The launch motor sailed to the Hermitage, the former Winter Palace of the tsars, passing under an arch bridge low that I feared would graze my scalp that we slipped under him. Just before a noisy wedding party on the deck of a cruise ship timber full of air with vodka-fueled cries of "gorko!" Which means bitterness, an encouragement to the traditional Russian wedding and groom to kiss, and so the guests provide the opposite of what was proclaimed.
Then, the channel has spread into the wide Neva River, and all of St. Petersburg spread before us. clouds pink, peach and purple-streaked horizon. On the other side, on the island Zayachy - one of a multitude of small islands in the Neva River that fall within the Greater Saint Petersburg - are SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral, burial place of Peter the Great, Alexander the three and, more recently, Tsar Nicolas executed, Tsarina Alexandra and their children. Cathedral inspired gold sparkled in the sunlight fading. I breathed the sea air - a zesty blend of gasoline and the river smells ripe - and looked at my watch. It was 23 hours, and the sky was still as bright as that of an early summer evening in New York.
In St. Petersburg, the great city of the czars, they are called the "White Nights": the 80 evenings from May to late July, when the city comes out of months of cold and darkness and celebrates brief return of the light of day by day and night. Inhabitants of the cultural capital of Russia - just a few lines of latitude south of the Arctic Circle, at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland - have been welcoming the summer with relief and celebration since Peter the Great founded the city in the early 18th century. (The name of the new Tsar capital after its patron saint, Saint Peter the Apostle.)
For most of the 20th century, however, the celebrations were muted by wars, revolutions and dark imperatives of the Soviet state. The Russian Revolution broke out here in October 1917 when the city was called Petrograd. Only a few decades later, between 1941 and 1944, as much as 800,000 people died of hunger, disease and exposure during the siege of nearly 900 days of the Nazi city the Bolsheviks renamed Leningrad. Under Joseph Stalin and his successors Communists, White Nights were disciplined business, limited to a handful of classical music concerts. Even after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, was in St. Petersburg remained low, the economy has deteriorated so suddenly, after decades of mismanagement that many people have become dependent on food rationing . For a time, St. Petersburg, which has regained its original name in 1991, was even forced to accept humanitarian food aid from foreign donors - just the economic environment in which to stage all night , orgies in the city.
During the last decade, however, the booming economy of Russia has rejuvenated St. Petersburg, and sleepless nights have become increasingly fierce. Russian entrepreneurs have poured money into new bars, restaurants and hotels. A growing number of visitors from abroad, as well as the wealthy Russian tourists - their wholesale petrodollars - and members of the head of an increasingly mobile middle class Russian here for the summer holidays. The city fathers have taken the initiative, pumping city and state funding on events.
long summer days exist elsewhere in Russia, of course, from Moscow to Yakutsk Yekaterinburg, but the sleepless nights have become an integral part of the identity of St. Petersburg - a celebration of the unique beauty of the city and its role as the country's artistic epicenter.
No other city in Russia has such a breathtaking place. St. Petersburg was built on what were originally over 100 islands formed by a lattice of rivers, streams, rivers and natural canals that flow into the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the Neva River . The Neva River, the main thoroughfare through the city, snakes its way east-west through St. Petersburg, essentially dividing it in two. The southern half, the most thought to Venice or Amsterdam, is cut by a grid of channels and includes many familiar sights of the city. Among them: the Hermitage, the largest museum of Russia and the former Winter Palace of the tsars and the Palace Square and Alexander Column, the Kazan Cathedral, modeled on St. Peter's Vatican and the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, a monument marks the spot of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Here, too, turns Nevsky Prospekt, the main commercial street.
On the other side, the northern part of St. Petersburg is composed of a group of islands, including Vasilievskiy Petrogradsky, and Dekabristov Krestovsky. Four drawbridges on the Neva River connecting northern and southern parts of the city, while 342 small bridges, built over four centuries and made of materials ranging from wood to brick iron cross canals of the city and its tributaries.
You will find celebrations of St. Petersburg Nights in white almost every corner of this vast metropolis water. Dance clubs and "beach clubs" - including the most exclusive Royal Beach Club on Krestovsky Island, a forested park that attracts many wealthy city youth - remain open until at least 6 hours White Nights weekend. Throughout the night, Nevsky Prospekt is full of revelers. There is a wealth of cultural events, one-day festival of Dostoevsky on July 3 - a celebration any time of the local author that many regard as the greatest novelist of Russia - at the White Nights Festival, a combination of classical music, opera and ballet from May to late July. The "Scarlet Sails," a city largely high school diploma from the end of World War II, takes place at the end of June and attracts partiers of all ages. The celebration includes an hourlong fireworks display on the Neva and the river crossing a graceful three-masted schooner modeled after one used by the imperial family in the late 19th century. And it does not even include the variety of street theater, jam meetings and gatherings along the banks of the Neva, just before 2 hours each day watching the four major drawbridges, all lights, mounted at an angle of 90 degrees to allow barges and other vessels for wholesale pass. This happens throughout the year, of course, but the hot weather and the sky still light to show the White Nights celebration of a special feeling. "When you have only 80 days of sun, you have to take the best of them, "I was told by Sergei Bobovnikov, an antiquities dealer from the Soviet era and the art of propaganda that was born in Kursk, a city near Moscow, but moved in St. Petersburg to attend college three decades ago.
Mr. Bobovnikov maintains two apartments in St. Petersburg: one on the island of Petrogradskaya Storoni, the other on the Neva River, one block from Nevsky Prospekt. This means that, unlike many other partygoers stranded on the wrong side of the river after rising drawbridge, it is always the best place to sleep. (Mr. Bobovnikov hired me and my traveling companion Petrogradskaya Storoni his apartment for the duration of our stay the weekend.)
Then, the channel has spread into the wide Neva River, and all of St. Petersburg spread before us. clouds pink, peach and purple-streaked horizon. On the other side, on the island Zayachy - one of a multitude of small islands in the Neva River that fall within the Greater Saint Petersburg - are SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral, burial place of Peter the Great, Alexander the three and, more recently, Tsar Nicolas executed, Tsarina Alexandra and their children. Cathedral inspired gold sparkled in the sunlight fading. I breathed the sea air - a zesty blend of gasoline and the river smells ripe - and looked at my watch. It was 23 hours, and the sky was still as bright as that of an early summer evening in New York.
In St. Petersburg, the great city of the czars, they are called the "White Nights": the 80 evenings from May to late July, when the city comes out of months of cold and darkness and celebrates brief return of the light of day by day and night. Inhabitants of the cultural capital of Russia - just a few lines of latitude south of the Arctic Circle, at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland - have been welcoming the summer with relief and celebration since Peter the Great founded the city in the early 18th century. (The name of the new Tsar capital after its patron saint, Saint Peter the Apostle.)
For most of the 20th century, however, the celebrations were muted by wars, revolutions and dark imperatives of the Soviet state. The Russian Revolution broke out here in October 1917 when the city was called Petrograd. Only a few decades later, between 1941 and 1944, as much as 800,000 people died of hunger, disease and exposure during the siege of nearly 900 days of the Nazi city the Bolsheviks renamed Leningrad. Under Joseph Stalin and his successors Communists, White Nights were disciplined business, limited to a handful of classical music concerts. Even after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, was in St. Petersburg remained low, the economy has deteriorated so suddenly, after decades of mismanagement that many people have become dependent on food rationing . For a time, St. Petersburg, which has regained its original name in 1991, was even forced to accept humanitarian food aid from foreign donors - just the economic environment in which to stage all night , orgies in the city.
During the last decade, however, the booming economy of Russia has rejuvenated St. Petersburg, and sleepless nights have become increasingly fierce. Russian entrepreneurs have poured money into new bars, restaurants and hotels. A growing number of visitors from abroad, as well as the wealthy Russian tourists - their wholesale petrodollars - and members of the head of an increasingly mobile middle class Russian here for the summer holidays. The city fathers have taken the initiative, pumping city and state funding on events.
long summer days exist elsewhere in Russia, of course, from Moscow to Yakutsk Yekaterinburg, but the sleepless nights have become an integral part of the identity of St. Petersburg - a celebration of the unique beauty of the city and its role as the country's artistic epicenter.
No other city in Russia has such a breathtaking place. St. Petersburg was built on what were originally over 100 islands formed by a lattice of rivers, streams, rivers and natural canals that flow into the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the Neva River . The Neva River, the main thoroughfare through the city, snakes its way east-west through St. Petersburg, essentially dividing it in two. The southern half, the most thought to Venice or Amsterdam, is cut by a grid of channels and includes many familiar sights of the city. Among them: the Hermitage, the largest museum of Russia and the former Winter Palace of the tsars and the Palace Square and Alexander Column, the Kazan Cathedral, modeled on St. Peter's Vatican and the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, a monument marks the spot of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Here, too, turns Nevsky Prospekt, the main commercial street.
On the other side, the northern part of St. Petersburg is composed of a group of islands, including Vasilievskiy Petrogradsky, and Dekabristov Krestovsky. Four drawbridges on the Neva River connecting northern and southern parts of the city, while 342 small bridges, built over four centuries and made of materials ranging from wood to brick iron cross canals of the city and its tributaries.
You will find celebrations of St. Petersburg Nights in white almost every corner of this vast metropolis water. Dance clubs and "beach clubs" - including the most exclusive Royal Beach Club on Krestovsky Island, a forested park that attracts many wealthy city youth - remain open until at least 6 hours White Nights weekend. Throughout the night, Nevsky Prospekt is full of revelers. There is a wealth of cultural events, one-day festival of Dostoevsky on July 3 - a celebration any time of the local author that many regard as the greatest novelist of Russia - at the White Nights Festival, a combination of classical music, opera and ballet from May to late July. The "Scarlet Sails," a city largely high school diploma from the end of World War II, takes place at the end of June and attracts partiers of all ages. The celebration includes an hourlong fireworks display on the Neva and the river crossing a graceful three-masted schooner modeled after one used by the imperial family in the late 19th century. And it does not even include the variety of street theater, jam meetings and gatherings along the banks of the Neva, just before 2 hours each day watching the four major drawbridges, all lights, mounted at an angle of 90 degrees to allow barges and other vessels for wholesale pass. This happens throughout the year, of course, but the hot weather and the sky still light to show the White Nights celebration of a special feeling. "When you have only 80 days of sun, you have to take the best of them, "I was told by Sergei Bobovnikov, an antiquities dealer from the Soviet era and the art of propaganda that was born in Kursk, a city near Moscow, but moved in St. Petersburg to attend college three decades ago.
Mr. Bobovnikov maintains two apartments in St. Petersburg: one on the island of Petrogradskaya Storoni, the other on the Neva River, one block from Nevsky Prospekt. This means that, unlike many other partygoers stranded on the wrong side of the river after rising drawbridge, it is always the best place to sleep. (Mr. Bobovnikov hired me and my traveling companion Petrogradskaya Storoni his apartment for the duration of our stay the weekend.)
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