. the traditional imperial system wasn’t popular so it changed to Leningrad, then in 1991 when the USSR collapsed, the citizen got to vote on a name change. And now it’s St Petersburg. YAY!
Inside the fortress in a mint, a cathedral where nearly all the Tsar are buried, prison and museum. 
What’s that? A cruise missile just sitting on a a rail cart or tanks lining the road… (disclaimer, I have no idea what a cruise missile looks like, this may or may not be one.)
This is one of my favourite pictures. It’s not very good as there was no lights in the store and it’s through shiny glass. Basically it s a horse lamp. A full sized horse statue with a lamp on its head. AMAZING!
Night-time again, Marat was with us so was able to point us towards the famous sites. The Aurora, a Russian cruiser, was involved in the October Revolution. Apparently the soldier were quite revolutionary and refused an order to take the shpi out to see. A blank shot from the ship also signaled the assault on the Winter Palace.
Nat 'n' Jed's World Tour 