3-065-636 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Blessing the Neva at St. Petersburg, 1874. 'The grand yearly ceremony of the benediction of the Neva was performed by Monsignor Bashanoff, the Archbishop Metropolitan of St. Petersburg...on the Sunday morning...A better opportunity for witnessing the lavish splendour of the ceremonies at the Winter Palace could not have been had than the passage of the Emperor, the Imperial family, the foreign Princes, the clergy, and the Court, out of the palace to the riverside. The mass and colour of the great procession as it descended the grand staircase and traversed the corridors between lines of soldiery presenting arms was magnificent. The clergy walked first, with the choir of the Imperial chapel, carrying candles and censers and singing verses [then]...followed the Czar, the Prince of Wales, Prince Arthur, the Grand Dukes, and all the Court...The procession passed...across the quay, to a pavilion at the edge of the frozen Neva. There the cross was dipped into the water where the ice had been broken, and the river received the benediction of the Metropolitan to the thunder of the guns of the fortresses of St. Peter and St. Paul...A space was kept clear on the quay, but the crowd pressed close, the women holding their children up to see the Emperor'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.