St. Petersburg - Last day

We set off for the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg (Музей историй санкт-петербурга), which was supposed to have a good exhibit about the blockade from 1941-43. I can't find a link to the museum, but it was nice. Once we found it. We were about the only people wandering through this old palace. We both got in for the student price. The woman was actually nice to us - but this is not a theme for the day.

There was a really sad display of a girl's diary. She lived from 1930-1944. The pages of her diary were really simple, so I could read them easily. "Today, [date], Uncle died." Another page: "Mama died." They all starved to death during the siege.

There was another display of a woman's passport photos during about a 10 year span - before the war, during the siege, and after the war. In the first photo the woman had dark hair and looked like she was in her mid-40s (bear in mind that this was during the 1940s and I really have no idea how old people were then... she could have been 35). In the second picture, she looked at least 20 years older. In the last picture, she looked like she was in her late 70s. The transformation was very eerie.

After the museum, we walked off to try to find the main post office and mail some postcards. We'll see if they ever arrive at their intended destinations. We did eventually find the post office, on Post Office Street, across the Moika River on the Post Office Bridge. I snuck three pictures inside the post office, until I got caught by a guard who said gruffly but indifferently, "Нельзя фотографировать!" (Photography is forbidden!) Oops.

Then we walked around some more. We tried to go to the Bread Museum, but it was already closed. Then we looked for the Arctic/Antarctic Museum, and although it was still open, it was scary. It was a completely hazardous looking construction zone. I took pix for SO. Their safety standards wouldn't even come close to OSHA.

Then we figured we were hungry and tried to get some food. But we were too tired to read Russian and did the obnoxious American tourist thing of not even trying to speak Russian. Oh well. Several snacks later, we walked all the way down Nevsky Prospect to the Nevsky Monastery. There's a metro station there, so we caught it back to the apartment. We went into a store that's next to the 24 hour store and got Big Boy a belt. It was only $6, as opposed to the fake leather belts they were hawking at Peter & Paul Fortress for 500 rubles.

Our train leaves the Moscow train station at 11:15pm. We have time to scrounge for food before we go.