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I woke up at 9 AM and got up at 10:30. By 10:45 I had a cappuccino in the hotel while working on photos. I wanted to show the currency again but with better explanation. Here again are my photos of the Russian currency. The paper bills are in denominations of 1000, 500, 100, 50, and 10 rubles. The ruble coins come in 5, 2 and 1 (upper 3) as well as in kopecks of 10, 5 and 1 (lower 3.) These are all the front sides usually depicting people and statues; the coins having large numbers.

Below are all the reverse sides (obverse) usually depicting cities and buildings; the coins having the dual eagle.

The ruble or rouble (рỳбль) is a unit of currency. It is currently the currency of Belarus, Russia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. One ruble is divided into 100 kopeks (копéйка.) Historically, "ruble" was a piece of a certain weight chopped off a silver ingot (grivna,) hence the name. Below left is the front of a 5000 ruble note issued in 1997 which I never got my hands on and on the right is the 100,000 ruble note issued by Belarus in 2000. In 2003 a ruble was equal to $X.XX.

At 11:30 Marcia and I dared wander out of the hotel on our

own and took a walk to the famous street, Nevsky Prospect (to the right in photo below.) The street is very wide and the cross streets are also quite wide as can be seen on the left below.

By noon we had gotten to the Kazansky Cathedral (Kazanskij sobor or Our Lady of Kazan) (below.)

Here are my shots from before entering the cathedral; looking at the left wing (below left) and the right wing (right.)

After Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, and the commander-in-chief Mikhail

Kutuzov asked Our Lady of Kazan for help, the church's purpose was to be altered. When the "Patriotic War" was over, the cathedral was perceived primarily as a memorial to the Russian victory against Napoleon. Kutuzov himself was interred in the cathedral in 1813; and Alexander Pushkin wrote celebrated lines

meditating over his sepulcher. In 1815, keys to 17 cities and 8 fortresses were brought here by the victorious Russian army from Europe and placed in the cathedral's sacristy. In 1837, Boris Orlovsky designed two magnificent

bronze statues of Kutuzov (right) and Barclay de Tolly in front of the cathedral, one each at the end of each wing. He also did the angel on the Alexander Column (left.) In 1876, the first political demonstration in Russia took place in front of the church. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the cathedral was closed and in 1932, it was reopened by Stalin as the pro-Marxist "Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism." Services were resumed in 1992; and four years later the cathedral was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. Now it is the mother cathedral of the metropolis of St. Petersburg.

The exterior wide encircling arms are made up of 96

granite Corinthian columns, designed by Alexander Voronikhin (left) in

1811 to copy Bernini’s Vatican in Rome. Regarding the large statues, let's discuss Gen. Mikhail Kutuzov (Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov) first (right.) Amricans are unfamiliar with Kutuzov, but he is their famous general (in battle, below left) who outsmarted Napoleon when he let him have Moscow (at a peace conference in the village of Fili, below right) and later came back and destroyed the French Grand Armeé in 1812. It is interesting that while fighting the Turks, Kutuzov sustained two separate severe head wounds that ultimately led to the loss of sight in his right eye. Note the portrait above hides his right eye. He died shortly after the war in 1813.

Below left is a memorial to Kutuzov in Moscow. Incidentally, he is mentioned in Leon Tolstoy’s (Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Лeв Николáевич Толстóй) "War & Peace." Below center is Tolstoy and on the right is the only shot of him in color taken in 1908 (2 yrs before his death) by...

...Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (below left,) a pioneer in color photography and documenter of Tsarist Russia in the early 1900s. Below right is a stamp honoring Tolstoy issued by the Soviets in 1978.

At the end of the other cathedral wing of the Cathedral there is also a

statue of Prince Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly (1761-1818) (below left.) He was a member of the Scottish Clan Barclay and born in Pamūšis in present-day Šiauliai County, Lithuania but he was raised in Livonia, which was then a part of the Russian Empire (currently divided between Estonia and Latvia.) He became a Russian Field Marshal and Minister of War during Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and subsequent campaigns of the Russian army in Europe. His mausoleum (above right) is in Estonia and there is a memorial statue (above left) to him in Tartu, Estonia. The statue here (below center) was erected at the behest of Emperor Nicholas I.

Above right is the west entrance to the cathedral. Today the cathedral is dedicated to an icon entitled "Our Lady of Kazan" the original of which disappeared in 1904. It is a holy icon of the highest stature within the Russian Orthodox Church, representing the Virgin Mary as the

protector and patron of the city of Kazan (Казань,) which is the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. City flag (right) and coat of arms (left) are kind of cartoonish. The icon was discovered on July 8, 1579, underground in the city of Kazan by a little girl, Matrona. Kazan (below) is on the Volga River and is Russia's 8th largest city and appears quite beautiful.

According to tradition the location of the image was revealed to her by the Theotokos (the Blessed Virgin Mary,) in a Marian apparition. The original icon (below left) was kept in the Theotokos Monastery (below right) of Kazan built to commemorate the spot where it had been discovered.

