47 is a very good number!

Ken commented this week that 47 is a good number.
He was born in 1947.
The Mormon Pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.
And on September 8 we have been married 47 years! Hard to believe! We don't feel that old.

Sisters: Sue Allen, Mary Mohlman and Aubrey Eaton
with Anastacia and Viktor from Novosibirsk

On Sunday evening we had visitors from Novozibirsk, four time zones and a five-hour flight from Saint Petersburg. They came with our Center Sisters for visit and dessert after church.

The Allens with Anastacia and Viktor from Novosibirsk

Elder Robert Parker, Denic of Omsk, Sister and Elder Allen,
Elder Matthew Simmons, Ashoot

Our usual Saturday night dinner party got shifted to Monday night this week. We were glad to welcome the Zone Leaders from Shuvalovo, Elders Parker and Simmons. That is the other ward that meets in our Center church building. They brought friends Denic and Ashoot. Denic joined the LDS Church about 15 months ago after learning about famous Mormons in the US and visiting the Church for several years, starting during his college time in Omsk, very far east. Ashoot is one of the young men who just showed up at the church one afternoon in May wanting to know more about us. He has a friend in the US who is LDS and who told him to find us.

Homemade lemon meringue pie

And we had lemon meringue pie for dessert.

On Tuesday morning we went with President and Sister Rawson to the Hermitage for their first visit. We took them to meet with Mikhael 

Pres. & Sister Rawson meet with
Mikhael, founder and director of the Hermitage Volunteer Program

Mikhael took us on a 'back stage' tour. Here, hiding in a little corner behind the main building, is the car garage of Nicholas II. He was the last Tsar, deposed in 1917, so of course by then he had many automobiles.











Mikhael told us a wonderful story about these statues. There are about eight of these massive statues of Atlas that hold up the original front portico of the "New Hermitage." During the siege in 1941-44, the citizens of St. Petersburg felt that as long as the Atlas statues were standing they would survive. A bomb hit the balcony above the portico, but the statues never fell, and neither did the city.


This exquisite cameo originally belonged to Josephine, wife of Napoleon. After Napoleon lost his war, Tsar Alexander went into the palace where Josephine lived. When the Russians wanted to loot her palace, Alexander said, "No, this all belongs to me. I bought it." He let her continue to live there, and she gave him this rare cameo as a gift.



The architecture everywhere is as amazing as the art work.

This is the oldest known tied-pile rug. It is from the 5th Century BC and was found in a barrow in Siberia. It managed to survive in such good condition because it was buried in a perm-frost layer. Now it is hung in a special light and humidity controlled case. We saw other amazing artifacts from this period that were discovered in Siberia.











This is the back hallway of the first floor in the Hermitage. It's off the path of most of the big tourist groups. All these crates are some other exhibit that is coming to or from Amsterdam. They were stacked two or three deep the length of the hallway.

The Library of the Tsar

While trying to find out way out after the Siberian exhibit we found yet anothe set of rooms that we didn't even know were there. These are rooms decorated to show the different decor used in the rooms when the Romanov royal family lived in the Hermitage. The Library was our favorite! Beautiful dark carved wood, and all those books!

Novocherkasskaya Station

Novocherkasskaya Station is our 'home' Metro (subway) stop. We go in and out of there several times each week, and it's about a 1 km (.62 mile) walk from our apartment. When we go to the Hermitage to volunteer, we travel to Admiralty Station. That is the deepest station in Russia, and one of the deepest in the world at 83 meters. That's about as far down as a 30-story buildinga nd is as far below Sea Level as Death Valley in California. Sue took this 360-degree photo of the long escalator. It has 29 lights space 3 meters apart in height, and it is a 3 minute and 15 second ride from bottom to top. Below it is a shorter one with 7 more lights. It takes both to get from the train platform to the street.

