Good morning! With cloudy days you can actually tell what White Nights are all about
The sky is kind of whitish for the whole night, it's amazing!
I know because I was up until really, really late exactly to check it out
Hey! Welcome to my travel series in St. Petersburg, Russia
If you are new here check out also the previous episodes, I've already covered the White Nights,
Palace Square, the Hermitage Museum, and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
But for now stick around for three more very unique churches, one of them is inside a fortress
We start by visiting an important cathedral along
Nevsky Prospekt, this is the Kazan Cathedral,
dedicated to Our Lady of Kazan
Probably the most venerated icon in Russia and what's
interesting is that this was inspired by
St. Peter's Basilica
Kind of a contradiction, right? One, a great symbol of Catholic church
and the other, a great symbol of the Orthodox church
With the Russian Revolution in 1917, this church was shut down and it became a museum dedicated
to the history of religion and atheism. It only resumed services in the 90's
Today, you can go inside, you can check it out, you just cannot take pictures
Today we continue our cultural tour and we're going to visit the Peter and Paul Fortress
Traditionally, at noon, a cannon is fired. It's everyday at noon, just to indicate that it's noon
As we are not gonna make it on time to see it from up there, we're gonna watch it from here
This is where the city of St. Petersburg was founded in 1703
Yeah, the city is relatively new compared to other Russian cities
What happened was that the Tsar at the time, Peter the Great, wanted a strategic position
where he could defend Russia from a possible invassion from Sweden, which never happened
so this place was never really used as a fortress
It was indeed used for other purposes, including a prison, and we're gonna check it out
Here inside there are 15 attractions, mainly exhibitions
we're gonna see the three main reasons people come here
Here it's enormous and you can walk it all for free, you only pay if you wanna get inside
one of these buildings and see an exhibition or the fortress itself
Advantages of the card: sometimes you have
a separate line
Empty here, busy over there
This cathedral here is quite unique, you know, it's actually a huge cemetery, an above-ground cemetery
All the latest Tsars from Russia are buried here, almost all actually
Starting with the founder of St. Petersburg, Peter the Great
This is Peter the Great's tomb
In total, there are 39 tombs occupying almost the entire space inside the cathedral
They also have the remains of other members of the royal family
And in this other area here, the family members of the Tsars are buried
This was the prision here in the fortress,
only for political prisoners
Both before and after the 1917 Revolution. Trotsky was arrested here
Look at how the constructions are here in Russia because of the cold
This is the insulation and they did this even here in the prison
Prisoner's uniform here, at least it was ready for winter
Needless to say there was also a lot of violence and several prisoners were executed over there
For every attraction, a new ticket
This is Neva Panorama, still inside the fortress
This is where we should have been for the cannon shot ceremony
That's St. Petersburg's beach, you just cannot go to the water
Next stop: St. Isaac's Cathedral. This is the biggest Orthodox cathedral in the world
And the fourth if also compared to the Catholic cathedrals
You need two separate tickets: one for the church and another for the dome
St. Isaac's Cathedral took 40 years to be completed
Rumor has it that when the architect was young, a fortuneteller said that he would die after the project
So, he took forever. Indeed, that's what happened. He passed when the job was done
There are nearly 400 sculptures inside this cathedral
And there are still services during the most important Orthodox holidays
Now let's see if I'm in good shape
After a lot of steps, you arrive here at the top. As there are no hills in St. Petersburg,
this is where you have the best 360 view in town
During World War 2, the dome was painted over in grey to avoid attracting attention from enemy aircraft
Did you see how unstable the weather is here?
It changes completely from one moment to another
Tomorrow we're going to visit one of
the most beautiful palaces in the world
Hopefully the weather helps!
Curious about what palace that is? Then watch the next video!
And if you're enjoying this travel series
here in St. Petersburg, Russia
hit that "like" button and join the conversation
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