Peter and Paul Fortress

We continued walking along the river to the next stop being the Peter and Paul Fortress which is on Rabbit Island. This was also founded by Peter the Great. It was still used as a prison and execution ground by the Bolshevik Government in the 1920s. It was originally built to protect from a Swedish attack which never happened. A few facts for the history buffs.

Heidi woke up after about 10 minutes of being here which was a pain - she’d only had about 20 mins sleep. We think the backpack was digging into her arms. She was then a bit of a pain for the rest of the walking around which quite impacted our enjoyment of the site.

We visited the Peter and Paul Cathedral which is the burial place of all Russian Tsars. The last remains of Nicholas II and his family were also interred and placed in here. They were unable to locate the remains of one of his daughters and Alexy the son. The other place we visited within there was the prison where political prisoners and convicts were placed. The conditions didn’t look too bad considering some prisons I’ve seen, although the solitary confinement was fairly grim. It was dark, they wouldn’t give you bedding so all you had was an iron bedstead to lie on, there was no heating and the walls would reach freezing temperatures. Ugh.

Heidi was getting quite ratty by this point so we gave her some lunch. Eli and I were feeling quite despondent due to having to continually address Heidi’s behaviour but were much revived by chocolate bars which Michael and Kyria came back with. It’s amazing what a bit of sugar can do to lift your spirits! I think though that a common phrase of the journey is “come on please Heidi”! We had a last view of the river from the fortress where there was a number of people making the most of the sunlight along the outside of the walls, sunbathing.

We were ready to head back to the apartment at this point. Eli and I grabbed a hot dog from a stand nearby which was actually quite nice and we made the long trek over the river and back to the apartment. Heidi started in the backpack with Michael carrying her but she became uncomfortable so she ended up being carried by Eli most of the way and then Kyria did the home stretch. She gets heavy very quickly!

My feet were killing me by the time we came back! I’ve been putting my feet up for the last hour or so doing the blog. We will head out for tea later. It’s been nice to chill at the apartment. Heidi has had other ideas about going to sleep however which might make tonight interesting 🙄Read more