The Egyptian Sphinxes are situated on the jetty opposite the Academy of Fine Arts. The figures are about one thousand years older than the Neva River which has 3000 years. They were found during the archeological excavations of Fivi, the ancient capital of Egypt during the New and Middle Kingdoms. They were carved out of syenite between the years 1455 and 1419 BCE, and glorify the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III imagined with the body of a lion. In spring of 1832 they were carried from the banks of the Nile to St. Petersburg. These magical mythological images have become symbols of St. Petersburg.
They have two inseparable friends, the gryphons, to which the visitors have to tell the wishes, for them to make them come true... always in a whisper and in very low voice.
Then, following the shore of the river, we approached a boat that is now a luxury restaurant, hairdresser and a 24 hours gym.
The next visit was the fortress of Peter and Paul. We begin with its Cathedral.
The Cathedral received the name of Saint Peter and Paul, and is the second temple that occupies this place. The first church, built shortly after the foundation of the city, was consecrated by Archbishop Iov of Nóvgorod in April 1704. The current building, the first stone church of St Petersburg, was designed by Trezzini and built between 1712 and 1733.
Its needle reaches 123 meters height, with the figure of an angel at its end. This angel is one of the most important symbols of Petersburg. When restorers were working to clean the figure in 1997, they found a note in a bottle between the folds of the robe of the angel.
In the note, the restorers of 1953 excused themselves for what they considered a mediocre and bad quality work (Khrushchev wanted that the angel was restored for the 150 ° anniversary of the city). It is said that the renovators of 1997 left another note for future generations, but its content is unknown. The Cathedral remained closed in 1919 and converted into museum in 1924, although since 2000 provided religious services.
The Cathedral contains the remains of most of the emperors and empresses from Peter the Great to Nicholás II and his family, who finally were buried here in 1998. Only Peter II is located at the Cathedral of the Archangel in the Kremlin, Moscow, while Iván VI was executed and buried in the fortress of Shlisselburg. The Cathedral has a typical Flemish chime, a present from the city of Mechelen, Flanders.
On September 28, 2006, 78 years after her death, María Fiodorovna, Empress of Russia, was again buried in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. Wife of Tsar Alexander III and mother of Nicholás II (the last Russian Tsar), María Fiodorovna died on 13 October 1928 in exile in her native Denmark, and was buried in Roskilde Cathedral in that country. In 2005, the Governments of Denmark and Russia agreed to return the remains of Empress to Petersburg according to her wish of being buried next to her husband.
At midnight, on July 17, Tsar Nicholas II together with the members of the family were taken to the cellar of the Ipatiev House where they were shot, along with some servants, a loyal doctor and even the family dog. The pretext was to take a picture, so Nicholas II placed the heir on his knees as he took a seat next to the Tsarina, their daughters sat back and the servants and the doctor on the sides of the group. A few moments passed and suddenly entered Yákov Yurovski with a revolver in hand and 17 soldiers armed with bayonets.
When Yákov Yurovski raises the revolver and tells the Tsar that the Russian people has sentenced him to death, the Tsar reached to babble:-"what?" - he shoot him almost at point-blank range. The Tsar falls instantly dead, the Tsarina makes the sign of the cross and cries, and is dead of a shot in the mouth by Yurovsky and then the fusiliers made a close fire over the rest of the family. The daughters, wearing tight corsets that were loaded with jewelry, do not die immediately, and are finished off with bayonets. The Tsar died at 50 years old. The Tsarevich survived to the first discharge and was finished off by Yurovsky shooting him two times at the height of the ear. One of the maids who did not receive the first discharge is pursued within the room and killed with bayonets, and even the pet dies of a shot.
Then the bodies are carried in trucks and deposited in an abandoned mine. The next day, Yurovsky, fearing that the rumor about the shooting induced to retrieve the bodies, ordered their transfer and destruction by fire and acid and throw them into other excavations, located 12 km outside the city, in the mine called "Four brothers". Terrible...
