May 20

Our last full day in St. Petersburg. After breakfast, we set out for the State Museum of Bread, one of St. Petersburg's newest museums and one in the general vicinity of our hotel. I checked the website before we left to be sure about the address and hours (open M-F 10 AM opening time). It took about 15 minutes to walk there, was a little hard to find. Addresses are very strange. First one side of the street is odd and one even which is good, but there is little relationship between what the numbers are on each side of the street, like one side might be 21 and the other 40. Second, the numbers may be something like 21/3 which might, I think mean the third building of #21 which could be next to it or behind it ( or maybe even somewhere else). So we did find the museum, located in a large building, entered the lobby and met a woman (maybe a security guard?) sitting at a desk who informed us the museum was closed. With my limited Russian, her Russian, and her gesturing and pointing to the calendar we figured out that this was one of the museums that was closed on Mondays (not Saturday and Sunday as the website indicated). I was trying to explain that the internet said it was open, when a woman walked in, a museum employee, possibly the director, who spoke a very little English. When I stated the website said the museum was open Monday, she essentially shrugged her shoulders, said it was wrong, and walked away. So much for our visit to the bread museum, no museum, no bread, and a big waste of time. You can't believe what you read, just like the KGB museum the day before, web site said closed Monday, open on the weekend and exactly the opposite there. So along with no bread, no KGB.

I had wanted to visit the Jewish synagogue so Michael with his phone figured out what bus we could catch that would get us there and, of course, he was right. So off to the Grand Choral Synagogue of St. Petersburg, the second largest synagogue in Europe. It was built between 1880 and 1888, and consecrated in 1893. The St. Petersburg Synagogue could be built only after a building permit was obtained on September 1, 1869 from Tsar Alexander II, who lessened the restrictions on Jews' residence in St. Petersburg. HeI allowed Jews who were retired soldiers, people with academic degrees, 1st guild merchants, specialty craftsmen, and technicians to reside in St. Petersburg, as well as other cities outside the Pale of Settlement. By 1870, there were about ten Jewish houses of worship in St. Petersburg, however, there was no Grand Synagogue to serve the entire Jewish community in the Russian capital. The land plot for the first synagogue was bought in 1879 for 65,000 rubles. The construction of the first synagogue in St. Petersburg was subject to multiple conditions and restrictions. For example, there could be no Christian churches near the synagogue, nor government roads used by the Tsars. Another restriction was the height of the building. The architecture is an eclectic blend of neo-Byzantine and Moorish revival styles with Arabesque motifs. During WWI, the synagogue site served as a hospital. After the Revolution, the Soviet authorities imposed restriction on bank accounts related to the synagogue, and also announced the dissolution of the Jewish community of St. Petersburg,.The St. Petersburg Synagogue was bombed by the Nazis during the Siege of Leningrad between 1941 and 1943. However, the hospital on the premises of the synagogue was in operation. The Jewish community managed to survive the siege of Leningrad, as well as other oppression over the years. Now the synagogue is a registered architectural landmark.

We had driven by the synagogue in the tour bus when I was on the tour, but that was as close as I got. When we arrived, we went inside. Michael was instructed to put on a kippe (head covering) and we were invited to enter the sanctuary. There were two men inside praying with tefillin and tallit. We walked around, looked at the pulpit, and went upstairs to the women's section. The prayer books in Russian and English were printed in the U.S. We sat there for awhile and then went back downstairs. I needed to use the restroom and was advised that it was in the basement. I went down and after I was finished I walked around and found a very large dining room with many tables all set with china. There was another room, looked like an adult class was just breaking up and in another room some men were playing chess and other men and women were chatting. There wasn't really anyone to speak to who spoke English. When I went back upstairs, one elderly man spoke a little English and told me he has an uncle in Los Angeles. We walked around the outside, went into a little store called the Kosher store that had a small refrigerated section with kosher meat in it and some other gift items. I made a few small purchases and then we left. I found it interesting and moving to be there, to know that the synagogue and the Jewish community have survived.

Michael used his phone and found a restaurant almost across the street for lunch, supposed to have very good "pies", so that is what we had as well as some borscht. The lunch was good, filling, and relatively inexpensive. The restaurant had black and white pictures on the walls of old St. Petersburg which were interesting to see. We caught the bus across the street from the restaurant to go to the Admiralteiskaya metro station where we would get the metro to go to Yelegin Island. This metro station which just opened in 2012 is the deepest metro station in the city, the deepest in Russia, and the second deepest in the world. At 102 meters, it is beat by 3 meters by a metro station in Kiev in the Ukraine. It takes a loooong time to go down the escalator into the bowels of the earth. The station is pretty though, well lit, and with mosaic murals of scenes related to the sea, like a ship and Neptune. It is located near the Admiralty which is the Navel Academy and very near the Neva River so it needs to be deep for the lines that go under the river.

