Fiona Bruce channels her inner tsarina in St Petersburg
It may be the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution, but I was more interested in Tolstoy than Trotsky. I had come to St Petersburg because I wanted to live like a tsarina, and I had my checklist: stay in a gilded palace, spend a night at the ballet, cruise around the canals in my own private motor launch. Tick, tick, tick. I was ready.
My first step was to try to channel the spirit of the fabulously named Princess Cleopatra Lobanova-Rostovskaya – after all, I was staying in what was once her house. The Lion Palace – now the Four Seasons hotel – was her home at the beginning of the 19th century and rises out of the historic quarter like a giant yellow-and-white iced cake.
After a 10-year restoration, the neoclassical interiors are resplendent with marble, gilt and intricately moulded panelling. The window of our room looked on to the pure gold dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral that dominates the skyline, a giant sentinel guarding the huge square around it. After tucking into a slice of chocolate cake thoughtfully provided for us, my husband, teenage daughter and I strode out past the two marble lions that guard the entrance to get a feel for the imperial city, the former capital of the Russian Empire.
What first strikes you is the scale of it all. The boulevards are wide and straight, the buildings grand and imposing, and the main Palace Square is so vast that the tourists stopping to gaze around in wonder, and the locals rushing across with their heads down, look like tiny ants.
St Petersburg was built on the bones of its serfs. From 1703, Peter the Great conscripted 40,000 of them to construct his citadel on the marshy lands where the river Neva flows into the Gulf of Finland. Many died as they laboured on a series of palaces built to rival Versailles. It became the capital of the Russian empire for the next 200 years. When Catherine the Great assumed power in 1762, she ensured more palaces were built here than in any other capital in the world. She also reportedly had unusually intimate relations with her horse. At least, that’s what we whispered in the back row of history class at school. I was going through a teen horsey phase myself at the time, but really, there are limits.
Among the large buildings lining the avenues are funky little cafés that are as cosy as the city is grand. My favourite was Zoom café, a series of basement rooms comfortably furnished with plants, books, sofas, cushions and toys. I ate delicious potato pancakes topped with smoked salmon and sour cream while the grown men on the next table drank their tiny cups of eye-wateringly strong coffee, had an intense conversation in Russian, and each hugged one of the café’s cuddly toys.
The next morning, under a blazing sun, I was back in tsarina mode. We stepped aboard our private motor boat to cruise along the city’s network of canals crisscrossed by some 800 bridges. We passed beneath some painted deepest red, others cobalt blue, some utterly plain, others richly decorated with fantastical beasts. Along the banks of the canals was one palace after another, coloured like sugared almonds. The churches are no less ornate.
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We stopped to walk around the melodramatically named Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood where Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 after several previous attempts had failed – a reminder that the roots of the revolution were established long before 1917. It is a crazy confection of cupolas, one green, blue and white like a twisted stick of candy, some entirely gold, others covered with strange three-dimensional geometric shapes coloured yellow, green and white. Think gingerbread house meets Arabian nights. Inside, every inch of wall and ceiling is covered in jewel-like mosaics: awe-inspiring but slightly exhausting.
The stately pace of our motor launch changed only when Boris, our captain, left the canals behind to take us along the Neva. At last he could free his inner boy racer, and suddenly we were at top speed sending up rooster tails from the back of the boat. Past the gleaming gold Admiralty building, the long façade of the Winter Palace and the baroque Peter and Paul Fortress built in the early 18th century and graced with a little beach in front for sun worshippers undaunted by the busy river traffic.
And so to the ballet – an essential part of life at the Imperial Court. What I really wanted was to see the world-famous Mariinsky – the historic rival to the Bolshoi, which produced greats such as Nijinsky and Nureyev, and where Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev both premiered ballets. Nicholas II had even dated one of the Mariinsky’s prima ballerinas before he acceded to the Russian throne. But we were out of luck.
Ironically, the company was in London for a season at the Royal Opera House. Undeterred, I consulted the guidebook and saw that the St Petersburg ballet was performing Swan Lake that night at the Alexandrinsky Theatre, where Chekhov first put on a production of The Seagull. The setting – a glorious neoclassical red-and-gold auditorium – was all I could have wished for. I could imagine Chekhov pacing backstage as his precious masterwork was about to have its first public performance. But it was not quite what I expected.
