Rivals

Throughout history, there have been epic rivalries that define their eras.


Yankees vs. Red Sox


Democrats vs. Republicans


Paper vs. Plastic


Coke vs. Pepsi

But perhaps the greatest rivalry in all of St. Petersburg is to be found in the cutthroat world of fast-food blini. It is the rivalry between...

Teremok and Chainaya Lozhka!!!!!

Blini is a popular Russian dish. Blini are essentially the same as crepes and can be filled with various savory or sweet fillings including chicken, creme, ham, cheese, sausages, mushrooms, fish, and even caviar (for the savory ones) and berries, jams, chocolate, and sweet cream cheesy fillings (for sweet ones).

Blini has become a popular fast food in Russia in the past ten years or so and many different restaurants, street side kiosks, and food court stalls can be found across St. Petersburg serving different variations on this delicious food. However, two chains in particular have distinguished themselves in the unbiased opinion of this writer:

Teremok! (Теремок)



Chainaya Lozhka (Чайная Ложка)


(note: none of these pictures in this post are ones that we took. You can find them all posted on other sites)

One never has to go far in St. Petersburg without seeing these familiar logos. And both most certainly have their advantages. Depending on the type of experience and food you are craving will determine which place will manage to make you part with your hard-earned rubles. A word about both places is in order.

Teremok!


A Teremok store at a mall food court.

Teremok is a fast growing company with over 150 outlets between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The company was even featured in an article on Time Magazine's website in 2008.

In a land known for its somewhat surly customer service, Teremok is a breath of fresh air. The company stresses customer service and even makes its employees address you by archair Russian terms that translate to "master" and "mistress." How's that for service?

In comparison to Chainaya Lozhka, Teremok also offers the bigger blini. In addition to blini, Teremok also offers an array of Russian salads and soups and essential sides like buckwheat. Beer and a house brew of kvas are also available, along with tea, coffee, cappuccino, and soda.

Some personal highlights from the menu include:


The "E-Mail." I'm not sure what earned this delicious blini that name, but the irresistible combination of mushrooms and cream makes this a staple of my Teremok dining experience.


The "Alyosha Popovich." Like the "E-Mail," this blini sports an imaginative name, this time named after one of the heroes of Russian folklore (Teremok also offers another blini named after another folk hero, Ilya of Murom, but I haven't tried it yet). The Alyosha Popovich is filled with chicken and a delicious sweet cream sauce.


For desert, one need look no further than the "Lakomka." This delicious blini is filled with а sweet cream-cheese like substance that tastes a bit like cheese cake (It is made from a cheese called Quark in English) and also small apricot pieces.

Chainaya Lozhka ("teaspoon")


A typical Chainaya Lozhka storefront.


The interior of a typical Chainya Lozhka restaurant.

Well what on earth could Chainaya Lozhka offer in response to such an array of mouth-watering delicacies is the thought that is undoubtedly running through your mind. And it indeed is an understandble thought: Teremok blini are delicious. However, Chainaya Lozhka has a few tricks up its sleeve as well.

Atmosphere is one area where Chainaya Lozhka surpasses Teremok. All food is served on actually plates with real silverwear. None of the paper plates and plastic silverwear that Teremok offers: white china and silverwear is what you can count on at Chainaya Lozhka. The only downside to this is that the tables aren't large enough to accomodate the large array of plates that you will get if you order one of their...

Lunch Specials! Chainaya Lozhka can't rival Teremok in terms of the size of their blini, but they have found some nice ways to supplement their smaller (but still delicious) fare. For just 142 rubles (around $4.70) you can get a blini, a Russian salad, and a personal pot of tea.

Russians think of "salad" in the way that we use the word for dishes like "egg salad," "potato salad," or "tuna salad." This means one word: mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is a staple of the Russian diet. Diet friendly? No. Delicious? You better believe it. So the salads you can expect at Chainaya Lozhka are salads mixed with things like eggs, tomato, cheese, potatoes, beats, carrots, and mayonnaise.

The personal tea pot is a nice touch too. You can order a pot of tea at Teremok, but at Chainaya Lozhka you can refill your pot with more hot water yourself. At Teremok you have to ask them to do it at the counter, which can be a bit of a pain if its busy (and it often is). Plus, you still get a nice tea cup with a saucer.

Chainaya Lozhka also offers one blini in particular with potatoes in it that is delicious. The combination of potatoes and beef works together perfectly for this particular blini.


This is what your table will look like if you get a lunch special at Chainaya Lozhka!

