Two Sods of Dirt

This city was basically built, at the cost of 90,000 lives, on a swamp at the behest of Peter the Great. So we started our second day with a walking tour of some of the famous sights connected to the city founder.

Well also because we had planned to do a walking tour on our own at some stage and the sun was shining! Apparently in Petersburg that's a big thing. There's only supposed to be 27 days of sunshine a year!

We started our walking tour near the Admirality, getting our first glimpse of the Winter Palace and the Victory Monument in Uprising Square. Then we crossed the river taking in stunning panorama of the might Neva. On the other side we visted the Kuntshammer.

Now the Kuntshammer was Peter the Great's attempt to convince the Russian people to renounce their superstitious ways and join Europe. How did he intend to do this? By displaying his private collection of deformed babies preserved in jars. I kid you not. We saw Siamese twins joined at the head, decapitated babies heads, babies with one eye, babies with deformed limbs and so, so much more. The rest of the museum has various displays on other cultures that fills, as one fellow backpacker put it, like a museum about how museums used to look.

Next stop was the Peter and Paul fortress where the attractions included the Peter and Paul Cathedral, a very informative museum on the history of St. Petersburg and an exhibit on the history of the Metro. To finish it all off we went for a freezing walk around the bastion to get an amazing view of the city. We also saw some mad woman ice swimming in the Neva.