These are three marks that indicate the level that the Neva river raised during major floods. The upper mark is of 1824, nearly three meters.
The fortress was commissioned by Peter the Great in 1703, on the small island of Zayachi, in the Neva River. Built during the war of the North, the fort never entered battle. It has a hexagonal shape, with 6 bastions at each of its corners. In a first moment is was built in wood and soil, but it was rebuilt in stone between 1706 and 1740.
From 1720, it served as accommodation for the garrison of the city and imprisonment of political prisoners, among others. The bastion of Trubestskoy, built in the decade of 1870, became the main prison. During 1917, it was attacked by rioted soldiers of the Pavlovskii Regiment and all its prisoners were released. When the 4 of July the bolsheviks tried to take the fortress, the 8,000 men of the garrison are declared pro-revolutionaries, although it returned to the hands of government later.
The 25 of October, the fortress returned to the hands of the bolsheviks. On that day it took place the battle against the Winter Palace, which was bombarded from the fortress. In 1924, the greater part of the fortress was transformed into a museum. It suffered severe damages during the second world war because of the Nazi bombings. After the war it was restored. This sculpture depicts Peter the Great, reportedly with the same proportions. He was higher than two meters but only had a 38 foot and wore shoes of 47.
The next stop on the tour was the Savior on the Spilled Blood. So beautiful, no words.
The Church also known as the Resurrection of Christ was erected in 1883-1907 (architects I. Makárov and Alfred Parland) as a monument at the place where in March 1881 was mortally wounded Emperor Alexander II.
The assassination was committed by a terrorist of the nihilistic group of the russian anarchism "Narodnaina Volia (Will of the People)". The building is styled in the spirit of Russian architecture of the centuries XVI-XVII, in particular were used several procedures of the Moscow Cathedral of The cloak of the Virgin. Its silhouette is complicated and very picturesque. The multi-colored, lively ornamentation beautifully reflects in the waters of the Griboedov canal.
The facades are covered with glazed bricks and tiles. Italian marbles and different types of Russian semiprecious stones were used in the interior. The facades and the interior presented an imposing set of mosaics, made in 1895 in the workshop of the brothers Frolov based on original works of the painters V. Vasnetsov, M. Nesterov. M. Vrubel, A. Riábushkin and others.
In the Decade of 1930 at the Temple took place an exhibition dedicated to the "Narodnaïa Volia" and in the 70's the building was transferred to the foundation "Museum and Cathedral of St. Isaac". Already the scaffolding of the Church were removed and religious services are held, but restoration efforts continue. The Emperor Alexander II, son of Nicholas I, started his reign with an amnesty of the Decembrists and other dissidents. His Government carried out a series of reforms (peasant and bourgeois) that promoted the economy and the development of capitalism.
From the early 60's in the country began to grow the discontent, to which the government responded with repression. Between 1866 and 1881 the revolutionaries carried out several attacks against the emperor. In 1881, Alexander II was mortally wounded by a bomb hurled by I. Grinevitski, member of "Narodnaïa Volya" the emperor was moved to the Winter Palace, where he died. He was buried in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul.
This is the so-called kyoto of the North, one of the ballot boxes to the most venerated icons. It was made by the best specialists of stone carving of Yekaterinburg and Kolyvan. The stone used was pink rhodonite, Korgon porphyry and Revnev jasper.
And we go on walking around the Church...
The conditions of building of the church determined its architectural peculiarities and unusual engineering solution. Because of this, the building is asymmetrical in its plant and has not the usual central entrance: the temple has two atriums with two entrances. And we're nearing the exit...
The precious dome, which is located in the western part of the temple marks the place of the tragedy. Here, descending seven steps below the level of the floor of the church, may be seen a part of the road, newly paved and the restored Ekaterininski channel handrail, the sacred relics coated with blood in the attack.
