The memories of St. Petersburg return with difficulty through the haze of sleep deprivation that was my week there. Jetlag and sundry minor reasons kept me on a night schedule for my time in the city all but a few days.
Sankt Peterburg is tied closely to the Romanov dynasty. Already important as a seaport, it was chosen by the scholar-king Peter the Great as the capital of the Russian Empire he was building. 200 years later the communist revolution made a butchery of Peter's descendants and moved the capital to Moskva.
Today, Sankt Peterburg is a mishmash of soviet style heavy industry, old imperial museums, revitalized churches, and university sprawl.
I survived here off a steady diet of blinis with the rare break for veg sushi; As elsewhere in Eastern Europe, St. Petersburg is not a vegetarian friendly city, though Russophilic friends tell me that it's leagues ahead of any other city in the federation. And while Western Europe edges towards standardizing on English as the international language, Russia is the proud old heart of another option. Ukraine's crash course in cyrillic and common slavic words serves me well here.
~ ~ ~
So ends the first travel burst of this trip. I'm now back in Berlin, looking forward to a pause and a chance to work on and complete one personal project.
Perhaps I'll even blog about it.
Travel pictures resume in Late November/Early December.
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
bambolina:
You had absolutely wonderful feedback. Thank you so much (and I mean it). There was actually a lot I learned. Thanks again.
kunoichi:
Great trip to Russia. Hmm, thanks for sharing the information that the're not very vegi-friendly, if I go there.