Russia, Day 25

View of the Stroganov Palace from Nevsky Prospekt


 

Yusupov Palace

 

 

Day Twenty-Five 

We walked through the park and to the metro.  We got off to kind of a late start.  Our destination was the City Tour ticket office.  We got there and saw the guy we had talked with yesterday.  With the aid of the City Angel, we asked him if he had our book and cap.  Sure enough, he did.  We were very thrilled!  

 

The weather was dreary.  It had started raining.  It actually made us feel less guilty about not doing another palace tour – the ones that take all day and are far outside the city center.  We were planning to do just one more…the Peterhof Palace.  Still, there were other notable ones we were deliberately not seeing.    

For lunch we went to the Stroganov Palace, which was down the street.  We didn’t go there to see the palace; it was to eat world renowned Beef Stroganov.  Kade ordered the Stroganov specialty and I had the huge buffet.  Kade’s dish finally came out.  She claimed it didn’t live up to the hype.  The meat was a tad tough.  But the potatoes made up for it!  Wow!  Buttery, creamy.  The buffet was decent.  I ordered a latte to end the meal.  Let’s just say, the whole shebang was just decent.  The best part was that it gave us a place to retreat from the weather. 

The rain did subside a bit, giving us a chance to walk to the Yusupov Palace.  I had this place mapped and knew exactly how to get there.  Yeah right!  We walked and walked, by the canal, near the canal.  We ventured into a little store to ask where the palace was.  Getting lost was frustrating, plus our legs were sore.  Eventually, we figured things out and realized the palace was a few blocks from where we were.  We soldiered on!  We arrived at the ticket window.  My jeans had a wet feel to them.  I guess I was just relieved to find the palace.  At the ticket window we asked about the Rasputin tour.  Unfortunately, it’s only once a day – right before lunch.  We missed it!  Still, we bought a palace tour ticket and went inside.  

We checked our bags, coats and umbrella at the cloak room.  Then, we gave a lady our tickets and started the tour.  We didn’t have a guide or anything.  We had an audio player that we could listen to for facts and stories on the “home.”  The palace, from the very outset, made a huge impression.  It was immaculately furnished.  The storied Yusupov family was the richest one in Russia during Czarist times.  They had massive amounts of real estate and had the ear of the Czar himself.  They even had married into the Romanov family.  The most significant part of the palace’s lore is the fact that the eccentric, wild-eyed, prophetic monk, Rasputin, was assassinated here.  The circumstances surrounding the murder have grown in legendary ways, making it hard for anyone to distinguish between fact and fiction.  What’s interesting is that, at the end of our tour, a lady working in the cloak room, when I asked her about the room where Rasputin was murdered, pointed toward a hallway.  Kade and I walked down it, knowing that we had to be very clever if we were found out.  Reason being:  Earlier I had gotten a nice “No” when I had officially asked a museum manager if the Rasputin room was open.  As it turns out, we made it pretty far down the corridor when, not to my surprise, a Russian tour guide and a group were walking towards us.  The guide stopped us and asked what we were doing.  I made out like we were looking for the cloak room and exit.  She looked as though she only halfway believed me and pointed back the other direction.  Once we got back to the cloakroom, the old lady that had given me the tip, acted like she wanted a tip.  I pretended I didn’t understand.  I thought to myself, “No services were rendered.”  We grabbed our coats and went towards the exit.  Overall, the Yusupov Palace was a grand stop. 

 

When we walked outside, we went to a bus stop.  We wanted only to get back to Nevsky Prospect.  A lady told us that Bus 27 was the one.  We got on it and, lo and behold, it went all the way down Nevsky, right to the street where our apartment was.  Luckily Kade saw the Radisson sign high up on a building.  We got out and started walking down Marata Street.  We then started discovering, right in our own neighborhood, bakeries and interesting shops.  We went into one bakery and bought some pastries to take home.  Afterwards, we went into a tea shop and purchased some hazelnut creamer (imported from Sweden).  Then, we walked on home.  Another great day was completed!