Viking Homelands: St Petersburg Tour II (9/5/2018)

Wednesday, September 5, 2018 (continued)
Next we drove down Невский проспект/Nevsky Avenue, the famous shopping street of St Petersburg.

Дом Братья Елисеевы/House of the
Yeliseyevsky Brothers (1902-1903,
by Gavriil Baranovsky in Art Nouveau
style), a grocery store (KSS)

I wonder if the Yeleseyevsky Deli in Mayfield Heights, OH outside Cleveland, is any relation?

Гостиный двор/Gostinyy dvor/shopping center (1757-1785,
by Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe) with 2-story arcades

Здание Городской Думы С Башней/City Hall
with Tower (1799–1804, by Giacomo Ferrari)
topped by a spire that was part of 19C optical
telegraph system 800 miles to Warsaw
that used mirrors to transmit Morse code

St Petersburg Suvorov Military School cadets (KSS)

Гранд Отель Европа/Grand Hotel Europe
(1875, renovated in 1910s in Art Nouveau style)
is a 5-star hotel that was featured in the 1995
James Bond movie GoldenEye, but not filmed here

Entrance to the Grand Hotel Europe (KSS)

Русский музей/Russian Museum (1819-1825, by Carlo Rossi for
Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich as his palace in Neo-Classical style)
houses Russian art and sculpture collections (KSS)

Statue (1957, by Mikhail Anikushin) of Alexander Pushkin,
Russian poet and writer, whose great-grandfather was of African origin
and was kidnapped as a child to end up in the court of Peter the Great,
who adopted and raised him, resulting in his descendants
being members of Russian nobility

Cupola of the former Дом компании «Зингер»/
Russian Singer Headquarters (1904, by Pavel Suzor
in Art Nouveau style) topped by a glass globe
sculpture by Estonian Amandus Adamson (KSS)

Starbucks (KSS)

Дом Мертенса/Merten Trade House
(1912, by Marian Lalewicz) was a fur
trading concern, now a Zara store

Soccer Team Zenit team gear store (KSS)

Строгановский дворец/Stroganov Palace (1753-1754, by
Francesco Rastrelli) was built for Baron Sergei Grigoriyevich Stroganov,
who was rumored to have asked his chef for a simple meal
and the result was beef stroganoff

The last photo stop at St Isaac's Cathedral.

Statue (1859, by Piotr Klodt) of Nicholas I, with statues
of his wife and daughters representing the virtues of
Faith, Strength, Wisdom, and Justice

Исаакиевский собор/St Isaac's Cathedral
(1818-1858, by Auguste de Montferrand in
Neo-Classical style) is the
largest orthodox basilica in the world

Back in the motor coach.

The motor coach was parked on Синий Мост/Blue Bridge
(1842-1844) is a 97.3 m/319' wide bridge over the Moyka River

The Blue Bridge (KSS)

Мариинский театр/Mariinsky Theater (1860, by Alberto Cavos)
is the premier opera and ballet theater in St Petersburg

Downspouts appear to be part of the building design

A pair of pusher tugboats named марал/Siberian Stag and зубр/Bison

Lenin plaque at Leytenanta Shmidta embankment 17;
apparently Vladimir Lenin spoke at a Bolshevik Party
general meeting here to report on the April 7th
All Russia Conference (KSS)

Finally caught a photo of a submarine, the B-585 Sankt-Peterburg

LVS86 Tram #5050

KTM23 Tram

Gas station in St Petersburg: 92 octane gas is about $2.34/gallon

A school still has a hammer and sickle (KSS)

Enclose your own balcony projects (KSS)

The Cyrillic letters in the lower left spell "McDonalds"

Back on the Viking Star for dinner as we left St Petersburg.

Sunset past an island fortification in the Gulf of Finland

We belatedly realized we were passing the island city of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island, that has been a defensive barrier for St Petersburg, along with a causeway and connected islands. Now it is all part of the St Petersburg Flood Prevention Facility, with two openings large enough for ships to pass. The openings can be blocked by a pair of curved gates on a pivot.

The white is the curved edge of the gate that can pivot across the water...

...to meet the curved gate from the other side to block the channel

We noticed car headlights moving along the causeway, then they would disappear! The St Petersburg ring road crosses here, but underground in a tunnel.
Next: Helsinki 1.