St. Petersburg - My Home for a Year.

This is my third stint living in St. Petersburg, and I keep returning partially because the city is gorgeous. Because we're so far north (60 degrees N), it has been very dark the past few months and not much has been visible. For now I have some photos of winter St. Petersburg, but the sun will return soon and by June it will shine for up to 18 hours a day.

St. Petersburg does not look like or feel like the rest of Russia. It is the most westernized city in Russia, but not the wealthiest. Tsar Peter the Great built the city in 1703 on a swamp far away from the capital in order to restructure and modernize Russian society. Peter the Great had traveled in Western Europe incognito, fell in love with the city of Amsterdam, and tried to recreate the beautiful canals in northern Russian. The swampy terrain largely foiled his plans, but he had not finished yet. He and his successors commissioned European architects to build dwellings for aristocrats all along the river embankments. Now everywhere you walk in St. Petersburg along the water you see jarringly out-of-place Baroque architecture.

St. Petersburg's reputation for independence and western influence lives on 300 years later. Any Russian will tell you that St. Petersburg is Russia's "cultural capital." Musicians from around the country gather in St. Petersburg for its creative environment, some even move here permanently. It is possible to see world class ballet, theater, or opera for very low prices. There are dozens of theaters in St. Petersburg, and not a single performance I have seen has been a disappointment. 

Today begins the holiday of Maslenitsa, which I will describe in my next post.