Admiralty escalator - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Thursday afternoon our District went to sing for a Retirement Home where a member of the ward lives. We did this before a month or so ago. We were worried how we could do it again, because our amazing pianist, Elder Gerrat, was transferred to Petrozavodsk--5 hours NE of here.  But the Lord Provides!! Elder Gerrat's companion, Elder Brown, was scheduled for his visa trip to Estonia on the very day that we had scheduled the concert. So Elder Gerrat was in Saint Petersburg for the day and played the piano for our little 'concert.' We also have Sister Mohlman, who plays violin--but doesn't have one with her. The Shaikhulin family of St. Petersburg has a daughter at BYU on a violin scholarship. We asked if she had left home a spare violin, and she did! So Sister Mohlman borrowed it got to play for them. They loved her 'fiddle' piece. (Ken recorded it, if anyone is interested.)

Elders Rindlisbacher, Brown, Muhlestein, Gerratt (at the piano)
Sister Mohlman, Eaton and Allen

Central District: Officeniki, Sisters and APs

Our District for this Transfer: Elders Muhlestein, Rindlisbacher, Wilson, and the senior AP.  Ken and Sue, Sisters Mohlman and Eaton. A wonderful group of young people to work with.

Ketchup

On Friday night we went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary at a nice restaurant at Okhta Mall about a mile from our apartment. Afterwards we did our "Saturday" grocery shopping early at Lenta. We wanted BBQ sauce, and thought you might all like to see the selection of ketchups. Most are Heinz brand, but there are a dozen or more flavors--curry, paprika, dill, and many others.

Lenta is a big, beautiful store that has been open about a year. Here's the 360-degree photo taken in the middle of the store. You can see all the produce on one side. Behind Ken at that end are some clothes, lots of baby and kids stuff, gardening supplies, auto parts, etc. At the other end is a large meat market. There are four aises of cheese & dairy items. It's a great store.

Lenta 8 Sep 2017 - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

On Saturday morning it wasn't raining so we decided to take a "walk in the (urban) woods." A couple in the Ward, the Vecelovs, had told us about a wonderful park on the north side of the city with beautiful views. They showed us where it is and offered to go there with us, but then the summer raced by and they have left to spend several months with their daughter who lives in the US. By the time they get back it will be too cold, we think. So we took the Metro (subway) up northwest. (We live in the lower right corner of the map, and walk down to the Metro stop just south of us at Novocherskaskaya). We took the Metro to the NW corner of this map. You can see that big green area. That's the park. It's about 10 km from our house, so the park is probably about 2 km long.

First we walked through the beautiful green woods. But we were sad to see that some of the maple trees are starting to have their leaves turn pretty colors already. The sun was out, but the temperature was in the low 60's, so it's definitely Fall here.

No, we did not abandon Russia and travel to Bremen, Germany. There are several restaurants at the western end of the park. One is a German Beer Garden, complete with a copy of the famous "Musicians of Bremen" statue.


















In the middle of the park is this huge fountain.  Behind it and down the path a little is the huge new soccer stadium that St. Petersburg built for the 2017 FIFA Cup and 2018 World Cup Soccer games. The tower to the left is the 83-story Gazprom Tower under construction, far in the distance.

 The stadium is out at the far western tip of the island. We walked out there and saw the place where the Neva River flows into the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea. This is called the "high bridge" in Saint Petersburg.  t's the only one that is not a drawbridge. The biggest ocean cruise ships still can't get under it, but most other ships can.

Part of the park and the island is a big amusement park--rather like Great America in Santa Clara near our home. There are several roller coaster rides for the crazy-brave people.  There are two of those tall towers that do free-fall drop, and other 'scary' rides. There are some rides for us calmer adults--like the huge ferris wheel. It goes around slowly and never stops.  You get on the car as it is moving, and after you've gone around once you get off while it is moving. Much better than the old kind that stops and starts all the time.  There is also a large area with rides and games for small children.  It is a very family-friendly place, and got more and more crowded on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Ken likes this BatMobile. This was really a bumper car ride, with a Batman theme. So this one's for our son Keith and his "Dark Knight Changes" video.

We walked back through the park and had ХОТ ДОГИ   (pronounced hot doggy) for lunch. The 'y' sound on the end of a word in Russian makes it plural.

Here's another of the big roller coasters.






Then we came home in time for Saturday sessions of Stake Conference. Elder James Martino, our Area President, was there. It was good to see him again. We first met him last December, on our trip to Israel.