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Russia
Sept 11, 2013 5:26:15 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2013 5:26:15 GMT
I never had the impression that St. Petersburg was a very festive city, but you are proving me wrong.
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Russia
Sept 12, 2013 0:21:14 GMT
Post by waterhazardjack on Sept 12, 2013 0:21:14 GMT
I never had the impression that St. Petersburg was a very festive city, but you are proving me wrong. Yes and this was in 1977! Fair play to Comrade Brezhnev, I say...he always made me feel like dancing...
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Russia
Sept 12, 2013 1:36:29 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 12, 2013 1:36:29 GMT
I was surprised at how elegantly and fashionably the under 40s dressed, specially in St Petersburg. Also in the parks and around the walls of the Fortress were scores of younger citizens of both genders soaking up the sun in skimpy bikinis or swimwear. Some girls were discreetly topless.
A far cry from the babushkas in scarves and lumpy clothes I was sort of expecting!
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Russia
Sept 12, 2013 2:12:26 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 12, 2013 2:12:26 GMT
The last few shots were taken at the Catherine Palace. This is out from the City at a place called Pushkin-Tsarkoe Selo. At this point I was suffering architectural indigestion and found everything way 'over the top'. This lovely piece of furniture is the only thing I'd save in a fire! These carried hot air from fires in rooms below (Like Liga's pics from Latvia thread) Yachting Lake And this is what the tourists, including me, thought of all the splendiferousness around us. So much for St P. Took the train to Moscow, but was warned not to photo around railway stations etc. Anyone interested in Moscow (fewer pics) or will I jump it to Yekaterinberg? Please tell me if I'm boring you...
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Russia
Sept 12, 2013 5:29:12 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2013 5:29:12 GMT
No no no, you are not boring us at all! However, I am glad that you did not post too many pictures of the architectural détails of the Catherine Palace. I am still reeling from the visual overload.
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Russia
Sept 12, 2013 6:51:34 GMT
Post by bjd on Sept 12, 2013 6:51:34 GMT
Not boring at all, questa. Keep going.
Speaking of visual overload, I visited the Hermitage Museum in 1977 (hi, Waterhazardjack) and there were 4 paintings set vertically over all the over-decorated walls.
"If you got it, flaunt it" seems to be the Russian motto.
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Russia
Sept 12, 2013 7:32:06 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 12, 2013 7:32:06 GMT
"More treasure than Taste" also springs to mind.
If I had been a serf in Russia, I think I would have revolted as well at the wealth disparity.
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Russia
Sept 12, 2013 11:59:12 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 12, 2013 11:59:12 GMT
Moscow... State University Victory Square looking towards the war memorials and looking towards the city Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and the cathedral gardens. Moskva River. Behind the Kremlin walls are the Kremlin Palace and Ivan Bell tower. Gorky Park Every station in the Metro system is decorated with art works, all depicting the workers, soldiers, women etc whose effort contributes to the Motherland This station had statues This just ornate decorations. The scientist studies papers... many leadlight panels here. This was one of many ceramic mosaic panels at another station. The day I went inside the Kremlin there was heavy rain, building projects everywhere, sections closed and from the Armory, the Faberge Eggs were out on loan to another art gallery. I was in a group with an old Intourist woman guide who chain-smoked and was bored, rude to us and pushed propaganda down our throats. These 2 pics are almost all I have to show for my visit (but I did see where the President's offices were) Tsar Bell Tsar Cannon The bell never rang, it dropped and broke beforehand The cannon never fired, the balls were too heavy to load. Red Square another day...
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Russia
Sept 15, 2013 4:21:58 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 15, 2013 4:21:58 GMT
Meanwhile...in and around Red Square Entrance to the Square St Basil's Cathedral Close up and detail Lenin's mausoleum (he was away in China having a touch up done) State Historical Museum Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan Spasskaya Tower. GUM Department store More GUM Ivan the Great Bell Tower and smaller churches behind Kremlin Walls Tomb of the unknown soldier Changing the guard at the tomb.
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Russia
Sept 15, 2013 4:28:18 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 15, 2013 4:28:18 GMT
I took many more pics of the Alexander Gardens behind the square...flea market, water gardens, kids playing...lovely stuff. However when I had them burned onto a CD the shop gave me a blank CD by mistake so I lost them.
