Smolney

It's almost the end of the semester, I've a week to go, and I still haven't posted about my school and what it looks like.

I should fix that.

For comparison, this is where I went to high school.  My friends and I used to joke that we went to school in a castle.

We had arrow slits and everything, and English was taught where the stables used to be

Now here is my school in St. Petersburg.  This is the front of it.

Smolney cathedral, in all its majesty

Glorious, no??  The cathedral is the first thing you see when you walk onto the school grounds.  This massive blue, white, and gold structure with the giant bell out front - that's the entrance.  There are wrought iron gates to the sides where you walk into the old monastery/convent complex (Russian only has the one word - monastery - for both).  Walk all the way behind it and you reach a little sign by a door.

The politics department

This is me.  The CIEE program runs out of the political science department here at St. Petersburg State University.

So quick - some background info on Smolney.

Smolney's cathedral complex is super baroque, having been originally built for Elizabeth I (daughter of Peter the Great) way back in the first half of the 1700s.  Well, Elizabeth took the throne and died before the convent was finished, so no nuns ever lived here.  Instead it just kinda sat there until this woman came to power.

Russia's beloved and not actually Russian empress, Catherine II

That's right.  Catherine the Great saw the Smolney complex and had the brilliant thought of turning the never-opened convent into a school for noblewomen who weren't so well off.  They could come and learn the fine art of being a lady of the 18th century, with classes in foreign languages, needlepoint, and music, among other lessons.  Problem was, Catherine the Great HATED baroque style.  She wasn't willing to tear down the complex, so she simply had the next architect build the additions in a different style.

They still left the baby blue paint job though

If I haven't already mentioned it in previous posts, Russians (and Eastern Europeans in general) are the masters of repurposing buildings.

Then everything changed when the fire nation attacked.

LENIN FOR PEOPLE'S PRESIDENT, 1917 (no tsars allowed, too bourgeois)

The people revolted, the tsar abdicated and was sent into exile with his family.  On the heels of the revolution, Smolney closed its doors in the early 20s.  It was left on its own as the country around it stabilized and went to war again.  The Germans had about as much of a brain as Napoleon did, and had quite a decisive loss against the new Soviet state.

Idiots.  Didn't you learn from Napoleon?? Never pick a fight with Russia

As the years passed, people began to look at Smolney again.  It's a pretty big complex, and one of the tallest points in the city here in St. Petersburg.  And it was just sitting there......Someone decided that it was only fitting to put another school in there.  And so the Smolney cathedral complex became a part of the St. Petersburg State University.

Ok, that's enough history.  Back to me.  I mean, the present.  You know what I mean.

Quick, here's a picture!!

This is one of the upper halls where I have chorus.  Other CIEE classes meet up here, and it gets more light than the ground floor does.  But this is generally what the inside of my school looks like.  Pink walls.  White molding and fancy detailing.

Fancy chandeliers

And the staircases have fancy wrought iron detailing.

So fancy 

The ground floor classrooms are the original locations for what would have been the nuns' cells.  Each room is well sized for one bedroom, and all the windows have gates and locks on them to prevent burglars from breaking in and stealing things.  Though what there is to steal, I haven't the faintest idea.  They can take my homework though.

Just take it, please

The international relations wing of the complex was recently redone.  Not gonna lie, I didn't want to go back to my own department after I saw the renovations.  The halls were so light and clean from the fresh coat of paint and touched up woodworking.  It was glorious.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh it's so pretty.  I want my part of the complex to be just as pretty, but renovations have yet to come around to us

If you pay money in the cathedral itself, you can walk up to one of the belltowers.  From there, you can see the surrounding area and across the city.  On a sunny(ish) day, the sun glints off of all the cathedral towers and off the water.

Just look at that view.  Look at it.  Yes

Also, if you time it just right, a guy sometimes comes out of the cathedral and rings this giant bell.  I heard it for the first time as the school shuttle trundled up to the gates.

BONGGGGGGGGGG BONGGGGGGGGGG BONGGGGGGGGGG

Here ends my tour of my school.  Now for the last week here.

Yay??

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Not yay.