For The Love of Travel

My favorite places, photos and stories

June 9, 2019
by Lids
Comments Off on 8/6/19 Chesme Church, BelleVue Brasserie

8/6/19 Chesme Church, BelleVue Brasserie

The Chesme Church is a small Russian Orthodox Church, built by the Russian court architect, Yury Felton in 1780, at the direction of  the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great. It was erected adjacent to the Chesme Palace; between St Petersburg and Pushkin, to commemorate the anniversary of Russia’s 1770 victory over Turkish forces in the Aegean, Chesme Bay.

Aivazovsky’s “Battle of Çesme at Night”

The Church and Chesme Palace were the earliest Neo-Gothic constructions in the St Petersburg area. Considered by some to be St Petersburg’s single most impressive church, it is a rare example of very early Gothic Revival influence in Russian church architecture.

You have to love the pink and white candy-like appearance of this building. Nothing else around like it!

A relatively modest outfitting inside

And a late lunch for my last day in St Petersburg, on the 9th floor of the Kempinski Hotel, @ BelleVue Brasserie. In an 1853 mansion along the Moika River, this upscale hotel is a 6-minute walk from the State Hermitage Museum and has a 360-degree view of the city.

Church on Spilled Blood

The spectacular panoramas of historical St. Petersburg with its beautiful landmarks, such as the Palace Square, the Hermitage Museum,  St Issac’s Cathedral, and the Church on Spilled Blood. 

Terrace views to Peter and Paul’s

I had the Kamchatka crab salad (with salmon caviar, daikon radish, aioli and wakame dressing),  the restaurant’s signature dish, was pleasant, but in my view, not worth the 2900 roubles ($64 AUS). Kamchatka is a remote peninsula in eastern Russia, by the Bering Sea. These crabs can grow to up to 1.8metre (leg span) and are a real delicacy.

I not really a sweet fan (creme brulee; panna cotta and lemon meringue tart excepted). But I was really hanging out to try the “L’Hermitage” dessert, inspired by the splendid architecture and in honour of the Hermitage’s 250 anniversary, but the Chef is trying out a new menu at present. Curses!  

Just have a look at this dessert image of the past…whitened exquisite dark choc forms a perfect sphere full of hidden treasures – a fluffy panna cotta; raspberry jelly and a tiny layer of biscuit and honey mousse; nestled on a spire of fresh raspberries. AHHH!

As I was leaving, I spied these lads on a “Rooftops of St Petersburg” tour, enjoying a different perspective over the city

June 9, 2019
by Lids
Comments Off on 6/6/19 Catherine’s Palace, Barashki restaurant

6/6/19 Catherine’s Palace, Barashki restaurant

Another ‘oh so expensive’, but ‘oh so worth it’, tour. We started an hour later due to the World Economic Forum being in town. Lots of road closures and security personnel…..

We made good time though and yay!, skipped the queues. Had a good period of time in each room before having to move on for the next group. Roman the guide (Get Your Guide.com) was knowledgeable and had really good English, to appreciate some jokes even. And Alexander, the minibus driver did a great job wending his way in and out of motorway traffic, oy!

The Catherine Place is a Rococo palace located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), 30 km south of  St Petersburg. It was the summer residence of the Russian Tsars ands their vast entourage. Catherine 1 initally hired German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein in 1717 to construct the summer palace for her pleasure.

By Alex ‘Florstein’ Fedorov, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22526444

Her daughter Empress Elizabeth, organised a Palace extension. In 1756 the architect presented the brand-new 325-meter-long palace to the Empress, her dazed courtiers, and stupefied foreign ambassadors.

More than 100 kilograms of gold were used to gild the sophisticated stucco façade and numerous statues erected on the roof.

When the German forces retreated after the siege of Leningrad, they intentionally destroyed the residence, leaving only the hollow shell of the palace behind. Prior to World War II, Soviet archivists managed to document a fair amount of the interior, which proved of great importance in reconstructing the palace.

Although the largest part of the reconstruction was completed in time for the Tercentenary of St. Petersburg in 2003, much work is still required to restore the palace to its former glory.

4 hours later and time for a late lunch. Went looking for a nail place in a mall and discovered the delightful Barashki Restaurant on the 5th floor – lovely panoramic outlook and reasonably priced meals (just over the road from where I am staying in Sennaya Square).

Cheese and tomato salad, hot raspberry and ginger tea
St Issac Cathedral in the background; Sennaya Square in foreground
Brooding male image in women’s loo

Contents

June 8, 2019
by Lids
Comments Off on 5/6/19 Dom Knigi, Lion Bridge

5/6/19 Dom Knigi, Lion Bridge

Another 30 degree day, so I took off for a walk early.

First to visit a stalwart of the city’s bookshops, Dom Knigi (“House of the Book”), is housed in part of the wonderful, whimsical Singer building, one of the most beautiful buildings on Nevsky Prospect – its a richly decorated Art Nouveau masterpiece.

Winged figures of industry and navigation

The site at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and the Griboedov Canal, was the location of the riding school of Duke Ernst von Biron, the powerful favourite of Empress Anna. When this building burnt down, it was replaced by three-storey residential building, where St. Petersburg’s first photographer, Sergey Levitskiy, had his workshops in the 1850s. In 1902, the plot of land was bought for a million rubles by Singer Manufacturing Company, the world-famous maker of sewing machines.

The company wanted a building similar to the skyscraper that was then being constructed for them in New York. However, St. Petersburg’s strict building codes dictated that no building could be higher than 23.5 meters at the cornice. Despite these limitations, the architect Pavel Syuzor managed to create a supremely elegant building. The building was equipped with the latest lifts, heating and air-conditioning and an automatic system for clearing snow from the roof.

To create the illusion of greater height, Syuzor crowned his building with a metal-and-glass tower topped by a glass globe 2.8 meters in diameter. The sculptures on the building were executed in wrought bronze, a material that was new to St. Petersburg (designed by the Estonian sculpture Amandus Adamson,, and their weathered green bronze blends beautifully with the gray and red granite of the facades.

Went in search of the Lion Bridge  – one of the 3 remaining pedestrian chain bridges in St Petersburg, an example of architecture of the first quarter of the 14th century . One of the three remaining pedestrian chain bridges in St. Petersburg.

On the way home, spotted sculptures decorating a building along the Griboedov canal.