When I first saw this (from a distance) in the Field of Mars, St Petersburg, I thought it would be a Great Patriotic War Memorial.

It isn’t. Not exclusively. The original memorial is a Monument to the Fighters of the Revolution. The flame in the centre, however, commemorates the victims of various wars and revolutions.

From east:-

Trees in one corner:-

Eternal Flame:-

Commemoration block:-

Video of eternal flame:-

Some of the dedications. Translations of the dedications are here:-

Winter Palace stitch. Note Victory Day banners:-

Video of Winter Palace facade:-

Admiralty Building:-

The Alexander Column, a monument to Victory over Napoleon, Palace Square, St Petersburg.:-

General Staff Building:-

Portico:-

Horse-drawn carriages:-

Video of horse-drawn carriages, General Staff Building and part of Alexander Column. Again, note Victory Day banners:-

St Isaac’s Cathedral, St Petersburg, dominates St Isaac’s Square.

Cathedral from St Isaac’s Square:-

The equestrian statue of Tsar Nicholas 1 which lies in the middle of St Isaac’s Square was shrouded in panelling when we were there, undergoing refurbishment, so I have no photos of my own of that.

Cathedral from west:-

The Cathedral has a pair of massive decorated doors:-

And two decorative friezes:-

I also found this small restrained memorial to the Great Patriotic War (World War 2) by one of the Cathedral’s massive pillars, each of which is a single block:-

For some reason St Petersburg has not one, not two, but three submarine museums. (I never saw the last of those, the Submarine Fleet Museum, but passed the first two when travelling into and out of the city by coach.)

Submarine C189. (In English this is submarine S189):-

Narodovolets D-2 Submarine:-

Building, St Isaac’s Square:-

One of St Petersburg’s many palaces:-

Part of another:-

Government building:-

Street scene. Notice the number on the traffic light. This is a countdown clock to when the signals will change. All the road crossings had them. The (animated) “green man” even speeded up his walk as the time ran down. These are brilliant ideas. They should bring them in here:-

Canal with “blue bridge” near St Isaac’s Square:-

It’s amazing what you can see on rooftops:-

The view from the MS Magellan’s bow in dock at St Petersburg. New building construction with bridge behind:

The view towards the city. Flats. We were told most Russians live in flats. All sorts of folks in similar flats in the same block. Only the insides would let you know how well off anyone is:-

Gazprom Tower:-

This breaks the height restriction on buidlngs in St Petersburg. They let it go because it was way out of town and, well, Gazprom. Closer view:-

Krestovsky Stadium, or Zenit Arena, home of Zenit St Petersburg FC. This was a venue for games at the 2018 Football World Cup. Modern bridge in front with cruise terminal building in foreground:-

This was the nearest thing I saw in St Petersburg to an Art Deco building:-

Peter the Great statue, photographed through coach windows so the statue is difficult to make out; a modern building behind.

A touch of the new (and temporary) and the old.

Fifa 2018 World Cup fan park:-

Reverse of fan park + canal and bridge:-

Main road aspect:-

Contrast that with this typically Russian building right beside the fan park:-

But just over the road from that:-

The stunning Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood:-

The church’s peculiar name arises because it was built as a memorial over the spot where Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated. Unfortunately it was swathed in scaffolding last May.

Church on the Spilled Blood, St Petersburg, from Field of Mars:-

A bridge on the Neva (Troitskiy Bridge?):-

Sampsoniyevskiy Bridge on Bolshaya Nevka, St Petersburg:-

Building and Sampsoniyevskiy Bridge on Bolshaya Nevka:

Weaponry and, below, military vehicles, outside a military museum (of artillery.) Seen through rainy bus windows.

An old sailing ship alongside the Petrovskaya Embankment:-

The same ship from the Kutuzov Embankment across the River Neva. There is what looks to be a mosque in the background here:-

The Cruiser Aurora is now the Russian Navy’s Ship No 1. It’s anchored by the Petrogradskaya Naberezhnaya (Petrograd Embankment) on the Bolshaya Nevka River, an offshoot of the River Neva, in St Petersburg. (The embankment link has a cracking aerial photo.)

The cruiser fired the blank shot which signalled the start of the October Revolution in 1917. It was also one of only three Russian ships to survive the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.

I was really looking forward to seeing it again. I don’t remember the green paint at the waterline from when I visited in the 1960s, but we did hear someone say it had recently been repainted. It’s looking in very good nick.

Stern of Aurora:-

Saltire:-

Gangplank and public access. There was a big queue at the ticket gate but we had only a short time at the quay anyway before we had to reboard the coach:-

Looking towards bow:-

View showing bow:-

Flag at prow. It looks like a bit like a reconfigured Union Jack. It’s the Jack and fortress flag of the Russian Navy:-

Aurora memorial stone on the quayside:-

The St Petersburg Naval Academy is also on the embankment opposite the Aurora. This statue outside the St Petersburg Naval Academy is of the famous (in Russia) Admiral Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov, for a further picture on the net see here:-

Just round the corner on the the Petrovskaya Embankment was this monument to the three-hundredth Anniversary of the Russian Navy. Cruiser Aurora to right and Naval Academy in background in first picture:-

THe plaza between it and the Naval Academy had a nice fountain. The lamp standards are a good design too:-

I was glad to have gone to St Petersburg in early May. This is the time of year when Russia remembers the great sacrifices it – and the Soviet Union of which it was a part – made during World War 2 (which in Russia is known as the Great Patriotic War.) It is salutary to think that without that sacrifice the war against Germany would have been a much greater struggle for the Western Powers than it was. It is not too great a statement to make that the war in Europe was in fact won by the Soviet Union.

Britain’s contribution to overcoming Nazi Germany is much over-estimated by many in these islands. It really amounted to not losing – or at least not admitting to, and therefore not giving up. From the Normandy landings onwards it was even overshadowed by the US (which of course – British victories at Kohima, Imphal and Burma notwithstanding – won the Pacific War more or less by itself.)

St Petersburg in early May 2019 was covered in banners commemorating the Victory Day in 1945.

1945-2019 Remembrance. (Unfortunately seen through rainy coach windows):-

Corner of Palace Square:-

There are 1941-1945 banners in front of this building in Palace Square:-

Close-up view of banner:-

More banners in Palace Square. (St Isaac’s Cathedral in distance):-

1941-1945 Remembrance Banner, Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg:-