Amanda and I both enjoy eating at these two places. While my personal sympathies lie with Teremok, I do appreciate a meal at Chainaya Lozhka. My one complaint is that they have a penchant for playing Russian folk music that sounds like its being sung by the Chipmunks non-stop.

A note from Amanda: I actually like Chinaya Lozhka better! I like the amount of sides you get and we have never had to stalk people for a table at a Chinaya Lozhka (we do have to every time we go to Teremok). And the free tea refills means you can stay and drink tea for however long you want. Teremok has no meal options and their sides are as much as their billini!

In general prices are more expensive in St. Petersburg, so a meal at either of these places will cost a bit more than it would at an American fast food restaurant, but for St. Petersburg, eating out at these places is an affordable change of pace for times when you just don't feel like cooking at home.

It just so happens that we grabbed lunch at Teremok with some friends after church today:-)

I just thought it might be interesting to share a bit about some of the delicious food that Russia has to offer!

-Matt

Riga!

Hello again!

We just arrived back from Riga, Latvia on the night train this morning after a fun two days there. We needed to leave the country in order to get new visas, which was the purpose of the trip, but we also enjoyed the chance to relax and see the sights as well! Amanda and I joined Jarod Z., another fellow teacher from IA, to make what everyone at school calls a "Riga run" for visas.

The seemingly never-ending process of getting a work visa in Russia now enters its next stage. Our new visas are only good through the middle of January and during that time we need to complete a range of medical tests and other things to get our final work visa that will allow us to stay for a year and travel in and out of country without restrictions (at the moment we can't leave the country and legally re-enter it due to the conditions on our new visas). All of this is part of the joy of working in Russia!

However, for all of the hassle that it is to get visas, the requirements do have their perks when it means that you get to travel to a beautiful city like Riga and enjoy getting outside of St. Petersburg for a few days. Riga is the third largest city on the Baltic Sea (behind our own St. Petersburg, and Stockholm, Sweden) and is home to over 700,000 residents. The ethnic makeup of the city is about evenly split between Latvians and Russians (a consequence of Latvia's rather tumultuous history particularly from 1918 forward), even though overall Latvian's make up 60% of the population of the country. However, it seems as if almost everyone speaks at least some English in addition to Russian and Latvian.

The hotel that we stayed in was in the center of the old city. With its narrow cobblestone streets and German-influenced architecture, this part of Riga looks like what most people think of when they visualize a European city. The center of the city is filled with remarkable architecture and has earned the city UNESCO world heritage site status (just like the center of St. Petersburg:-)). The hotel that we stayed in was a former convent and was very nice and very reasonably priced which was fortunate since Latvia also happens to boast the fourth most valuable currency in the world. Even though Latvia is a member of the European Union, they have so far yet to adopt the Euro and instead continue to use the lat as the national currency. Overall, prices are comparable to somewhere like Finland and are a bit higher than St. Petersburg's so it wasn't too bad, it was just a bit discouraging to change so many rubles into so few lats.

Being somewhere other than St. Petersburg was a nice change of pace, and I really enjoy traveling by train. The train ride to Riga takes about 13 hours, but this includes scheduled stops as well as the procedures that have to be done at the borders. Border officials for both Russia and Latvia simply board the train and come to your car to inspect your documents and stamp your passports. All you have to do is sleep until someone bangs on your door at 3 a.m. and asks to see your passport and make sure you aren't hiding any contraband in the storage areas:-)

Another benefit of a trip to Riga is a chance to buy a few hard-to-find items in Russia. For us, this meant that we could buy a couple of boxes of brownie mix, some KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce, some syrup, and some cheese dip mix. It was fun to see some familiar brands again! We also got the chance to grab a meal at T.G.I. Friday's for another dose of the familiar.

It seems as if every single storefront in the old part of the city is a restaurant or a cafe. Anyone interesting in bumming around coffee shops in Europe should make Riga a priority destination for the near limitless variety of places to eat that it offers in such a small area.

Of course we documented our time there with numerous photos, and here are some of the sites that we took in during our stay:


The entrance to the courtyard of Konventa Seta, a former convent that also has the hotel where we stayed. I would definitely stay there again and give a big thumbs up for the nice buffet breakfast that had surprisingly little fish for a breakfast in North-Eastern Europe.


A fairly typical street in the old part of Riga.


A bridge in a park covered in love padlocks. Married couples attach a padlock to the bridge as a symbol of their love and throw the key into the river.


Freedom Monument, commemorating those who fought to secure Latvian independence from Russia in the war of 1918-1920.


