Crime & Punishment, followed by music and dance

After the aesthetic treats of Pushkin we headed back into the city for lunch, the majority opting for Pizza Hut. Perhaps Russian food will have to wait for Moscow. After lunch we headed across the Neva to the Peter and Paul fortress, a short 1 ½ km hop that took nearly an hour as bridge repairs brought St.

Petersburg traffic to a stop. Once we finally made it into the fortress we made our way into the Cathedral to pay our respects to the Tsars from Peter the Great to Nicholas II, whose remains were moved here from their Siberian burial place 15 years ago.







Then into the heart of the fortress – and it was it in one part of this fortress the Tsars kept some of their most troublesome political prisoners – from the son of Peter the Great who did not agree with his westernisation programme and who was murdered here to the radical opponents of the nineteenth century & 20th century Tsars. We saw the cell where Trotsky was imprisoned for two years following the failed 1905 revolution. Our next stop was only a brief one - at the cruiser Aurora, which took part in the disastrous war with Japan in 1904-5 and whose guns launched the October Revolution.

Unfortunately the weather had turned wet which made the decks unsafe. Plan B took us back to Nevsky Prospekt for a warming drink to revive us after a wet afternoon. Resuming our battle with St.Petersburg’s gridlock we headed for the Nikolayevsky Theatre and an evening of Russian folk-dance. This was a stunning show, combining some beautiful male voice singing and folk dancing. The dancers mixed romance, humour and spectacular athletic ability in a show that held us spell-bound. We had a special moment of excitement when our very own Ben Edwards was specially selected by an attractive young dancer to partner her on stage. He impressed the theatre with his confident footwork. We enjoyed some refreshments at half-time and then an equally spectacular second half. All in all it was tremendous show. Now we have returned to the hotel for a meal before leaving for the railway station to catch our overnight train to Moscow.