Paul, Jill, and I decide to have a night out on the town in Russia.
My former boss is from St. Pete - and her sister still lives there.
Her sister made us a dinner reservation at this place -
Russian Kitsch.

The place is decidedly Russian - over the top with statues of Lenin, Gorby, and others.

It gets wild on weekends, but we're there mid-week, so no dancing tonight.

The faux artwork on the ceiling plays off The Hermitage.
Not sure why this Renaissance boy fell asleep with a naughty magazine on the outskirts of Seattle.

But with all the cheese, it is a nice place.
Overdone furniture and pillows compliment the cuisine.
Our starters include caviar (which comes with crepes, cheese, chives, and what I think was sour cream).
We have Stroganoff chicken Kiev (I know, Ukrainian - it sounded good!)

After dinner (wine, vodka, etc), we head back into the central square to see Saint Petersburg at night.

St. Isaac's Cathedral looks pretty much the same, but with fewer tourists at 10pm.

Same for the statue.

We don't walk around much, but Paul and Jill enjoy the city driving by and stop for a photo.

Back to the Bloody Church.
Way fewer people here at 10:30, but it is neat to see and hear street musicians as we walk around.

Iren takes a picture of us.

OK, two.

What a striking building!

Another one. Forgot what it is called.

Heading back to the boat, we pass the local beach.
This used to be waterfront property before Russia built ports for cruisers. They still consider it a high-rent area, but the beach is kinda depressing.

At Natasha's suggestion, we stay up late to enjoy the legendary "white nights."
This is 11:14pm local time.

Ten minutes later, the sun has set more horizontally than vertically.
We stay up way past midnight, but the night doesn't change much.
It pretty much just stays twilight.
But enough of tonight; we have a big day tomorrow...