Me, standing by a window on the 24th floor of the Radisson Blu hotel in downtown Riga.


An Orthodox Church.


A street close to our hotel.


A statue of the Musicians of Bremen. Rub them for good luck!


The side of St. Peter's Church- a striking brick Lutheran church whose distinctive tall spire is a major landmark in the Riga skyline.


St. Peter's from the front, looking up at the steeple.


Close-up of the steeple. The second of three levels is an observation deck that you can pay to go up into and see a beautiful view of the city, which we did and took some great photos:


In addition to the Old World charm of the city center, Riga has some other striking sites including several notable bridges and a 1,200 foot tall television tower.


Another interesting bridge spanning the Daugava River that runs through the city.


Here you can see the central train station that we arrived and departed from!


Another aerial view of the city.


A train bridge.


The wind on the observation deck was UNBELIEVABLE! If it weren't for the iron grating I would have been afraid of being blown right off.


A statue in a nearby square. The spire of St. Peter's stands out once again in the background.


We walked down by the river and took some pictures.


Here's one for the family lore:-)


A shot by the river in the evening.


Hesburger! We ate at this Finnish fast-food restaurant twice. Hesburger is a fairly shameless imitation of McDonalds (their signature burger, the Hesburger, is virtually indistinguishable from the Big Mac in appearance, although it does taste different). Hesburger has locations all throughout Finland and the Baltic States. Unfortunately, both of its Russia locations are in Moscow.


An illuminated bridge at night.


Riga claims to be the birthplace of the Christmas tree and is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the first public Christmas tree in the city this year.


A fascinating museum that we went to. It chronicles the forced integration of Latvia into the Soviet Union as well as its occupation by the Nazis during World War II.


A Latvian ice cream parlor we visited. I'm not sure what the Latvian pronunciation is, but reading it phonetically in English is rather amusing:-) Don't worry, no one got sick and the ice cream was good!


On the train ride back, Jarod wanted to see if he could fit in the luggage compartment. This of course meant that we all had to try...





What can I say, sometimes after being the teacher all day, you just need to cut loose a bit:-)

Well, now are mini-vacation in Riga is over and its time to get back to work.

Keep checking back!

-Matt

Ostriches!

From Amanda

Today was an eventful day for several reasons.

Today was my class's first field trip with me and today was my first field trip as a teacher! :-D

I heard the 2/3 teacher talking a few weeks ago about going to an ostrich farm outside the city. I immediately asked if my class could go as well; it has nothing to do with anything we are doing in class but I really wanted to see the ostriches!

So this morning K through 6th went downstairs all bundled up and... waited for a van to get there for an hour. Two of the vans were there on time but one was a good hour late (and he lied about bad traffic and his gas tank was empty so ...). But this was fun in its own way. Three of my girls would hug/grab me and run away giggling so I bear hugged the three of them together. We also all gave up and ate our lunches on the buses to save time. One of my students had his appendix removed Saturday morning and (this is a Russia thing) he was in the hospital until yesterday but he was able to come as well which was a blessing!

So we rode out to the farm and could see the ostriches right away. We held down the fort until the tour guide arrived by keeping the little ones back from the fence. One of our teachers was up by the fence taking pictures and a K girl asked why he could. I told her because he was an adult and when she was an adult she could tell kids to stay and then go look at the ostriches, but that she had a few years to wait. She seemed perfectly content and happy with this answer! :-)

In the meantime, two of my Korean girls were carrying each other and I managed to get the most adorable picture ever!

As you can see it was cold and rainy but we had fun none the less.

I also got a picture of some of my 4th and 5th class...

And my 6th grade class...

Note that there is someone popping up behind the pink hat! Two of the boys joined us from other places as well and one did not come; my class is 10 students.

So the tour guide came and we learned about ostriches!

Facts about ostriches:

• They do fine in the snow here! They grow an extra layer of fat and they will lay in the snow.
• They sleep in shifts so that someone is always on the look out.
• They are impossible to train because they have a memory span of 5 minutes.
• Their brains are as big as their eyes.
• Some people believe they are related to dinosaurs.
• They can run as fast as 70 km per hour!

We also saw 2 month old babies...

And turkeys! One of them grabbed one of our teachers!

We also saw and petted a reindeer. She was very friendly and really wanted to be petted!

Finally we fed the ostriches! I only fed one once because they would wait for you to put the food down and snatch it out of your fingers!

All in all a great field trip!

