Images from Russia
I spent nine months in St. Petersburg, from just after the August
'98 financial crisis to May of '99. The following are just a handful of
the cooler and more unusual of my pictures.
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The courtyard ( dvor ) of my building (
dom ). Utterly typical of "Piter", right down to the rubble and
the filth. Makes me positively maudlin with nostalgia. |
The Izmailovsky Bridge over the Fontanka canal, in the
evening. Dostoevsky's short story "The Double" is partially set right
near this bridge. |
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The rather more impressive front façade of my
building (on the left) - which I only saw a couple times, when I
deliberately went out to look at it, as the street it faces has been a
pile of rubble for years. They were actually working on it when I
left, though... |
Izmailovsky Prospect, facing north towards the Fontanka
and the center of the city. Izmailovsky is the main street running
through the neighborhood I lived in, and named after the regiment that
was quartered here in Imperial days. It is a continuation of
Voznesenksy Prospect (which retains that name on the other side of the
Fontanka), the westernmost of the three "spokes" sticking out from the
Admiralty and making up the central layout of the city. |
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Canal Griboedova, at 11pm during the beginning of
the white nights. I took this picture as I was on my way back from an
opera at the home-theater of the Yussopovsky Palace. |
Painter Ilya Repin's bizarre home in the town of Repino,
on the Gulf of Finland. |
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The fortress walls at Pskov. Yes, that's me loading
film and squinting oddly in the lower left. Gordon Cook of The Cook Report on the Internet
took this photo, as well as graciously letting me tag along on his
trip to this ancient and hard-to-get-to town five hours outside of
Peterburg. |
Characteristic bell tower on a Pskov cathedral. |