We entered the cathedral doors and stepped inside this massive structure. There are many icons inside and it very strange for a Roman Catholic to watch the absolute devotion the people have to these paintings. It appears as if they are worshipping the object rather than who the picture depicts, though I must admit I have seen Roman Catholics do similar with statues. Photography and video were absolutely forbidden, but here is what it looks like inside (below left) from the photos I took, many of which are slightly angled while doing it surreptitiously. I had to do a lot of straightening and Photoshop to get even what there is below. Below right is an example of an icon sitting atop its pedestal.

I now neared the area of the Royal Doors where the important icon is. You can see the people lining up in the photo below left.

You can just barely see the this Iconostasis of Kazan Cathedral with the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan to the left of the Royal Doors, above the head of the lady in the white dress (below left.)

Near the entrance, there is the obligatory shop which many churches in Europe have that sells souvenirs and religious items and books.

We finally walked outside and I saw these statues of Christ on the side of the building.

We were to meet Polina to get a cappuccino at Sadko’s Café in the front of the Grand Hotel Europe [Nevsky Prospekt, Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa 1/7, +7-812-329-6000; US 800-237-1236] (below,) the most famous hotel in the city.

The hotel is on the corner of Mikhailovkaya ulitsa (street) and is now under joint Swedish/Russian management. It was built in 1873-5 and the art deco interior redecorated in 1909 was by the Swedish-Russian Nouveau architect Fyodor Lidval. The hotel was featured in the 1995 James Bond movie, Golden Eye, though not actually shot here. It vies with Corinthia Nevskij Palace Hotel and Hotel Astoria for the title of the most luxurious five-star hotel in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Below is a shot I took of the carotyads on the outside of the hotel.

Polina (below left)joined us at 1:30 to go over her plans (below right) for the rest of our stay and have lunch with Marcia.

While they had lunch. I wanted to wander around this great hotel and see what it looked like Below is a stock photo of their world-class restaurant called L'Europe, stated to be the best restaurant in the city.

And when you make a left, their are fancy hallways leading to the check-in desk.

After finishing my explorations, I joined the ladies back on the terrace and took this shot (Photostitch) of the building across the street.

We left the hotel and to cross Nevsky Prospect you have to go into an underground tunnel which was quite clean. There are many shops down there and I got this of some of the local beer which sell for 20 rubles ($0.65.)

We aren't far from the river so I included this Photostitch I took of the city on the other side.

Moscow Station (Moscow, the far north, Crimea, the Caucasus, Georgia, Central Asia; suburban lines South-East) Finland Station(Helsinki, Vyborg and suburban lines North) Vitebsk Station (Smolensk, Belarus, Kiev, Odessa and Moldova; Pushkin, Pavlovsk and suburban lines South) Warsaw Station (Baltic states, Pskov, Lviv (Lvov) and Eastern Europe) Baltic Station

She then took us in her car and drove us across the river to the little island to tour the St. Peter & Paul Cathedral with its tall spire.

It is a major attraction because it contains the tombs of most of the Russian tsars including the first (Peter the Great,) the last (Nicholas I & II and family) and many of those in between. It is quite spectacular and the historical significance was not lost on us.

At 3:00 Polina then drove us 16 miles south of the city to the little town named after the famous writer, Alexander Pušhkin. Here lies the Pušhkin Catherine Palace (Tsarskoie selo = Royal Village), which was built for Peter the Great’s wife Catherine I (the Lithuanian washwoman). It was later remodeled by the Italian architect, Rastrelli, in 1744 for her daughter Elisabeth. It is a huge and impressive palace with its blue and white façade and gold cupolas on the Palace Church. The large tour buses from the cruise ships had deposited hundreds of tourists standing in very long lines and waiting in sweltering hallways for hours.

It seemed impossible that we would ever get in even after waiting for hours. But then Polina worked her magic and paid the attendants to sneak us ahead of everyone by going in through the exit. This saved us hours of torture in this heat. We began to tour the Palace and wended our way to the Great Hall and through many exquisite rooms which can only be described by pictures.

The most famous is the Amber Room which is made entirely of what else; amber. It was a gift from Prussia’s Frederick I to Peter the Great. It is an irony that the whole room was stolen by the German Nazi army in 1944 and then only recently, thanks to some large German companies, the whole room was completely restored. This is a big deal for the Russian people and another cause for the long lines.

After touring all the palace, at 5:30 Polina drove us to this special pectopah (restaurant) called “Podvorje” Russian Village in a nearby town called Tsar.

She and Marcia got a table while I changed into my running gear and went for my run on a park trail near the restaurant that was just wonderful. When I got back and changed, the Balkina beer was greatly enjoyed.

At 6:45 Polina helped us order our dinner which was a panoply of typical Russian country food consisting of borscht, duck, beef stroganov and many others.

It was all very good and after listening to the Russian folk music in the main hall, we left at 10:40 for the drive back to our hotel in the city. On the way we stopped at the St. Petersburg airport and met a friend of hers named Lenya. We got back to our room and got to bed; we were totally exhausted.