History Is All Around
St Petersburg
Rowan and me went out to a restaurant on the Petrograd side last night with the Russian girl from the hostel and a big gay Dutchman. Rowan struggled to keep a straight face throughout the meal after the Dutch guy - in his stereotypical Grolsch ad-style accent - tried to tell us his parents had visited him, only for it to sound like "my parents have been fisting me all last week". Got to love the Dutch.
Checked out the Peter and Paul fortress earlier on, the building of which in 1703 by Peter the Great marked the foundation of the city. He was fed up with the Swedish navy swanning up and down the Neva with impunity so got some PoWs to knock it together in a few years. Just imagine it, crazy warmongering Swedes bringing Russia to its knees. These days they're more likely to bring about gradual change by infiltrating the place with flatpack furniture.
The Church on Spilled Blood built on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander in 1881 is a sight to behold. It has multicoloured domes much like St Basil's in Moscow. Seeing it from the nearby canal makes it seem as if Russia has somehow ended up in the middle of Amsterdam. St Petersburg is definitely much more European than I'd expected, there are definitely echoes of London and Vienna here and Rowan assures me Prague as well. I don't think the rest of the country will be quite like this.
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You can tell the kind of strange intersts Richard and i have by the places we mutually decide to visit. Not for us the faux designer stores of Nevsky Prospect nor the knocked-off old KGB tat of the souvenier markets. Nope, the first place we headed out to this morning was the evocativly titled Museum of History and Politics. Alton Towers it aint.
I still love 20th century Russian history more than any other period i've studied. It has the intregue of the medieval courts, the scope and romantacism of 19th century America and politicians to rival the most flamboyant characters of Bontapartist Paris. Oh yeah, and a killer collection of gents with ridiculous moustaches. Facial hair aside, the exhibit which excited me the most was an original 1917 printing press, which eager young revolutionaries used to print propaganda during the Feburary revolution. Readers of this tome who spent too much time around Leeds University Union will understand why i immediately had visions of an A Bellardinelli Esq type, sweatily slaving over said machine to churn out leaflets with a similar revolutionary vigour.
St Petersburg managed to mix two of my favourite hobbies - drinking and politics - together with thoroughly intoxicating effect. Now if i can just find the Russian equivilant of Girls Aloud to slobber over, then perhaps i've found a future home.
It's always the simple things which please me the most. Today's excursions inncluded. For those
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