Leaving Russia was nearly as complicated and stressful for me as entering it. Choosing to fly SAS instead of Aeroflot helped, but waiting for hours until the airline’s “desks” open (less than two hours before flight time) added to the anxiety. Without a seat assignment, and with two suitcases to manage (right arm bandaged up)…
After almost giving up the idea of finding a “real operating” church–devoted to God, not a museum, holding regular church services, and offering communion during mass–I stumbled upon one (correction…through God’s leading). While walking up Nevsky Prospekt on Sunday morning I heard bells ringing out to believers at the Catholic Church of St. Catherine (apparently…
I stood on the peripheral of the Palace Square, dressed warmly enough to ward off the freezing cold November temperatures. To my left, the Tsar’s Winter Palace; to my right, the triumphal arch. In the distance, I watched several horse and carriages line up to take tourists for a ride through the city. My mind…
With his birth date on St. Isaac’s feast day (Sept 9), Peter the Great determined to build a monumental church in his city–naming it “St. Isaac of Dalmatia” after his patron saint, Saint Isaac. His first church, built on the banks of the Neva River, crumbled. The second (still lacking an adequate foundation) met a…
At the age of sixty, the occasions are few and further between when I feel like a “little girl at heart.” Imagining myself attending a Russian ballet–in Russia–is one of these occasions. During a time of ballet lessons, pirouetting, leotards and standing on my toes (though not very well, or for very long) I, like…