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Russia
Sept 15, 2013 18:41:18 GMT
Post by mossie on Sept 15, 2013 18:41:18 GMT
Too bad you lost your photos. The cannon balls that were too heavy to be loaded into the cannon are a sure sign of megalomania, as is the cracked bell.
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Russia
Sept 15, 2013 18:46:48 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2013 18:46:48 GMT
Even if the cannon had fired, I imagine the cannonball rolling slowly out of the barrel and plopping on the ground, like in a Tex Avery cartoon.
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Russia
Sept 15, 2013 23:18:35 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 15, 2013 23:18:35 GMT
I imagine the ball to be so immovable that the cannon blew itself into shrapnel in an effort to dislodge it. It would be a good exercise for military engineers to draw up a projection of what would happen if the shot was loaded and fired.
I see the cartoon of Road runner and Wile E Coyote using this 'ACME' cannon.
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Russia
Sept 16, 2013 7:09:00 GMT
Post by bjd on Sept 16, 2013 7:09:00 GMT
Those military engineers were probably redrawing their plans in a labour camp in Siberia.
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Russia
Sept 16, 2013 14:53:56 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2013 14:53:56 GMT
Wow, really great photos, questa. I have a friend that went to Russia some years back, she really enjoyed her trip. The buildings and architecture are so interesting and well made!
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Russia
Sept 16, 2013 15:47:52 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2013 15:47:52 GMT
Fabulous and intriguing report and photos! (I particularly loved "sleeping with the fishes"!!! ) The opulence, attention to detail and most notably how clean everything looks, is so impressive. With regard to babushka's, I inherited a slew of them from my Polish Grandmother, and transformed them into halter tops ,hee hee... Don't be so quick to 'dis them!
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Russia
Sept 16, 2013 23:30:50 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 16, 2013 23:30:50 GMT
Thanks, casimira, I like the babushka picture of Russia and Eastern Europe too.
So many of my pics spring into being with a ready-made title, usually a quotation or pun. I don't think of it consciously and it surprises me as well. Some are a bit obscure to others so I haven't used them here.
Enjoy the trip with me...
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Russia
Sept 17, 2013 5:00:52 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2013 5:00:52 GMT
Now that I have been posting here for so long, the text of my trip reports seems to write itself in my mind as I am taking the pictures. I used to take pictures without "thinking" about them, but now there is non-stop commentary inside my head at all times. I'm not sure if it annoys me or makes my picture taking more meaningful.
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Russia
Sept 17, 2013 5:16:04 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 17, 2013 5:16:04 GMT
All aboard...we're off to Yekaterinburg. Moscow station and the Trans-Siberian Express We were on time to the minute for the whole trip and could tell where we were by the time. We had 2 attendants to look after 28 people in our carriage. Their main job was to make sure we were all aboard after a train stop. Village from behind glass window of the train another village The dining car Every stop the passengers would get out and buy snacks and drinks on the platform. Lots of home baked foods as well. Although the city is again called Yekaterinaburg, the railway station also carries the Soviet name of Sverdlovsk over its main gate.
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Russia
Sept 17, 2013 6:31:06 GMT
Post by bjd on Sept 17, 2013 6:31:06 GMT
The countryside pictures look so much like "traditional Russia" with the wooden houses. Such a change from the urban apartment blocks.
I enjoy those Russian name changes according to political winds: Yekaterinburg for one autocrat (Catherine the Great) then Sverdlovsk for a Soviet leader, than back to the Tsarist autocrat.
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Russia
Sept 17, 2013 9:27:58 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 17, 2013 9:27:58 GMT
In my Central Asia thread was a picture of a tower with the rising sun catching it. It so fitted the quote from Omar Khayyam so well, but the sun was too high when I first saw it. Next day I set my alarm to wake me early just to get the pic with a dawn light.
And I'm not a morning person!
