Great AND Powerful

Peter was indeed Great and Pushkin was a pretty powerful poet (he’d have been impressed with that use of alliteration). At the risk of giving football fans a good name, we took a boat ride to soak up Russian culcha.

You kind of know there is a lot of it. But for three hours it seemed every single building we cruised past was of cultural or historical significance.

And every second reference was about Peter, who defeated the Swedes to found Russia in the early 1700’s or about Pushkin’s influence on art and politics.

Ostentatious Tzarist palaces. Houses where the Bolsheviks, inspired by the palaces, plotted revolution. The place where Rasputin was murdered. So many theatres, opera houses, museums and libraries you wonder how they found space to build houses for folks to live.

There’s a significant Scottish connection here. William Hastings, Scots architect, lived here for 50 years and designed many of St. Petersburg’s bridges. He also designed the layout for many of Russia’s expansion cities such as Samara and Novosibirsk. Influential man. I’m surprised I’d never heard of him.

Here’s an observation. It’s true: Russian’s don’t smile very much. But….if you make the first move and talk to them, they smile a lot. We’ve found them to be very warm and friendly. The key is to make that first move. I’m thinking of applying this approach to the lack of pick up football games. So many open spaces, but not one game of football. If this was Brazil there’d be games everywhere. So my plan is to make the first move, buy a ball and start a game. I suspect the Russian’s will join in quickly.

One of the smiley Russians was Yuri, the waiter at the restaurant across the road. We’ve stumbled into a couple of hole-in-the-wall places where the food is excellent, modern Russian cuisine in this case, and inexpensive with really good service. Yuri was a delight, guiding us around the unfamiliar Russian menu. I had Tblisi Cheesecake to start and Lamb/Grain Curry – really tasty. Yuri smiled a lot. He dreams of going to Chicago to visit his best friend who is studying there. But his visa application keeps being denied. He’s going to the Moscow embassy soon to try again.
Onwards to Moscow this morning and tomorrow I will walk across Red Square. I am going to say that again. Tomorrow I will walk across Red Square. That would have been unthinkable in my childhood. That has to be a good thing. Right? Despite what we’re constantly being told.

Four years ago, Brazil was everything I expected it to be. Russia has significantly exceeded my expectations. Beautiful country, beautiful people amazing place