St. Petersburg sight

CORRECTION — In the February ’07 “The Cruising World” column is a photo captioned “The famous armored cruiser Potemkin, moored at St. Petersburg.”

I’ve visited St. Petersburg twice and have seen the venerable warship moored on the Nevka, near the Peter and Paul Fortress, but the ship’s name is Aurora. I checked the Lonely Planet City Guide “St. Petersburg,” first edition, by Nick Selby, which I took with me on my first trip, and on page 211 it confirms this.

In that same caption, Mr. Toulmin’s piece says, “The mutiny on board this vessel in 1905 was the precursor to the earth-shaking Russian Revolution of 1917.”

My recollection, also confirmed in Mr. Selby’s book, is that the 1905 Revolution was sparked by “Bloody Sunday” (Jan. 9, 1905), when the Czar’s troops fired on a march on the Winter Palace by striking civilian workers. A subsequent strike by sailors on the battleship Potyomkin, months later, was a part of that revolution.

On Oct. 25, 1917, Aurora fired a blank round in the general direction of the Winter Palace, marking the start of the eventually successful Russian Revolution of that year.

Be that as it may, as the old saying goes, St. Petersburg is a wonderful place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

JOHN W. WITT

San Diego, CA