Unscheduled voyage
The September departure to the Northern capital turned out to be spontaneous for our couple - due to the change of the Volga cruise to Ladoga-Onega and Volga-Baltic. Due to the unacceptably low load of its penultimate voyage, the passengers of the motor ship "Leonid Krasin" were scattered in other directions, and our choice fell on "Ivan Krylov".
By the time of arrival in St. Petersburg by the evening "Sapsan", this cozy and warm in every sense motor ship-boarding house had already completed half of the autumn flight Moscow - St. Petersburg - Moscow. We got five days aboard I. Krylova "plus the whole day in the Northern capital.
As it turned out, it is a very worthy replacement for a week-long tour on Leonid Krasin with traditional stops in Uglich, Kostroma, Myshkin and Yaroslavl. However, there will be separate notes about the cruise itself, here - about St. Petersburg, Leningrad, but in our case - definitely about Petrograd.
The fact is that we organized the city excursion ourselves, proceeding from considerations: much closer. And the closest thing to the distant Utkina creek and the Salt pier was, of course, the spectacular St. Petersburg ring bridge - the Ring Road. And almost next door - brand new, with a needle, the building of JSC "Almaz-Antey" of the former Obukhov plant.
But a glance from the side was enough for all this, and therefore our choice fell on the Finlyandsky railway station, "Aurora", and then - according to the situation. Moreover, the weather was not pleasing, recalling Lenin's maxims about the revolutionary situation and, accordingly, about revolutionary Petrograd.
The old building of Finland Station may not be noticed
A taxi on call, one of the popular Yo network among St. Petersburg residents, cost no less than in the capital - under five hundred, but it came for us and drove to Finlyandsky very quickly. On the way, it was rather surprised than pleased that St. Petersburg also had a construction boom. Old famous factories are being demolished for residential quarters - they leave the city for remote industrial zones and technology parks.
Locomotive number 293, on which Ilyich, perhaps, emigrated, and possibly returned to St. Petersburg
Further comments will be kept to a minimum, as I want to leave more space for the video sequence.
Here Lenin climbed onto an armored car
Participants in the events of August 1991 left amusing memories of how the overweight Boris Yeltsin climbed onto the armor, but I did not see the details of how Ilyich ended up on the same armored car in April 1917. Now I am more interested in where the armored car itself, which for many years "decorated" the garden of the Marble Palace - then still the Lenin Museum, was transferred.
The stone armored car from Finland Station has not gone anywhere, and Lenin on his armor is still the same - poured with rain and slightly touched by greenery.
And the way to "Aurora" from it - no more than a quarter of an hour, although there is no alternative to go - along the Pirogovskaya embankment of the Neva.
Among the attractions there is only the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy, most of the buildings of which, as always, are in the woods. At the entrance to the building of the Faculty of Chemistry there are commemorative plaques, among which he could not fail to highlight the one dedicated to the chemist-composer A.P. Borodin, he taught here for a quarter of a century.
As if specifically for the sake of this, the sun came out for some seconds over Petrograd, and immediately did everything to ensure that the photographs of the legendary cruiser turned out to be revolutionary in a harsh way. The attraction of the Aurora turned out, however, not so strong as to proceed further along the Leninist path.
We passed the Sampsonievsky Bridge and soon along Kuibyshev Street, formerly Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya, we came to the famous mansion of Matilda Kshesinskaya. The spectacular and cozy house of the ballerina, the passion of Nicholas II and the wife of the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich is now occupied by the Museum of Political stories.
And then he spoke from the balcony
However, perhaps the most beautiful hall of the mansion, more precisely - of the real palace, which turned out as a result of the union of the study and the billiard room, was given over to an exposition about the former mistress. By the way, there was also a place to explain why the headquarters of the Bolsheviks settled in this mansion in 1917.
Kshesinskaya and her son left there immediately after the overthrow of the tsar, and the armored division entered the mansion in order to maintain order, which then made room for the sake of comrades in the struggle and the editorial board of Soldatskaya Pravda.
But in reality, the mansion was destroyed by the participants in the struggle for power from the other side - from the notorious scooter battalion. In July, during the first spontaneous and unsuccessful attempt of the RSDLP (b) to take power in Petrograd, the scooters first of all arrested seven Bolsheviks in the mansion and even Lenin's bodyguard.
And they have already not only captured, but also made the once one of the most beautiful buildings in the city into an obscene form.
It is interesting that today, speaking from the balcony of the Kshesinskaya mansion, Ilyich could hardly gather a solid audience. The surroundings are green, and, in general, look more like a place for quiet walks, and not for rallies. As, incidentally, is the entire green part of the Petrograd side that adjoins Petropavlovka from the north.
Fortress in the soul
There, to the Peter and Paul Fortress, we headed after a lunch break. We moved around a little, so as not to miss the now half-forgotten stele at the place of execution of five Decembrists. Pestel, Ryleev, Muravyov-Apostol, Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Kakhovsky were hanged on the banks of the Kronverksky canal, but where they were buried - disputes are still going on.
It is literally a hundred meters from this monument to a much newer monument to another Grand Duke - General Feldzheikhmeister Mikhail Nikolaevich. In the war with the Turks of 1877-1878, he commanded the Caucasian army, and then all Russian artillery and engineering troops were subordinate to him.
Therefore, the installation of an unassuming bust in the courtyard of a specialized museum in the former Kronwerk is the right decision, but why is it actually in the backyards?
In the same place, where a park and even a beach are arranged behind the fortress, a small town of townspeople pleased. This is where the old folk fun is really not forgotten, and there are still masters who can print a "Letter" with just two bits.
Having entered Petropavlovka, they did not visit the Romanov tomb, but did not pass by the controversial Peter by the work of Mikhail Shemyakin, who had already taken root at the cathedral. And I had to be touched by the next sculptural novelties, one of which - "Bunnies from the Hare", seems to be here forever.
Farewell to Petrograd
No, we really said goodbye to the Northern capital late in the evening, leaving the pier. But “goodbye, Petrograd,” they said two steps away from the House of Peter I, where they ordered, again, a taxi. The idea of returning on board by public transport was shaken off immediately - due to its complete irrelevance.
An attempt to change taxi "Yo" to "Yandex" failed - the driver, clearly not from St. Petersburg, from those who are preferred by the "big networkers", was looking for the House of Peter I on the opposite bank of the Neva. And although the "yeshnik" found the house right away, we still had a little time left.
We spent it on capturing both the tiny Petrovsky house and the larger house - the current residence of the presidential representative either in St. Petersburg, or in the entire North-West district.
Once this mansion, much more modest than that of Matilda Feliksovna Kshesinskaya, was built for the tsar's uncle - Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and his wife Stana Chernogorskaya. And in Soviet times it was the best wedding palace in the city.