A Five-Minute Walk

All of the main things I did today were within about a five-minute walk of my new apartment (I'll be taking up residence there tomorrow morning). I can't wait. Hostel life gets pretty old. Remember I thought it was a little weird being the only one at the hostel? It turns out I really liked being the only one at the hostel. It was so quiet. Suddenly this place filled up and it's kind of noisy now. And I'm sharing my room with other people. This all makes me sound kind of hard to please, but it's always nice to have your own room. Starting tomorrow I will have my own room, kitchen, bathroom, washing machine, etc. It's going to be great.

After sleeping in this morning I went to the Russian Museum, which I may have mentioned is located mainly in the Michalovskiy Palace.

The statue in the square is of Pushkin. It's a pretty spectacular building (really beautiful grand staircase, etc.) and a pretty spectacular collection. I especially love Russian iconography, but there's all sorts of other stuff there too. I didn't have time to get through the whole museum today, so I'll be returning, but I'm including one of my favorite things, a 12th century icon of the Archangel Gabriel.

I had to cut my visit to the museum short so that I could go see my new apartment and get keys from the girl who is there right now (she's leaving very early in the morning). The apartment should be very comfortable and feels very Russian. I took a picture of the street I'll be living on. My bedroom window looks right out on the red church in this picture.

After reading my book in the Mikhailovskiy Garden for a while, I decided to go inside the Cathedral of Christ on the Blood.

I took a little audio guided tour that lasted too long, but the church was spectacular. It is actually a museum, not a functioning church, but I learned that it has essentially never functioned for services and was not really intended to be regularly used. It was intended pretty strictly as a memorial for Alexander II who was assassinated on this spot. They actually have a place where the cobble stones are exposed, which is the place where the incident apparently happened. The inside is very richly decorated - covered in mosaics. It was used as a warehouse for most of the Soviet era, though the government began restoration in 1970 that was finally completed in 1997. They did a pretty amazing job (they have some before and after pictures), though some icons and the doors that are supposed to be in the main iconostasis, blocking the congregation's view of the altar (blocking physical sight so worshipers can achieve spiritual sight), were lost to looting and have not been replaced.

Finally, here's a picture of me (in front of the Mikhailovskiy Castle (different from the Mikhaliovskiy Palace), just because you probably all want to see my face.

Since it was pretty rainy again this evening, I went home early to read. I'm pretty into the book I'm reading right now, which I hate to admit because I kept resisting reading it when Mom suggested it (People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks).