St. Petersburg, Russia: This city is relatively new, built by Tsar Peter the Great who wanted a European-looking capital city, and was later called Petrograd in his honor. During Soviet times, it was known as Leningrad.
St. Petersburg was famous for the prolonged siege it withstood during the Nazi invasion. Provisions were brought in by trucks running over the frozen Lake Ladoga, dodging Stukas and artillery. It is home to the tsars’ amazing art collection at a museum called The Hermitage.
We’re here for two days, it is definitely a major cruise port, there are six large ships in port as I write this. Essentially all Baltic cruises stop here, Copenhagen and Helsinki, and most hit yesterday’s port - Tallinn - as well. After that, it gets spotty.
Relatively few ships stop in Stockholm, not sure why. Even fewer visit Latvia or Lithuania, and we were told Kaliningrad gets two ships a year. Imagine the difference between thinking of ships-per-day, as they do here, or ships-per-year as they must in Lithuania or Kaliningrad.
From our mooring we can see the zoomy new Lakhta Center, the tallest building in Europe and future home of Gazprom, the Russian petroleum company. It runs 87 stories tall, some 1516 feet.
We’re seeing a ballet performance this evening, which we did once before when here. More about that later.