The seats filled up with anoraked Chinese tourists who filmed the whole thing on their mobile phones, and denim-clad Americans off one of the daily cruise ships who either chatted or yawned loudly. Frankly, I could see their point – it was clear from the dancers’ expressions that their minds were on other things, such as what might be in the fridge for supper. Next time, I’m going to make sure my visit coincides with a Mariinsky performance – I’m reliably informed that winter, when there are no cruise ships, is a better time to come for this.
But the evening was saved to some extent by the beauty of the city at night. As our taxi drew up outside the Lion Palace, the mist was rising from the river and stealing along the streets. Then came a surreal moment – a woman on horseback emerged out of the darkness, rode along the pavement, calmly crossed the dual carriageway still teeming with late-night traffic, and disappeared once more into the night. The ghost of a tsarina past, perhaps.
By morning, however, the mist had become cloud and on our final day in St Petersburg we woke to grey skies and heavy rain. Despite the opulence of the buildings, nobody seems to have sorted out the guttering. The rain pours through huge pipes that snake down the exterior walls, then stop about half a foot above the pavement. The water gushes out over the paving slabs and all over your feet. But it was perfect weather to complete my tsarina experience with a trip to the Winter Palace and the Hermitage Museum – a chance to see not only the rich art collection amassed by Catherine the Great and the Romanovs, but also the opulence of court life.
There are three interconnected buildings in all and they contain – allegedly – a room for each day of the year and three million objects. Depending on which guidebook you consult, it would take six, eight or 10 years to spend a minute with each. We had only three hours, but we saved a big chunk of time by investing in VIP tickets (only a little more pricey and utterly worth it). We walked past a queue about half a mile long of sodden tourists to sashay in at the front of the line.
It’s a toss-up which is more impressive – the art or the rooms they are displayed in. You certainly get a sense of mind-boggling scale of imperial indulgence and party-giving just before the Revolution – from the Malachite Hall, with its dazzling green pillars and vast urns, to the Armorial Hall’s enormous crystal chandeliers, to the gilded great hall, where the tsars held glittering imperial balls. But there are also more everyday rooms, on a more human scale.
The White Dining Room was one of Nicholas II’s favourites. It also marks a key moment in the history of the revolution that dethroned him. A clock on the mantelpiece was stopped at 2.10am on the night of October 25 1917. It was the moment when Kerensky’s provisional government, which had held power since the February revolution, was arrested by the Bolsheviks – the hour when Russia slipped towards communism.
The art of the Hermitage museum was mostly collected well before those dark days. The quantity and quality is overwhelming. Two Da Vincis are here. Forget the ropes at the Louvre to keep the hordes away from the Mona Lisa. Here you can get up close and personal with the great master.
We wandered past Rembrandts, Rubens, Raphaels, Van Dycks, Gainsboroughs. After three hours our brains were saturated with art, we could take no more.
If I’d been a real tsarina, I would have summoned my carriage to return to my palace. Instead, I hailed a cab to take us to the airport. The dream was over; but at least it hadn’t been ended by armies of revolutionaries.
The essentials
Fiona Bruce travelled with British Airways Holidays (0344 493 0125; ba.com), which offers three nights at the Four Seasons Lion Palace Hotel from £619 per person B&B, including return BA flights.
Cheaper accommodation is available from £189 per person. Prices are based on bookings by Oct 31 and travel between Nov 8 and Dec 12 2017.
For our online guide to St Petersburg, including recommended hotels and details of how to visit sights, see telegraph.co.uk/tt-stpetersburg. The priority ticket to the Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum, which allows you to skip the queues at the entrance, can be bought online for US$17.95 (£13.50) for one day or US$23.95 for two (including admission to other Imperial museums): buy in advance of travel at hermitageshop.org/tickets. Note that obtaining a Russian visa (visitrussia.org.uk) is a long-winded, expensive process. It costs £175 for a single-visit visa, and requires six working days to process and a visit to London to have your fingerprints taken for a biometric profile. Russians who wish to visit the UK face similar requirements.
