In the early morning of 16 May I joined a group of Euro College students
from Tartu on a trip to the Russian Federation. First we stopped at
Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar's Village). Above is Catherine's Palace.
The Russian countryside and especially the area around St. Petersburg is
littered with monuments to the Great Patriotic War (WWII). Here is one
just outside of the city.
Heiko Pääbo (he teaches in the Euro
College) and I on the square in front of the Winter Palace (not
visible). The city had been recently improved/renovated to celebrate its
300th anniversary in 2003 a few years earlier.
While in St. Petersburg I took a boat trip around the city. The city has
more waterways and bridges than any other city - by one count more than
365 bridges span rivers and canals in the city. Above is a shot of Peter
and Paul Fortress on the Neva.
The facade of the Winter Palace facing the Neva River. I took this
picture from the barge on the river. The Winter Palace holds the
Hermitage Museum.
A view of one of the canals and several of the many bridges in the city.
The buildings are colorfully painted with lots of yellows and pinks to
offset the dark winters.
St. Petersburg is the home of the Aurora warship, famous for firing the
shot on 25 October 1918 announcing the success of the revolution. For
the historians out there, the first shot was actually fired by a small
canon in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but official Soviet/Russian
history chooses to downplay that fact.
A picture for the nostalgic. This building used to be home to the main
offices of the KGB during the Soviet period. After the dissolution of
the Soviet Union the FSB (the Russian Security Service) moved into it
and resides there still.
