Allyson Johnson

To Russia With Mom: Elder-Friendly Spots in St. Petersburg – and Not

Flat and sheltered as far as the eye can see!

Gostiny Dvor –  The Good:  half of the shops are on ground level with both an exterior rain-sheltering arcade and an interior path that leads from one end to the other of this long mercantile block.  Service was friendly and if the shop-owner did not have what we needed, we were given direction to another shop that might. Recommended:  the ice cream shop in the far left corner (from Nevsky Prospekt)

The Bad: There are two floors and if there is an elevator, we did not find it.

The Grand Hotel Europe on Nevsky Prospekt –  The Good: A gorgeous lobby, and elevator to the Mezzanine location of the relatively inexpensive and very attractive Mezzanine Café, or the elegant but pricey  Caviar Bar.  Recommend: the Caviar Bar Appetizer menu and a cocktail for your last-night splurge.

The Bad:  Must get on the right elevator to descend to the ground floor, or face elegant but slippery marble staircase.   Two appetizers and two cocktails at the Caviar Bar ran us close to $100 US including tip.

The Mariinsky Theatre (formerly known as the Kirov under the Soviets): The Good: Beautiful theatre, only a few steps to seating on the ground floor.  Just looking at the baroque interior is entertainment;  the world class opera and ballet is a bonus.

The Bad: Ladies room is down a steep flight of stairs; no visible elevator.

The Hermitage Museum – The Good: Wheelchair service gets you royal treatment from tour guides and tourists alike.  Elevators are available –  only to wheelchair users and pushers. Unbelievable art hung in an amazing baroque palace.

The Bad:  Only two  restrooms, at very beginning and at very end of tour. Need 60 hours at least to really appreciate all that is here;  our tour took 3 hours.    Still 3 hours of wonderful is better than none!

Peterhof:  – The good: miles of wonderful level strolling paths in a garden fantasy of fountains, pools, pavilions, and statuary.  You enter at the top of the Grand Cascade;  there is a ramp entrance down to the right in the direction of the Pagoda Fountains.  (If you miss this ramp, the staircases down at the middle and the far side are VERY long.)  Lots of benches for sitting and admiring.  The Pavilions  were Peter the Great and his Catharine took refuge are charming and much as they might have been in Peter’s time.

The Bad: No elevators in the historic pavilions and stairs to upper  floors are steep with minimal handrails.  Path up to walkway on levy for view of Baltic Sea is steep.  Line to see inside main palace is long. (We skipped it.)

Catharine’s Palace: the Good: the exterior of Catharine’s palace is lovely  – if you like Wedgwood china you will love the effect of white and gilt trim on blue.

The Bad: the line for seeing the interior of Catharine’s palace is very long.  I’m sorry we missed this, as friends had told me the Amber Room is a DON’T MISS, but it was starting to rain, the wind was picking up, and we lost our nerve.

Queue for entry 45 minutes before closing…

Pushkin –  the Good: The school where Pushkin studied is very evocative of the life of aristocratic young scholars – lots of fascinating artifacts.

The Bad: NO ELEVATOR, and a brutal spiral staircase thronged with Russian school children on field trips. Also almost no benches for resting between ascents.  Pushkin’s room is on the 4^th floor (effectively the 5^th).  We got only as far as the 3^rd floor;  I couldn’t force Mom’s bad knee any higher.

To Russia with Mom – Day 3 – Martyr’s Manic Monument

Mom and the Church on Spilled Blood

The Church on Spilled Blood erupts from the site of the assassination of Csar Alexander II like a clump of maniacally multicolored mushrooms.  Yes, that is an over-the-top opening sentence, and this over-the-top icon of St. Petersburg deserves it. The church’s exterior façade is made up of elaborate brickwork with gilded mosaic insets, topped by seven onion-shaped domes, either gilded, painted or tiled in colorful patterns of checks and swirls. If you can imagine Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty castle covered in vari-colored gumdrops held on with gold-leaf staples, you might have an inkling of what the outside is like. It is surrounded by tourists, brides, and wedding parties, all enthusiastically snapping photos of the Church and each other as well as of the erzatz Catherine and Peter the Greats who hang about in period costume hoping to be paid for a photo.

Interior with saints – Church on Spilled Blood

Inside is another unworldly vision – a vertical mosaic world of golden-haloed giants against an ethereal blue background.  Anything not covered by mosaic tile is gilded. The floors are inlaid with marble in diverse colors and intricate patterns.

High in the dome above a compassionate and sorrowful Christ looks down at the sinners below. Mysteriously, his fingers area crossed.  Is he wishing us luck against the odds?

Christ in his heaven

A sunken , flower-decked spot in the floor surmounted by an elaborately carved wooden gazebo marks the actual site of the czar’s assassination by a terrorist bomb attack in 1881. Mom is convinced that this gazebo was build first and then the rest of the church built around it – I’m not sure if this is true or a garbled version of a half-heard tour guide’s talk.Origin tale true or not, the Church on Spilled Blood  is also one of Mom’s favorite sights of our whole trip. If you are visually impaired, an outsize and brightly colored landmark is sure to be a hit.

Mom inside the Church of Spilled Blood