Hermitage and St. Isaac's

St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia is on a huge square with. . .
a statue of Czar Nicholas I with his wife and three daughters seated around the base.

Nearby is also the Astoria Hotel.


But the real jewel is St. Isaac's Cathedral. The dome is covered with pure gold and was applied with mercury which resulted in the deaths of some of the workmen. The columns are made of jasper marble.

The dome on the inside has a white dove in the very top which was removed during the Soviet era and replaced with a Foucault's pendulum. During that period, the entire cathedral was made into a museum of atheism. . . .
These green columns are also precious stones like the exterior ones are. This is the only stained glass window in a Russian Orthodox church.
In addition to the beautiful window, columns and dome, there were beautiful paintings and mosaics.
One painting is also a mosaic.

The Hermitage and the Winter Palace was our next visit (there may be other great videos on YouTube, but here's one of my famous "under 30 second" clips:



The Hermitage, like the Louvre, is double pleasure: art museum and palace.
This hall has portraits of 332 generals who fought in the War of 1812. Occasionally there is just a blank canvas of a general who was killed in the war. Here's a virtual tour.
Again, we saw magnificent mosaics---this one was quite small.
As well as famous artists like Leonard da Vinci. . . .
and Rubens---who knew he painted Rubenesque male figures, too!
But, I am more of a student of archetecture than art---just the space was magnificent!

The interiors. . .
The views. . .

And the exteriors.