St Petersburg First Day, 2 of 11 Riverside visit

Our first tour stop was beside the Neva River which snakes through St Petersburg. Locals and visitors frequently take long walks along the banks of the Neva because watching the river traffic of barges, pleasure craft and trading boats is an interesting pastime in this big city. When we stopped off at a special point on the riverbank it was only about 8.30 in the morning o'clock but already early morning commuters were flitting along the Neva on ferries and barges, as they headed  to work.

Though the sky was misty and it was quite cool around the river promenade area, as the mists lifted we had a clear view across the river, of the many buildings along the shoreline. We saw the beautiful tourquoise-blue and white gilt Hermitage building which graces the riverside as well as many other stately buildings and several bridges.

The first thing that caught our eyes as we stepped onto the riverside promenade were two large and imposing sphinxes. We'd seen similar sphinxes in Egypt some years ago and assumed that this set of sphinxes were carbon copies. However, we learned from our guide that these sphinxes are " the real deal" and that they're over 3,500 years old. Originally they were carved out of syenite stone to protect the temple of Amenhotrp III built near Thebes in Egypt, but over a long period of time frequent desert sandstorms covered the edifices in sand and they lay hidden and 'forgotten'.  

In the early 19th century following Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, which revealed many other wonders of ancient Egypt to the world, these two spinxes were uncovered from their sandy grave. In the 1830's Europe and Russia bought many Egyptian trophies from Egypt. In 1830, Andrew Muryayov who was an historian of the Russian Orthodox Church, made a pilgrimage to Alexandria and bought the two sphinxes for the Russian Empire but it was not an easy task to ship them from Egypt to St. Petersburg since each Sphinx weighed 23 tonnes. However, with many peasant labourers and bulky barges these trophies were relocated in St. Petersburg.

They have been restored several times since coming to St Petersburg because of the damage that the harsh winter climate in Russia can cause. 

The river sometimes freezes over for months and the snow-cover piles freeze and melt upon the forms of these ancient sphinxes  once hidden in hot desert sands.

However, with many peasant labourers and bulky barges these trophies finally arrived in St Petersburg city in 1832. For next two years the spinxes stood in the courtyard of the Russian Academy of Arts. Today the sphinxes are mounted on granite pedestals which stand on the riverside quay embankment directly opposite the Imperial Academy of Arts. 

The  sphinxes are a great tourist attraction and without fail, every day during summer, people pose for photographs in front of these giant ancient monuments.
 

I stood beside one of two giant bronze winged lion statues (known as Griffins) which sit below each sphinx and marvelled at the craftsmanship of the foundry workshop artists of St. Peterburg who first poured these modelled statues in 1834. The original models  mysteriously disappeared and were recreated in the foundry of the Arts Academy in 1959, following their original patterns.

It was fairly busy and crowded at our early morning visit session and we had to wait our turn to take photographs but it was well worth hearing about the history of these monuments.

As we continue to drive along the river side we also passed several ornate bridges, one of which stands near a walled fort built by Peter the Great. I will refer to this later on in the blog because we were visited this island fort area later in the morning.  We passed many other unique buildings  and I was particularly taken by the onion shaped domes which are so unique to Russian architecture.