St. Petersburg is built primarily on islands in the delta of the Neva river. The current number, as counted in 1975, is 42, although at the end of the 19th century it stood at 101. Yelagin Island is the smallest of the Kirov islands in the northern part of the delta. One of the early owners in the 1700s was Ivan Perfilevich Yelagin, Oberhofmeister of the Imperial Court, who built the first brick palace on the island. In 1817, the island was bought by the Office of Emperor Alexander I, who commissioned architect Carlo Rossi to reconstruct the existing palace as a summer home for his mother, Maria Fedorovna. The property belonged to the royal family until the October Revolution. In 1934, it reopened as a park. Although we knew the palace would be closed (it was Monday), I had read somewhere that thousands of tulips were supposed to be in bloom on the island and that there had been a Tulip Festival there over the weekend. The metro stop was on Krestovsky Island across the street from the entrance to a very large park. This island is one of the most fashionable suburbs, although without a car we really couldn't get around. We walked about ¼ mile to the pedestrian bridge that crossed over to Yelagin Island and were in parkland. There were some food vendors (like selling roasted corn on the cob which seems to be a favorite of Russians) and a number of paved paths. We had a little map and set off. The sky was overcast, but we passed small plantings of blossoming brightly colored tulips and flowers. There are lots of birdhouses mounted on poles along the paths, many with birds momentarily perched outside and lots of benches (without wet paint). I saw some benches on a nearby path that had roofs or possibly wind shelters. There were people walking including a lot of mothers with babys in their prams. We found the palace where it appeared that either a movie or television show was being filmed. (The familiar , but Russian version, of star wagons, and various people walking around in period costumes.) We walked back to the pedestrian bridge on a path along the water (actually Michael walked much faster than me, so I found him sitting and resting when I arrived.) We went back across the bridge and went into the park on the other island. There is an amusement park in that park which we could look in on; it was closed.) The main walkway had some food vendors, a few restaurants, some games (like throwing darts at balloons). We went back to the metro station to return to the city. We didn't visit the third island, Kamenny Island, again because it would have been a lot of walking and we didn't have the time it would have taken, but it is supposed to be the home of the city's elite with beautiful homes and palaces.

Once back in St. Petersburg we hoped to take a canal cruise. I had found several with either English guides or audioguides and had written down the times and the location they departed from. We got off the metro again at Admiralty and walked over to the river. The docks were supposed to be by the two lions. Well the two lions were covered with construction scaffolding for the work being done on the bridge with no docks nearby at all. We saw some docks about ½ block down and walked there. They had boats, but nothing in English. By then we were pretty frustrated, had wasted a lot of time, and new this was not going to work. So…

We went back to the hotel to rest a bit. I had "convinced" Michael that we should go out to a really nice restaurant for our last dinner. I had tried calling but whoever answered the phone didn't speak English. The desk clerk at the hotel helped us by calling Palkin, probably St. Petersburg's most famous restaurant, and made a reservation for us. She told us she made the reservation Russian style. I told her we would like to go at 6:30, but anytime between 6:30 and 7:30 would be fine. So the reservation was made so we could show up anytime in that hour and stay as late as we wanted. The restaurant was just a long block away from the hotel and was #1 rated by Trip Advisor. We put on some nicer clothes and got there about 6:45. The restaurant is on the second floor and we went to various rooms before we actually found the dining room (like a private dining room, the bar, etc). (from the web site saint-petersburg.com

"Located on the site of a 19th century restaurant that served Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Tchaikovsky among others, Palkin is a byword for luxury and refinement in St. Petersburg." The décor is in the style of royal Russia. We were told that during the renovation and decoration of the restaurant, a safe in the wall was found (near where we were sitting) that contained original recipes in this restaurant that dates back to 1874. The maître d', the sommelier, and our server all spoke English. Great attention was paid to the service, but as Michael stated and I sensed, everyone seemed a little nervous, like they were new at what they were doing. Only about four tables were occupied, maybe because it was a Monday and maybe because it was early, I don't know. My starter was hare`s cutlets with foie gras and black truffles and my entrée was beef stroganoff. Michaels starter was, I think, the beef tartare, and his entrée was guinea fowl a la russe served with veal kidneys and cilantro. He picked the wine and chatted with the sommelier a bit about wine. The sommelier approved of his choice. We did not have dessert, but rather assorted cheeses. It was a delightful meal and a wonderful way to end the trip. Then a nice and short walk back to the hotel.