If there's one word to describe what we've seen so far it's opulence. We�ve been to several churches and some palaces, and each seems to have more gilt and precious stones than the last. In the palaces, room after huge room is decorated floor to ceiling. And in many rooms are pictures of what it looked like after World War II. Roofs gone, snow piled up on the floor, huge frames emptied of their paintings. Now the rooms are restored, the paintings returned, the gilding, the parquet, the chandeliers -- too much to describe in an e-mail. Photos coming when I get home.
We had lunch at a church yesterday, in the parish hall. The women of the church cooked it -- salads (I loved the onion-cucumber melange -- wish I knew what else made it so good), meat pie, borsht, pork fried with egg (better than it sounds), potatoes and some sort of potent brew made of birch buds.
Very potent. And very often. At every whim, the priest or one of the guests would propose a toast, and we'd all have to lift our glasses. This will happen every time we have dinner at a church, we're told.
We gave the priest a huge package of seeds donated by Ed Hume. They were last year�s flower and vegetable seeds, so they can't be sold this year, but they�ll grow. Especially here during the long summer days. We wandered through the garden, saw the chickens, got barked at by a huge dog and stayed clear of the beehives. The fruit trees were just ready to bud.
Across the street, the church is not as fully restored as those in the city (this was an hour or so out of St. Petersburg). During World War II it was a tank repair facility, and the weight of the tanks being winched up from chains attached to the ceiling did major damage. Some of the icons have been restored, but it has a long way to go.
On the way out of the city, we stopped by a cathedral that almost bowls one over with the amount of gilding. We arrived while a service was going on, and the very small choir chanting the service sounded very large and very ethereal.
The palaces were where done meets overdone, and overdone wins. Scaffolding covered some of the walls of both palaces we visited yesterday. They�re getting ready for the G-8 here in July.
Many buildings are painted buttercup yellow or Charleston porch-ceiling sky-blue. That�s because of the dark winters -- people need all the cheering up they can get. The weather has been incredibly warm. I took a video of the ice moving past a historic ship on our first day here. I was hoping to take another of the ice moving past the buildings across the river today, but the ice is gone. All the winter clothes I brought are too warm. Our hotel room is so warm we sleep with the windows open, which lets in the mosquitoes. So we have little electric mosquito coils.
We've mostly eaten Russian food, except for a pilgrimage to McDonald's. That was because the restaurant we were going to was closed and the building for rent, and Barbara wanted a happy meal. So we went. Barbara and several others had Happy Meals, so they could give the toys to the kids at the hospice we�ll visit next week. I had a tomato and cucumber salad and Chicken McNuggets, which I could read in Russian.
Last night everyone did a supermarket sweep and we had dinner in the little lunchroom at the hotel. It's a wonderful little inn, just eight rooms, and very comfortable.
This morning we took the bus to the Hermitage, and at one stop, a dog got on. He didn't seem to be accompanied by anyone when he got on or when he got off a few stops later. Who knows -- this is Russia! The dog seemed to know what he was doing, and curled up on the floor until his stop.
Well, I think my 20 minutes at this computer is coming to an end. And everybody�s going to the museum shop. And I don't want to miss out.
