Assassination, Putin, and Crying Mary

Today we had class! Only for two hours, and it's all about what I love (Social Studies and Teaching) so I didn't mind. Plus, it was in the Russian grade school (shoot! forgot to take pictures again) so it's still an adventure when we go there. We discussed and learned about the history of education for 2 hours.

After that, we took a trip back to the hostel to drop off the projector and our backpacks, and then set out on another excursion! It was a gorgeous day outside, 60 degrees and not a cloud in sight. We made our first foray into the St. Petersburg Metro! It's the deepest in the world, with one station being 128 METERS under the surface. It has to be so deep because of all the waterways in St. Petersburg. For your viewing pleasure, here is a map of the city:

As you can see, pretty much all major parts of the city are separated by water, so getting around can be tough. We're staying on the same island as Peter and Paul Fortress, top middle in this map. Today we took the metro to the main part of St. Petersburg, the bottom of this map.

First, we went to the Church on Spilt Blood. It was built to commemorate the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1886ish. The story is a good one, so bear with me. When he was young, Alexander visited a gypsy fortune teller. She told him that he would survive 7 assassination attempts in his lifetime, but be killed by the 8th. On the day he was killed, he was mortally wounded by a bomb thrown by the assassin. He assured doctors that he would survive, because this was only the 7th attempt on his life. What he didn't know at the time was that just before the bomb was thrown, a shot was fired at him, but missed, that being the 7th attempt. So, the bomb killed him, the 8th attempt just as prophesied.

I can't even relay to you how breathtaking this cathedral was, but OMG look at the pictures. It's relatively new (1907) and in a pseudo-classical Russian style. St. Basil's Cathedral, in Moscow, is in Classical Russian style (we'll be going there this weekend! Yay!). The outside of this cathedral was beautiful, but the best part was in the inside. Almost every inch of the place was covered in mosaics. With tiny pieces, too! At most an inch square each, the pieces. There were biblical scenes, icons, portraits, everything was in mosaic. At the altar, there were iconostases, groupings of icons in gilded metal. It was amazing. We wandered around gaping at the beauty for about 20 minutes, and then we left. There were a lot of tour groups, as this is understandably one of the most visited sites in St. Petersburg.

After that cathedral, we went to a souvenir fair set up across the street. They had all the best touristy things, especially Matrushka Dolls (Nesting dolls). Haggling was accepted there, so I tried my best and actually Anatoli said I didn't do a bad job; high praise, believe me. I got several souvenirs, but I need to go back probably because I didn't have a lot of rubles left by the time we got the market. It was so obviously geared towards tourists. Most vendors spoke English and took credit cards and U.S. dollars. I did a pretty good job of sounding like I was almost out of money though. My favorite purchase is one set of 10 nesting Matrushkas that are painted to look like famous Russian leaders (they had EVERYTHING, Harry Potter, Obama, Dora the Explorer, etc.). Mine have Putin, Madvedev, Yetsin, Gorbachev, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Stalin, Lenin, Tsar Nicholas II, and Tsar Peter the Great in progressively smaller dolls. I love them! (shhh I also got Pat a set). I think they will be great in my classroom!

After the market, I got ice cream (it really is delicious everywhere!) and we walked to Kazan Cathedral, one of the most famous in St. Petersburg (again, look at the facebook pictures, here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3726269711534.2162403.1119647653&type=1. In the Cathedral, there is an icon that is said to have been found in the Kazan countryside a long time ago, with tears coming from the Virgin Mary's eyes. Since then, the icon has been in Kazan Cathedral, and people come from all over to worship at it. There was a sizable line when we were there. We walked around and looked at the many other icons in the cathedral. I put down my camera and stood for a long while to just soak it all in. I hope that it worked. :)

Tomorrow we have class again, and then we're probably off on another adventure. Anatoli found tickets for us to Swan Lake later this week. CAN'T WAIT.