Though we were here yesterday, we stopped again at St. Isaac’s Square (Isaakiyevskaya Ploshchad) today. Not sure why. My guess is it was to give us some time to do more exploring while we waited for our time slot at the nearby State Hermitage Museum. Natasha had warned us about the tourist traffic and tour buses here, and cautioned us to be careful. She was right; it was getting crowded even as we disembarked.
I walked up to the Mariinsky Palace, also called the Marie Palace. Mariinsky Palace used to be an imperial residence. It was ordered constructed by Nicholas I as a wedding gift to his eldest daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna. Since Imperial Russia came to an end after the revolution of 1917, today it is home to the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg. It would have been interesting to see the interior but we did not have enough time.
In the center of the square is the Monument to Nicholas I. He was emperor of Russia during most of the time St. Isaac’s Cathedral was being constructed. Apparently, he was a micromanager, a trait that supposedly caused huge problems near the end of his reign.
Here is yet another example of architect Auguste de Montferrand’s work. The monument features a bronze equestrian statue having only two points of support; the rear hooves of the horse. Very technologically advanced for the time. The oval-shaped pedestal has a lot going on: The white Italian marble upper part has four female statues – referred to as allegorical figures – sitting on what would be the ‘corners’ of the oval; several fixtures and ornaments embellish the upper part of the pedestal in between the four females; four bas-reliefs are set into the lower part of the red granite pedestal. Protection is provided by a bronze fence encircling the monument.
I walked around photographing it from many angles but small, drifting grey clouds either blocked the sun, creating a very dark shadow over the monument, or revealed the sun, creating a very harsh, bright backlight. My camera just could not overcome the drastic difference in lighting. So I walked over to Hotel Astoria, taking some photos of traffic on the streets intersecting in front of Hotel Astoria. And photos of the growing crowd of people and buses at the square.
Hoping to get some decent photos now that some of the clouds had moved on (more came), I went back to the Nicholas I monument. I did not know that when we were in front of the Mariinsky Palace that we were standing on a bridge. I thought the Moyka River, which I did stand at a railing and observe, had flowed out from an underground canal. Turns out the Blue Bridge (Siniy Most), as it is known, is the widest bridge in St. Petersburg. Probably the reason why I did not see the other side of it. It is also claimed to be the widest bridge in the world, but that has not been validated by any official world body.
By the time we boarded the bus again, the area resembled a traffic jam with a couple of dozen tour buses and just as many cars.
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