Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood

We had a lazy start this morning - the boys had been up late watching a soccer match! We were planning to see 3 places this morning - Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, Faberge Museum and St Isaacs Cathedral.

The weather has been getting a degree warmer every day with today getting to 11 degrees. It hasn’t been as cold as we were afraid it might be which has been good. Overnight it is getting to -3 but we don’t feel that inside!

We had breakfast on route - i ended up with a rather sweeter one than I was anticipating as the porridge I ordered ended up being more of a rice pudding with fruit! The other morning it turned out to be muesli and milk! We shall get it right eventually!

The area around the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood had a lot more touristy stuff like souvenir stalls, people selling paintings, people in costume etc. we did a little bit of souvenir shopping - buying some matroyshka dolls (known to us as babushka dolls but apparently this is not the correct name!) and a few other things. The guy we bought the dolls from explained some of the history behind them which was interesting - there was a set of all girls (sisters) and they were each holding something different, representing what their role would have been at home - feeding the chickens, making porridge right down to the youngest sucking it’s finger.

The Church on Spilled Blood as it is also called, is so named because it is built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was fatally wounded by a grenade as he was passing by in his carriage. The first grenade did not harm him but he left the carriage to remonstrate with the culprit and another one was thrown which wounded him. He later died at the palace. I don’t know why he didn’t just escape while he had the chance! The inside of the church was covered with mosaics - it was amazing! All the walls, everything was done in mosaics. It was quite something. Its hard to imagine all these types of buildings being destroyed when Christ returns - they seem so solid and enduring! I guess the Jews thought the same of their temple.

We walked from here towards the Faberge Museum. Faberge was a Russian jeweller best known for the Faberge eggs which were made like Easter eggs but from stones and precious jewels. He was commissioned to make them for the imperial family. Unfortunately the museum was closed today so we were unable to visit which was a bit disappointing. Maybe we’ll have time tomorrow before we fly off to Siberia.

Eli and I decided to head back to the apartment to give Heidi lunch and put her down for a nap while Mike and Kyria went back to St Isaac’s Cathedral.Read more