This last thing is comepletely unrelated but we have talked about how deep the subways are and shown no pictures. This is because you are not supposed to take pictures of the subway. Apparently it is a matter of national security... But there was one night last weekend where there was only one person behind us and no guards around so we took a picture!!!!!!!!!!!

so here is something to give you an idea of how deep the subways are!

A Day in the Life of Matthew

Hello Again!

Our first quarter is officially over! Tomorrow we have our parent-teacher conferences, which for me doesn't mean as much since the parents of the secondary students aren't required to meet with all of their children's teachers. Amanda will be meeting with all of her parents tomorrow and I'll see if I end up speaking with any of mine.

In honor of the end of the quarter, I thought I would post what a typical school day entails for me. Amanda will be posting her typical day in the near future as well:-) A lot of what we post on the blog are the things that we think will be the most interesting for potential readers: places we've been, pictures of things, interesting places in the city, etc. However, we don't want to give the false impression that all we do is sit around in fun restaurants and exciting tourist destinations blowing all of the money that our wonderful donors have so generously given.

Most of the time we are busy at school doing what we came here to do... TEACH! Since we do this 5 days a week, its nice to write about something different on the weekends, but its also important to let you know about what exactly goes on at school. So without further ado, here is my typical school day schedule:

7:40-7:50 a.m.

Arrive at school. Depending on whether either of us needs to make any copies for our first class affects how early we arrive.

8:00 a.m.

Morning devotional time with the rest of the teachers. John Siegel, who teaches Bible, History, and P.E. classes, leads the devotional time. We are currently reading through the Gospel of Luke. We also take time to pray and go over announcements.

8:20 a.m.

Time to head upstairs to the small room at the end of the third floor where my first period environmental science class meets. During the rest of the day it is used for ESL classes, but for first period our three seniors and I rule the roost as we discuss various ethical issues associated with the environment.

8:30 a.m.

First period begins. Right now I have the students at work on reports on cities in Russia with major pollution problems. Regrettably, Russia has many areas facing serious environmental problems and several cities in the country consistently rank on top ten lists of the most polluted cities in the world.

9:15 a.m.

First period ends. I'm off to the teacher resource room on the second floor. "My" classroom is used the first two periods as a math room, so I need to go to another room to do prep work. The resource room has two computers with printers as well as two copy machines. I use this time to make copies of readings, handouts, assignments, tests, quizzes and whatever else I might need to give to my students. I also use this time to review my lecture notes for the rest of my classes for the day so that the material is fresh in my mind when I roll into the classroom.

10:00 a.m.

Morning break time! At 10:00 there is a 15 minute break where the students can eat snacks they've brought, play at the ever-popular Foosball table, or do other non-school related things. I use this time to get settled into my room since I have three classes back to back and need to get my materials for all of them ready to go.

10:15 a.m.

History time! Break is over, and now the real fun begins, or so I tell my 9/1oth grade U.S. History class most days. It is a bit weird to be teaching U.S. History to a class of 15 students that contains only 3 Americans (the other students are Korean and Japanese along with one Canadian and one Swede), but that is the class I have been assigned and teach it I will. Right now we are finishing up discussing the 1850s and the buildup to the Civil War. Next week we have a test, which is always fun for me if not for my students.

11:00 a.m.

Russian history! Ok, so this should probably be labeled 11:03 or 11:05 since I am consistently late at getting my students out on time. Technically we don't have any time built into the schedule for passing periods so we are supposed to let our students out a few minutes before the scheduled end time so they can get to their next class on time. I do try, but I am often late at letting them out. What can I say, I just can't stop talking... But Russian History is the next class. Here I have 11 students in grades 11 and 12. I am working on trying to prepare them for college by making them read challenging articles and do critical writing assignments. It might not be the most fun they'll have all year, but I hope they will see the value of it later. Right now we are covering Ivan IV ("Ivan the Terrible").

11:45 a.m.

Russian history is over, and now its time for another round of American history, this time with 7th and 8th graders. The 7/8 U.S. History class is supposed to cover the first half of American History but my class is made up of students who have either more limited English ability or need stronger reading comprehension skills so the focus of the class is on reading comprehension. By comparison, my 9/1o class looks like its chock full of Americans as my 7/8 U.S. History class does not have a single citizen of the U.S.A. in it. Korea, Japan, and a part-Russian student represent the nationalities that I get to teach the history of a country that most of them have never visited. Currently we are looking at the various English colonies established in North America.

11:55 a.m.