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Russia
Sept 21, 2013 11:16:09 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 21, 2013 11:16:09 GMT
Meanwhile, back in Yekaterinburg.... Not much seems to going on, the city doesn't seem to have kept up with the changes in St P or Moscow. The railway station The main street. City Square There is a garden and an imposing administration building (pity about the light, though!) We didn't go to the market here We found an art / souvenir market and I bought a little elephant carved from malachite. The military museum was closed. A wooden house was being built A cheerful cafe with silhouettes of Hollywood greats on the walls. The soldiers' memorial remains my most vivid memory of the city. The statue was not of a "stand to attention" or "gallant action" type, but a poor exhausted man, boots unlaced, uniform torn and undone, just sitting, broken, staring at the ground. It nearly broke my heart. The names of Chechnya and Afghanistan are carved nearby.
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Russia
Sept 21, 2013 13:53:59 GMT
Post by bjd on Sept 21, 2013 13:53:59 GMT
Is the poor, exhausted man an Afghan (as per what is inscribed on the plinth) or a Soviet soldier back from the lost war?
Except for the café, street sellers and market, it could be the Soviet Union -- wide streets, few cars. I guess all the money is in Moscow and St Petersburg.
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Russia
Sept 21, 2013 15:05:18 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2013 15:05:18 GMT
One certainly notices how spacious the streets are, and I suppose that it is at least one of the positive elements of the Soviet years -- authentic urban planning rather than anarchistic buildings all cramming together.
Naturally, they got it wrong, too, by leaving too much space and by constructing too many huge isolated buildings. But the space makes it much easier to make adjustments now than if they had to tear down neighborhoods to put in a tramway or subway system -- or even to work on the sewers.
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Russia
Sept 21, 2013 15:26:02 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2013 15:26:02 GMT
I really like that log house being built. Seems out of place somehow to all the other buildings.
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Russia
Sept 21, 2013 23:21:20 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 21, 2013 23:21:20 GMT
bjd...a Soviet soldier. If you look at the statue, it is flanked by curved columns, each with a date on it. They are all the years and wars the Soviets engaged in.
I don't know if internal hostilities like Prague and Hungary were included.
I think it doesn't really matter which side the soldier was on though, does it?
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Russia
Sept 22, 2013 6:07:01 GMT
Post by bjd on Sept 22, 2013 6:07:01 GMT
Of course, soldiers suffer in wars -- it's just that Russian/Soviet military statues are huge, overbearing and usually show them as victorious. If this guy is supposed to be Russian, then there has been a slight change in mentality.
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Russia
Sept 24, 2013 7:49:09 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 24, 2013 7:49:09 GMT
Just outside the city is the place where in recent years the remains of the last Tsar and his family were found. After being killed in the house in the city ( demolished in Soviet times as it was becoming a shrine) the bodies were dumped in a pit and covered. The remains have since been given a proper ceremony and are installed in the Cathedral in St Petersburg. Now this area is held sacred, we had to borrow wrap around skirts to cover our long pants and the men had to wear one to cover shorts. It is a well kept wilderness of greenery with a timber chapel and other small buildings denoting where each body was recovered. Chapel Blue skirts. Not far from there, in the Ural Mountains, is the dividing line between Asia and Europe. You can see the line in the concrete. We had an Asian hat and a European one to show us which continent we were standing in. Another War Memorial, this one honoured the many Asian Russians that fought in their wars. A log wall nearby contains mementos and prayers for the fallen An Australian token. I wonder what the story was for it. And just in case you get a bit lost... Goodbye to Yekaterinburg and train to Irkutsk...lots more to see there.
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Russia
Sept 24, 2013 10:46:53 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2013 10:46:53 GMT
Those memorials are a bit mysterious, as is the need to sanctify places where bodies were found. Then again when you think of all of the body parts of the saints spread throughout several churches and tombs, I guess people do feel a need pin things down for their worship.
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Russia
Sept 26, 2013 1:06:05 GMT
Post by questa on Sept 26, 2013 1:06:05 GMT
Onwards through Siberia... Leaving Yekaterinburg heading for Irkutsk Most of these photos were taken through the glass windows of the train. I must give credit to the 2 carriage attendants who cleaned the outside windows at almost every stop, and patrolled the inside windows with spray cleaner to clear any finger marks. There were many freight trains on the multiple tracks heading both ways. It wasn't all timber houses, though We seemed to have missed the high season. ;D
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