Blog

An earlier than anticipated start this morning (6am) as we were woken by a phone call from a taxi driver asking why we weren’t in front of the apartment building – Andrew calmly told him that it was booked for tomorrow at the same time. We went back to sleep only to later be woken by the cleaner coming into clean the apartment. A call to the apartment contact sorted matters out.

Today was a visit to the Russian Museum – a museum of Russian fine art. It was housed in a grand building that was large in proportions and had a far, far bigger collection than we had anticipated. http://www.rusmuseum.ru/eng/collections

The main entrance to the Russian Museum

There were many delightful portraits and landscapes, quite a few dour scenes, and a lot of school children visiting. It was an enjoyable visit. Andrew’s goal for the day was to see how many of the attendants, sitting guarding her room of the collection, would respond to his smile. Either his charm is on the wane or it is a national characteristic not to smile, as he only got smiles from about 10%

The Church of the Spilled Blood was virtually beside the Russian Museum and we walked past it again.

We walked through 2 parks, covered in snow, not at their most attractive, but they are important in themselves. One was the “Field of Mars” where the eternal flame is burning, commemorating Russian soldiers.

The other was the summer garden – obviously not at it’s best in early spring. This had been an important component in a book called “Winter in the Summer garden” by Natasha Templeton that Albinia had recommended relating to the siege of Leningrad. http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Fiction_Literature/War_Military/product_info/122930/ recommended

In the Summer Garden (n.b. Paula in focus, thankyou Richard, AJ has noted your comments )

A bit more walking around the neighbourhoods and we are now ready to move onto Finland (presuming of course that we find our train in the morning!)

Just a nice picture, with the church in the background