Lunch time! 5th period is the time that the elementary school, middle school, and high school have their respective lunches. Even with only 94 students in our school, our cafeteria isn't large enough to handle the entire school so we have three different lunches. Middle school lunch gets placed in the middle of 5th period, so after 10 minutes of history I dismiss my class to lunch. I head on down to the teachers' lounge on the first floor to heat up my leftovers (or ham sandwich), eat my chips and cookies, and have a few cups of tea to try to get my voice back from talking so much the previous periods.

12:25 p.m.

Back to class! Lunch is over and its time for the rest of history class. We finish class and then I am done teaching for the day (except on Tuesdays when the P.E. schedule means that I have my 7/8 history class last period instead of 5th period)

1:00 p.m.

Class is over and its time to do some lesson planning and/or grading. My last two periods are free almost everyday for me, and I use it to read and write materials. This time usually involves a conversation with John Siegel, since his room is right next to mine. John has been at the school for many years and has taught most of the history classes in the past. These past few years with myself and another teacher who didn't return this year he hasn't taught as much history but he has lots of experience at the school and in Russia and is full of great stories and advice for a new teacher like myself.

1:45 p.m.

Technically, this is the start of 7th period, the last period of the day. However, since I don't have a class at this time (except on Tuesdays) I just keep on working in my room on the third floor.

2:30 p.m.

School's out! The school day ends and everyone gets to go home! Well, not quite for us teachers. I make my way downstairs at this point to Amanda's classroom on the second floor. There are usually still a few students in her classroom who need to be herded out the door and then we hang around until the elementary teachers finish their hall duty.

2:50 p.m.

With the little ones successfully herded out the door, its time to begin Russian lessons! We do Russian lessons with Katya, who teaches the 2/3rd grade class, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays after school. Katya works with Amanda on an introductory Russian language book (actually, its the same book that I used as a student 3 years ago), and then spends time with me doing a bit more advanced work in a few other books. We are going through an old Russian language book that I have that is hilarious because of its extensive Soviet-era vocabulary and often inane dialogues, but we are supplementing it with additional readings and exercises from other books Katya has.

I am currently slogging my way through exercises on the various word endings and cases that Russian has (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, prepositional, and instrumental). It's not fun but its definitely what I need to be working on and repetition and practice are the only way that I will ever learn them with any degree of proficiency. Even though it can be a bit tiring to try to do a Russian lesson after a long day at school, I really enjoy studying it and its always good to have some Cyrillic in front of me after reading and speaking in English all day.

3:35-3:45

Time to head home! We pack up our things and begin the arduous five minute walk back to our apartment. It is such a blessing to live so close to the school. Several of the other teachers have commutes of an hour or longer each way every day, so we feel very fortunate to live so close. It makes it so much easier to come to school in a good frame of mind when you haven't spent an hour of standing in traffic on a crowded bus or running after a marshrutka.

This schedule is pretty much the same the entire week with the exception of Wednesday which has no history classes. That's my relaxing day where I only have environmental science and a study hall. However, the rest of the week follows very closely to the schedule that I've just explained. Hopefully this gives you a better idea of just how I spend my time 5 of the 7 days each week!

-Matt

Big Big Post!

Hello once again faithful readers (and whoever else may have stumbled across this page)!

Its been about a week and a half since we updated and the time has come once again to tell of the goings on in beautiful St. Petersburg.

Colder weather has been the rule for these past 10 days or so. Our heat is finally on in our apartment which is a blessing:-) Heat is controlled by the government and administered to the city when the temperature reaches a certain point for a long enough period. It was announced last week that due to the cold weather the heat would be turned on, but this process takes a while as different regions of the city get heat. We kept checking our radiators (the heat is all through hot water in radiators) and were optimistic when our stairwell got heat, but it took another day or so for it to finally make its way to our little flat. Now that its here we are enjoying not waking up to a cold apartment every morning. The downside is that we have no control over the temperature so if its too hot all we can do is open up a window. Not the most energy efficient arrangement, but we'll take it.

This past week at school was a busy one as we are almost finished with our first quarter. The quarter technically ends this coming week, but because we are using a new computer grading program all of our grades had to be turned in by the end of last week, something that we did not find out until Monday. This threw a wrench into some of our planning, but we managed to get everything done in time. I had a nice stack of essays to read and grade, but those are finally finished. Next Friday are parent-teacher conferences at IA, which probably means more for Amanda than for me since parents are far more involved/interested/clingy/irrationally defensive of, etc. of a child the younger that he or she is. Hopefully this will be a productive time for everyone involved:-)

Amanda and I are helped out again at Friday's at 5, the youth group that many of our students are involved in, this past Friday. I was involved in helping out when I was in St. Petersburg as a student three years ago, and its interesting to see just how much the group has grown. Three years ago the group averaged around a dozen or so while our first two meetings this year has seen upwards of 30 students come. Its a good time to have fun and hangout with students outside of school without having to be the teacher.

