Nevsky Prospect

Every morning in St. Petersburg we went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. They would make you eggs or crepes and then there was a typical buffet with bread, fruit, yogurt and cereal. There was also a deli meat tray and one tray that had cucumbers and sauerkraut. They have a lot of processed meats and pickled vegetables there.

After breakfast we did Rick Steve's self guided walking tour of the main street, called Nevsky Prospect. It was such a beautiful day and we had so much fun spending the day exploring.

One cool building was the one in the picture below. It's called the Singer House and was built for the Russian branch of the Singer Sewing Co. It's now a bookstore.

It was interesting to see all of the beautiful churches and read about what happened to them during communism. The picture below is of an Eastern Orthodox church (most of them are) that you were allowed to go inside. We were not allowed to take pictures but it was a large, cavernous room that was dark and filled with icons of saints that were gold plated. People were lighting candles and praying. There were a group of women singing and a large group of people that were kneeling, praying I suppose, on the hard cement floor the entire time we were in there. I thought it was touching to see people that were so devoted. I wish that they had the gospel and an understanding of the restoration. This church was turned into a grocery store during communism and symbolically named 'Grocery Store Number One'.

The blue church in the background is an Armenian church and was turned into a swimming pool during communism.

Here is another pretty church. They were everywhere. 

There was probably a big church like this on every other corner.

We bought these roasted nuts from a street vendor. 

I don't know what they were but they were big and I didn't like them.

We ate lunch at a place that made the most delicious meat pies! They were filled with everything you can think of; chicken, fish, beef, fruit, you name it.

 We also had beef stroganoff and it was delicious. The Stroganov's were rich nobles that lived in St. Petersburg back in the 1700's. They are credited with inventing beef stroganoff and the Stroganov Palace is right on Nevsky Prospect.