St Petersburg

Tuesday July 13th

We started the day by visiting Larisa Petrovna Moskalenko. She is in charge of the foreign student department at the Arts University in St Petersburg, and was the one who had arranged to let us stay in University accomodation. She even presented each of us with a copy of this book on the history of St Petersburg.

	From there we headed to Petrograd Side, a cluster of delta islands between the Malaya, Neva Bolshaya Nevka channels. There we were to visit the Peter and Paul Fortress on Zayachy Island.

On the back of the exhibit ticket was a convenient map of the fortress layout. We entered across the bridge at 5, visited the SS Peter and Paul Cathedral at 1, and then went through the Nevsky gate between 6 and 7 to the small pier.

	Crossing the bridge to Zayachy Island and the Peter and Paul Fortress at 12:30, with the spire of the SS Peter and Paul Cathedral visible in the top right.

At 12:52 at our first port of call in the fortress, the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, with its landmark needle thin spire and unusually Baroque interior (for an Orthodox church), it is famous as the last resting place for all of Russia's pre-Revolutionary rulers.

	At 13:15 we had left the Cathedral and were heading south to the Nevky gate. There was no shortage of tourist oriented shopping along the way, and for some reason someone thought this hat would look good on me. Needless to say, I resisted the temptation to buy it.

At 13:26 we emerged through the Nevsky gate in the south wall of the fortress, which led down to the water to a place where prisoners used to be loaded onto boats and taken for their execution. I was ready for an action shot of Lena falling into the River, but it is probably just as well that she didn't, as she is carrying my mp3 player...

	This is the view from the stone pier, looking back along the fortress wall to the east, looking back toward the Troitsky bridge and the cruiser Aurora.

We turned the other way and walked west along the outside of the wall. I think the arms which seem to be emerging from Ju Hung's head is really Lena running up behind.

	I think Lena might have suspected she was being photographed in this one.

Another somewhat posed shot against the fortress wall. We had intended to walk around to the island to make our exit, but on the western end of the island there was a beach which there was an entry charge. Not wanting to pay for the priveledge of walking straight through, we ended up having to retrace our steps and exit the way we had come in.

	From Zayachy Island we headed across the Troitsky bridge and then left for the obligatory visit to the Hermitage.

	14:39 - I don't know who the girl coming down is, but Lena, Ju Hung and Liu Jung are the three disappearing up the stairs.

We wanted to buy some provisions for our trip to Kolsky, so we visited something unusual in Russia - a large supermarket. Most of the shopping I had done in Russia, till now, had been done in small stores, at street vendors or at outdoor markets. Here we had a large, Western style 'Cash and Carry' called Lenta. They even accepted payment by credit card, which I had previously only been able to use at hotels or cash machines, and have a web site.

We finished our shopping at 20:48 and emerged to find it raining quote heavily, prompting Lena to do some experimenting with improvised rain wear.

	At 22:05 we are back at the University dormitories having a farewell meal of Lenta Pizza with Ju Hung and Liu Jung before Lena and I continued North to Kolsky later in the evening. Ju Hung and Liu Jung were to return to Moscow and thence to China.

Lena at the gates to the University accomodation as we leave for the station at 22:54.

	At 23:55, standing in the ultra modern railway station that looked more like an airport than a station. Our train was scheduled to depart at ten past midnight, but we had just found out that it had been delayed - something which is apparently unusual in Russia (but nothing new to someone that uses British Rail).

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