Wednesday, August 02, 2006
St Petersburg
After a rest day in Helsinki, we joined Anna, Hamish and friends on a three day trip down to St Petersburg in the Russian Federation. The train trip from Helsinki took about 6 hours, through the beautiful Finnish countryside. In early summer the fields of wheat and barley look like rolling green seas around the islands of birch trees, almost and echo of the costal archipelago. In fact the Geography of Finland is quite unique, as the centre of the country is riddle with lakes like a block of cheese. Timo told me it is possible to take a boat 600km inland through the heart of the country via lake and locks. Something to do if you got tired of the endlessly beautiful coastal archipelago I suppose.
Anyway amongst the forests and fields of Finland I spied this little steam engine, wood fired of course given the abundance of trees. Most of our travelling companions missed it, as the picture shows they were resting up before the big day.
The border crossing into Russia was marked by a reduction in speed and an increase in rolling and clattering. The break-up of the Soviet Union has obviously strained infrastructure that wasn’t that flash in the first place. The railway approach to St Petersburg was lined with row upon row of garages stretching to the lines of apartment blocks. If you live in two concrete rooms you got to put your stuff somewhere.
The history of St Petersburg is a fascinating topic in itself, and I am enjoying Dave's that describes the life and Times of Peter the Great who founded the City in 1703. After some battled with Sweden He claimed the Mouth of the River Neva, mostly as it gave him access to the Baltic and thus Western Europe. After a trip to London Amsterdam and Vienna, Tsar Peter had decided Western Europe was the happening place to be. (Not much has changed!) Although the mouth of the River Neva was definately not a happening place, nonetheless it was as close as Russia could get to Europe (until 1945). In fact the Neva flowed into the Baltic through an icy swamp, if you can imagine the Turangi flats at the south end of Lake Taupo on a cold winters day only much much colder, that was where they decided to build a city. An immediate problem was the complete lack of building materials, just scraggly trees growing in deep frozen peat. So after digging canals and ditches everywhere to drain the swamp they had to carry in every single piece of stone. A lot of it was red granite brought across the Baltic from Finland, and St Petersburg is actually built out of thousands of pieces of Finland. Some say Russia has been trying ever since to claim more pieces of Finland.
St Petersburg central is blessed with stunning architecture on a grand scale. The Tsar sent his architects to the great capitals of Western Europe and as a result there are some quarters of the city that look like Venice, Amsterdam, Paris or London. 1703 was quite late to start building a city, even New York and Boston were well established cities by that time. Now St Petersburg is the 2nd largest city in the Russian federation with 4.5 million people (similar to Melbourne) We were fortunate to have Natalya to guide us through the city and especially the Palaces and Art Galleries during our stay there. She certainly made our visit and gave us so much insight into Russia, both historically and present day. Being a fine arts graduate she gave us the most interesting and informative tour of the art treasures in the Winter Palace. I never expected to learn so much about Picasso and Matisse and the impressionist movement in one morning. She also managed to handle the extra demands of guiding Guy around the city, and they became great friends. Here is a Photo of Natalya and Guy, with those eyes they could almost be related couldn't they?.
Anyway amongst the forests and fields of Finland I spied this little steam engine, wood fired of course given the abundance of trees. Most of our travelling companions missed it, as the picture shows they were resting up before the big day.
The border crossing into Russia was marked by a reduction in speed and an increase in rolling and clattering. The break-up of the Soviet Union has obviously strained infrastructure that wasn’t that flash in the first place. The railway approach to St Petersburg was lined with row upon row of garages stretching to the lines of apartment blocks. If you live in two concrete rooms you got to put your stuff somewhere.
The history of St Petersburg is a fascinating topic in itself, and I am enjoying Dave's that describes the life and Times of Peter the Great who founded the City in 1703. After some battled with Sweden He claimed the Mouth of the River Neva, mostly as it gave him access to the Baltic and thus Western Europe. After a trip to London Amsterdam and Vienna, Tsar Peter had decided Western Europe was the happening place to be. (Not much has changed!) Although the mouth of the River Neva was definately not a happening place, nonetheless it was as close as Russia could get to Europe (until 1945). In fact the Neva flowed into the Baltic through an icy swamp, if you can imagine the Turangi flats at the south end of Lake Taupo on a cold winters day only much much colder, that was where they decided to build a city. An immediate problem was the complete lack of building materials, just scraggly trees growing in deep frozen peat. So after digging canals and ditches everywhere to drain the swamp they had to carry in every single piece of stone. A lot of it was red granite brought across the Baltic from Finland, and St Petersburg is actually built out of thousands of pieces of Finland. Some say Russia has been trying ever since to claim more pieces of Finland.
St Petersburg central is blessed with stunning architecture on a grand scale. The Tsar sent his architects to the great capitals of Western Europe and as a result there are some quarters of the city that look like Venice, Amsterdam, Paris or London. 1703 was quite late to start building a city, even New York and Boston were well established cities by that time. Now St Petersburg is the 2nd largest city in the Russian federation with 4.5 million people (similar to Melbourne) We were fortunate to have Natalya to guide us through the city and especially the Palaces and Art Galleries during our stay there. She certainly made our visit and gave us so much insight into Russia, both historically and present day. Being a fine arts graduate she gave us the most interesting and informative tour of the art treasures in the Winter Palace. I never expected to learn so much about Picasso and Matisse and the impressionist movement in one morning. She also managed to handle the extra demands of guiding Guy around the city, and they became great friends. Here is a Photo of Natalya and Guy, with those eyes they could almost be related couldn't they?.
# posted by Jack and Katrina @ 10:38 am 
