And the red looked pretty upon the white snow…
The Brothers Grimm
I was walking on Nevsky Prospect in St-Petersburg with my American friends.
When they saw the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood with its colorful domes that look like some ancient knights guarding the blue skies of Mother Russia, they started yelling:
- Oh, look, it’s the ice-cream church! It’s the ice-cream church!
- The ice-cream church?! – said I, - Wow, what a cool metaphor!
Indeed those domes look like ice-cream cones! Don’t try to bite into them though! You’ll break your teeth! Ha-ha-ha!
Do you know what happened here long ago?
The ice-cream church! It sounds so divinely scrumptious and scrumptiously divine!
Before it was erected, the street went straight and not around it.
The ice-cream church! Too bad it’s not made of ice-cream for real!
One day a carriage with a Russian emperor was traveling on this street.
The ice-cream church!
The explosion broke the back of the carriage.
The ice-cream church!
Two officers were killed, but the Tsar got off the carriage without a single scratch.
The ice-cream church!
Coachman yelled from the coachbox: “Let us go, Your Majesty!” The carriage was damaged just slightly.
The ice-cream church!
The chief of the city police who escorted the Tsar begged him to get back into the carriage and get away from this place.
The ice-cream church!
But the Tsar said: “I want to see my wounded men!”
The ice-cream church!
Meanwhile a crowd had formed, and managed to detain a huge guy, who threw a bomb.
The ice-cream church!
The Tsar approached the guy and asked him in a calm voice: “Did you want to kill me?”
The ice-cream church!
At that moment another bomb exploded right in front of the Tsar.
The ice-cream church!
He went limp and hit the ground.
The ice-cream church!
“Help me!” – he said.
The ice-cream church!
The prophesy came true.
The ice-cream church!
When the Tsar was born, the ‘God’s fool’ Feyodor said that “he will die in red boots.”
The ice-cream church!
His legs were turned into bloody pulp by the explosion.
The ice-cream church!
The chief of the city police had 45 injuries from the small bomb-splinters, but none of them were mortal.
The ice-cream church!
They put the Tsar on the sleds.
The ice-cream church!
Took him to the Winter Palace.
The ice-cream church!
He died there in an hour, at 3:35 p.m.
The I SCREAM CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!
Like a flower it grew upon the spilled blood of a Russian Emperor…