3 names for the one city….I last visited Leningrad as a young student whilst it was under communist control, so saw lots of changes going to Pushkin, St Catherine’s Palace this morning. Boris, our guide, declared the city the most beautiful city in the world. Unfortunately our route took us thru lots of “brutal” communist architecture, it showed how cities, such as Copenhagen, can do so much more interesting modern architecture whilst still using concrete. St Catherine’s Palace was razed to the ground during the Second World War, whilst the then Lenningrad endured a terrible siege. Going past battlefields where 70,000 unidentified soldiers were mass buried emphasised the terrible price Russia payed for its “freedom”. 

St Catherine’s has been restored, or I think more correctly, reconstructed. Fortunately a lot of the interior objects had been saved, thus giving a sense of originality. Pictures show better than words the shear opulence the Russian Royalty lived in prior to the revolution. After the obligatory tourist shop stop we have returned to the ship, readying ourselves for tonight’s private tour of the Hermitage. We should be able to avoid some of the people that swarmed around the site this morning !