The weekends are our time to get out and explore more of the city, and as usual we have pictures of our recent excursions! Last weekend we went to the Smolensky Cemetery on our very own Vasilievsky Island. The cemetery is enormous and is the largest in the city (read more about it here!) A portion of it is also a site of some of the mass graves of people who died during the Nazi blockade of the city in the 1940s in which over a million residents of the city died. Even though being in a graveyard can seem a bit somber, the reason we went was to get out into a place with trees to enjoy the fall weather. There are lots of trees and we got to appreciate the changing colors of the leaves.

This weekend continued the lovely fall weather and gorgeous yellows and oranges of leaves. Yesterday Amanda and I made a pilgrimage to the grave of Fyodor Dostoevsky at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in the city. To get there we decided to take St. Petersburg's newest mode of transportation: the aquabus! The aquabus is a water taxi system that just opened up recently in the city that provides transportation on the river. We had heard about it from some people awhile ago and found one of the docks while walking along the river several weeks ago and decided that we would have to give it a try. There are plenty of places that offer tourist-type river cruises at various prices, but nothing can beat the 50 ruble price of the aquabus. We took it from one end of its route to its end. I forgot to time it but I would guess it took about a half hour. I'm not sure that it would be any faster than taking the metro, but its always nice to be on the water in the Venice of the North.

The weather was wonderful and the trees at the graveyard were absolutely gorgeous in their brilliant fall colors. We arrived at the lavra at a time of one of the services at the cathedral and were able to stay for a part of it. The Alexander Nevsky cathedral is extremely large and richly decorated inside and it was very impressive to hear the chanting of a full choir. After leaving, we met Masha for dinner at an Italian restaurant and had fun catching up with her for the first time in over a month (life is busy...).

This week should be a little easier at school since for all intents and purposes the second quarter has begun. However, the week after next Amanda and I get to take a trip to Riga, Latvia for the next step of our work visa process. It will be nice to get outside of the city (and the country!) for a couple of days, but it does mean that we will have to miss a day of school and need to have things planned for substitutes. We'll have pictures and a post on Riga when we get back, so begin to look forward to it:-D

And now the part that you are all waiting for... PICTURES!

First some from the Smolensky Cemetery


Stones marking graves for those who died during the siege of Leningrad during the Second World War.


While the cemetery marks the memory of those who have died, it is very much alive with brush and vegetation growing unimpeded virtually everywhere. A bit of landscaping could do wonders.


Soviet-era monument.


A good example of "remont." This is a cathedral that is adjacent to the cemetery. Russians use the word remont to describe repair/remodeling/restoration/refurbishing and a host of other related concepts and it is EVERYWHERE! Scaffolding and repair work is going on all over the city and is often quite extensive as is the case with this church.


The bell tower of the Smolensky Cathedral, the church inside the cemetery.


A chapel built on the grave of St. Xenia of St. Petersburg, one of the patron saints of the city.


And now for some photos taken on our ride on the water taxi.


The water taxi that we took. This is the dock we traveled to near the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.


Inside our cozy little boat. There is seating for about 12 inside.


How beautiful!


The Winter Palace (Hermitage).


Trinity Bridge, one of the many gorgeous bridges that cross the Neva River and the various other rivers and canals that wind their way through the city. (sorry about the glare on the photo. Taking them through a window on a moving boat meant that there are some water and reflection issues)


The Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge.


Closeup of one of the arches on the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge.


Another water taxi that we passed.

The Alexander Nevsky Lavra and Graveyard!


Part of the monastery.


The entrance to the lavra.


The colors of fall in the graveyard.


Dostoevsky.


A number of famous composers are buried here as well, including Glinka.


Borodin (left) and Mussorgsky (right)


Tchaikovsky.


Fall!


Just feeling a bit seasonal.


The lavra courtyard. The dome and bell towers of the cathedral are visible.


The ringing of the cathedral bells.


And lastly, a photograph that doesn't fit in with any of the others but one I wanted to post anyway. This is of the new playground that was recently finished in our courtyard! We posted a picture of our courtyard a long time ago when we first arrived, but since then it has been torn down and replaced with this new and nicer one.

The end (for now!)

-Matt