Tuesday, June 20, 2017

First day in Russia, in St. Petersburg

This is the view from the airplane at 10PM, approaching St. Petersburg, Russia.

The sunset from the airplane.

View of the river and the sunset.

The next morning, we started off at 9AM to stroll along Nevsky Prospect. There are multiple bridges over the canals.

Singer House, corner view. Is that an Albert in bottom left corner?

Singer House view from the side, over some shrubs.

The Kazan Cathedral opposite of Singer House.

A statue by the cathedral.

Albert, my brother, trying his first gopnik squat in front of the fountain at Kazan Cathedral Square.

A more classy picture of Albert in full Adidas track suit and in front of the fountain.

Front view of Kazan Cathedral.

A selfie I took there.

This is a fountain nearby on an adjacent street.

And the squat.

This is Albert at the Griboyedov Canal.

The view of an old church from the canal.

This is me over there.

And a picture of Albert, same place.

Eye catching display at a souvenir shop.

Albert thinks this used to be a real wolf.

Dinner at a Soviet-styled cafe. This is an Azerbaijani dish with chicken, bread, and rice pilaf with some kind of green onion concoction to go with the dish.

Russian dumplings with a spicy beef filling. It was salty so I let Albert eat most of it.

Albert ordered pike cutlets with mashed potatoes. He let me try some. The pike was very tasty!

I liked their Soviet themed place mats!

A monument dedicated to Alexander Pushkin at a park close to the central Metro station.

Here we wait at the train station for 2 hours for our overnight train headed to Moscow. Albert is squatting, gopnik style.

Second picture of Albert squatting. He was actually approached by a railway station employee in a suit who recognized him as a gopnik and told him "good choice" of attire. Later, we heard a girl heading out of the train station saying "suka blyat", which made Albert's day complete. He learned both gopnik style and "suka blyat" from the Life of Boris Youtube channel.

Casa Loma, Symphony in the Garden and after

View of the city from the terrace.

We just arrived!

The back of the house.

It has towers.

This is the "library" but it looks like a ballroom with so many chandelier lights.

Many flags hang from the second level.

The master bedroom has a tiger skin!

Sitting room area of the lady's suite.

Another sitting room behind the last sitting room area, with a piano to the right. Looks like she was entertaining a lot of people at once. 

A guest bedroom decorated with Chinese-inspired art.

The beds were pretty narrow back then!

Sign explaining the guest room.

The third floor is some kind of war museum. Here are some rifles in a wall display.

And some more guns and bullet casings.

More casings and knickknacks.

The view from one of the towers we climbed. The other tower was closed.

The view from the tower of the garden below and the symphony and opera playing inside the greenhouse there.

Another guest room with very elegant furniture. The tapestry on the chairs is aging, though.

The bed has cherubs carved in.

A piano in that room...

...and the fireplace. I like the fireplace accessories.

Here is me waving from a tower.

The view of the symphony in the gardens area from the second-floor balcony I decided to stay.

My boyfriend enjoying the opera.

A picture of the two of us.

And here, he is a little less enthusiastic about the selfies.

Antique car No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

Sign

No. 5

No. 6

No. 7

Floor plan shown in garden greenhouse