Quote:
Originally Posted by anm
No, there should be no qualifier. It is a vibrant world-class megapolice of 5+ mln people, considered by many one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with rich history standing for no less than Russia becoming an Empire, associated with names such Pushkin and Dostojevskij, Tchajkovskij and Shostakovich, Leonhard Euler and Lomonosov to name a just few, two Revolutions (the latter of which was pivotal event in XXth century history of the whole world), Leningrad blocade, etc. So, despite prevailing attitude of a number of forumers and and provincial mentatlity of some North Americans exemplified by this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juOQhTuzDQ0
this city owns the name "St. Petersburg, no qualifier". From the start, I had considered naming this thread "The St. Petersburg, planet Earth" or possibly "The St. Petersburg", but than decided that this could be potentially provocative, which had not been my intention.
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oh good grief. it doesn't have anything to do with how provincial one is or how grand and huge any particular place is; instead it has everything to do with physical and psychological proximity. it doesn't matter that moscow, for example, is a city 12 or 15 million people if you live in idaho (where there's also a well-known city called moscow), if you live there, you'll qualify moscow, russia when that's what you're talking about. same goes for paris, france if you live in northeast texas. writing from here in portland, oregon (not to be confused with portland, maine, even though the city on the west coast is around ten times larger), where across the river we have a vancouver, washington (which, btw, is where chkalov landed - not vancouver BC), i think you just need to get over yourself. st petersburg - russia or florida - take a look at your audience and qualify when appropriate. who cares? is the point of communication to the get message across - or is it to make a point?
very nice shots, though.
i used to have major issues with st petersburg (russia). for a long time my impression of it was that it was extremely cold, fairly dreary - and the architecture? nice, but merely imported. my fellow students saw baroque palaces; i saw slave-built imitations of germany. my impression wasn't helped when, only the second time i was there - 1994 - we stayed in this dorm behind kazanskiy sobor. it was about 10C below and the heat was off - and the *windows in our room had been open all day*. so i held a grudge against piter. (or at the very least, the cleaning ladies!)
i have to say though that when i visited last spring, i changed my mind. sure, the buildings and canals are still (beautiful) imitations of what was being built in Europe europe, but, compared to moscow, the atmosphere in st petersburg was far more welcoming to a westerner, far more "demokratichniy" (in russian the word has a connotation of "down to earth"). the cafes were cheaper and less pompous. the girls taking orders at the cafe were friendlier and more patient. on a few rare occasions, i saw drivers actually wait for pedestrians (something psychologically impossible in moscow). and, not that i need it, but getting out of the train at ladozhskiy vokzal, there was an impressive amount of signs translated into english, which suggests an openness to the world. back in moscow, at leningradskiy vokzal, there was exactly one sign translated into english: the sign for tickets to helsinki. in other words, "go away".