Guys, this was one of those times when I wished I wasn't by myself because I was giggling with excitement and I think I might've scared some other tourists. Anyway, what is so great about the Aurora anyway?? Well, let me take you back a few years to October 25, 1917, the night of the Bolshevik Revolution. At 9:40, the Aurora moved down river and fired a blank shot at the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government was located. Blank? That doesn't sound like it would do much damage. It didn't. In fact, the entire evening was a little anti-climatic. A few women defended the Winter Palace, but pretty much no one else did. I'm leaving out a lot... but the point is - the Bolsheviks did a hell of a job the next day, and for the next 75 years, pretending that there was a super dramatic night of fighting and revolting to put them in power.
THE cannon!This video was made by a super famous director, Sergei Eisenstein, about the October Revolution. Prof. Lohr said more people were injured in the making of the film than in the actual revolution, although I can't confirm that...
And the Aurora played such an important part in the show! Fact of the matter is, there really was no equivalent to the storming of the Bastille for Russia, but post-revolution, they modified history so much that people thought there was! Crazy, right? Isn't Russian history cool?!
Ok, anyway, so then I went to the fortress, which was built in the early 1700s to secure the Neva river. It was first used as a prison in 1718 to torture Peter the Great's son, who died a few days later. Don't commit treason. Don't get tortured. It's as easy as that.
So the main sight at the fortress is the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where all the Romanovs, from Peter the Great until Nicholas II are buried. I think a few are missing, but the main guys (and gals) are there.
Also, interesting fact. During WWII, Alpinists scaled the golden spire and camouflaged it, so the Luftwaffe couldn't see it when they were flying over!
This is Peter's tomb.
This room houses the remains of the last Romanov family. They were placed here in 1998, 80 years after they were killed by the Bolsheviks.
This is Peter's tomb.
This room houses the remains of the last Romanov family. They were placed here in 1998, 80 years after they were killed by the Bolsheviks.
Sure was pretty!
This is the room that Maxim Gorky, the father of Socialist Realism, was kept in the years before the Bolshevik revolution. Also, this is the same room Trotsky was kept in under the Tsar! How cool!! The room looks pretty nice, but the prison was notoriously awful. And also, I saw the punishment cell and it was too scary to go in... and too dark to take a picture!
They had some info on the "Prisoner's alphabet" a type of Morse code that they would tap on the floor and walls to their neighbors. This picture probably doesn't mean much to anyone, but in Darkness at Noon, the main character talk about sending messages like this. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but there are 5 columns and 6 rows and for each letter you'd tap two numbers, 1 for the column, 1 for the row. Clever, huh?So, all in all, it was a day full of Russian history. Which is a good day in my book! I have class again tomorrow and then the weekend! Hope everyone is doing well at home! I'm almost down to three weeks!
*I should've been using titles of Russian stories to title my posts this whole time! What was I thinking? I wasn't! I won't make that mistake again.
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