The Sites: Saint Petersburg

If there is a place that started it all, it was Saint Petersburg.

Walking through Russia's Imperial capital is like spending time in a life-sized pop-up book.  The architecture is breath-taking; the history is palpable; the intersection of the past and the present is incredible.

I spent a summer here, the first and longest of several trips to this massive country.  My studies focused on late nineteenth-century Russian literature, particularly on the intellectuals and revolutionaries that inspired such works as Cherneshevsky's "What is to be Done?" and Dostoevsky's "Demons," along with the memoirs of Vera Figner and other members of the People's Will and other groups set upon overthrowing the tsars.  To walk along the same streets where these events - fictional and not - occurred was the culmination of my academic experience.  

Palace Square

The Russian sky is a thing of wonder: it constantly shifts from sun to clouds and back again, making layers and a packable raincoat utter necessities.  There are days when it is stark blue, off-set against the monuments and pastel buildings; there are days when the clouds look as though they are painted into the background.

SS Peter & Paul Fortress; 2am

Traveling here in the summer means a chance to experience the White Nights.  Due to its geography and latitude, the sun doesn't entirely set here in the weeks surrounding the summer solstice, casting an etheral glow over the city and an equally eery shade over its residents (Dostoevsky plays upon this in his short story of the same name). 

Church on Spilt Blood

Amongst all the beauties of this place, perhaps the churches are the most striking.  While the Communist regime worked diligently to purge as much religion as possible from the public eye - even going so far as to convert some churches into museums of atheism - these monuments to faith still dot the city landscape in their intricately crafted glory.  The Church on Spilt Blood perches precariously on the banks of the Griboedov Canal, upon the site of the assasination of Alexander II in 1881.  It is an explosion of color and mosaic, inside and out.  Its designs against the shifting Petersburg sky captures the eye and the lens.

Piskarovskoe Memorial Cemetary

While the Imperial history is hard to escape, modern events have left their scars as well.  The 900-day Siege of Leningrad during WWII remains in the forefront of residents' minds, making May 9's Victory Day celebratations more somber than their Moscow counterparts. Piskarovskoe Cemetary houses the largest collection of unmarked graves from those who perished during the blockade.  Stars mark the mounds that hold the bodies of soldiers, while hammers & sickles mark those of civilians; civilians far outnumber the soldiers. 

Siege of Leningrad Memorial

City streets still bear the marks of bombing runs.  The Memorial on the south end of the city is a somber and stirring place.  The museum inside recounts the timeline of the siege and the immense toll taken on the city; a metronome beats endlessly, echoing Leningrad Radio's broadcasts to assure listeners within and beyond the battle lines that the heartbeat of the city beat on during this dark time. 




I have yet to return to Russia since making the shift to digital, but when I do, I imagine my fascination with this place will only deepen, trying to capture all the details of its past as it simultaneously careens towards the future.