Sunny St. Pete

According to our St. Petersburg guide Sasha the city usually gets just 60 sunny days a year. Our 5 out of 6 days of full or partly sunny days far exceeded the quota. There is a small beach below the walls of the Peter and Paul fortress, across the river from the Hermitage, where determined sunbathers could get out of the wind and soak up the rays.
Peterhof, Peter the Great's summer place on the Baltic, was totally destroyed during WWII but now restored in all its gilded splendor. Once overrun by the Nazis, it's now overrun by large tour groups. Best of all on a beautiful day were the outdoor fountains he designed and engineered himself. This fun one has circling geese being perpetually chased by a (hydraulically) barking dog.

But being a tsar had its risks. Palace intrigue as well as revolutionary turmoil took its toll. Catherine the Great's son Paul I only reigned for five years before he was murdered in his bedroom. Ironic since he was so fearful for his life that he built a special palace for protection from conspirators. His grandson Alexander II (famous for emancipating the Russian peasantry from serfdom in 1861, as well as for selling us Alaska to help pay debts from the Crimean war) was blown up in 1881 while riding in his carriage. The Curch of the Savior on Spilled

Blood was built on the site -- even retaining part of the street with original cobblestones.