Friday, November 19th, 2010
Wow I was getting pretty tired by this day. Eight days for a trip is really long and especially when everyone of those days is filled with intensive sightseeing excursions. Today’s theme was all about WWII. After this day I realized that I knew nothing of the extent to which WWII affected Russia. I had never taken a history class that ever gave the proper amount of attention to Russia and WWII. I feel that I missed out on a lot but now considered myself very knowledgable on the subject. I just wish though that I hadn’t been as surprised as I was by the devastation that took place. The first place we went to was the massive cemetery both for military casualties and civilian. This cemetery was nothing Arlington but instead it was rows of massive grave sites. There was not an individual marker for every life but instead just raised mounds of earth marked with a single headstone. It was chilling to think of the thousands of people buried just below. During the siege of Leningrad they had to use dynamite to make the graves because the ground was too frozen to use shovels. Each section was about 20 ft wide and maybe 45-50 feet long, and then possibly 100 or so sections. The cemetery holds 600,000 people all buried in these mass graves. To make matters worse we visited in November when literally everything was dead. The grass was snow covered, trees bare without leaves, and rose bushes trimmed back to shrubs, which created quite a sterile atmosphere. More Russians died during the siege of Leningrad than the US lost in every war combined. We went to the siege museum after leaving the cemetery. It could have been done really well and could have been a really moving experience but instead it was cheesy and looked cheaply done. One of the most distributing things about the war was the so called “heartbeat of Leningrad.” During the siege when the heat, running water, and public transportation were all gone the local radio station played a metronome to tell the civilians that the city was still under Soviet control. The constant sound of a metronome slowly ticking back and forth back and forth I feel would have drove me insane. It was an eerie noise when then played it for us the museum. Of course since it was the last night in Russia Grace and I went out and bought a 5 Liter job of beer. The night was really fun since we were all staying together in a hotel.
Day 8 – St. Petersburg The final day
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
The last day in St. Petersburg began with a trip to the monastery founded by Peter the Great. We visited a place within the monastery where they restore old icons and paint news ones for newer churches. Then we stood in line for 45 minutes waiting of fresh baked bread, baked by monks. The bread was indeed worth the wait, it was fantastic!
At the monastery we toured a small cemetery where famous writers, aritist, and other contributors to Russian culture were buried. That afternoon before the train departed we had free to explore the city for ourselves. 3 of us went souvenir shopping and then just rested for the remainder of the afternoon. Once on the train Taylor, Sam, Grace, and I all watch Dr. Zhivago. I had never seen Dr. Zhivago or read the book but still I thought it was a wonderful movie.
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