Again, another week rap up (I'll get better at this, I promise)
The beginning of the week was pretty basic: went to class, pronounced words wrong, talked about who we would like to meet if we could meet anyone (my answer was Robert Plant :P), and the such.
On Monday, Sveta (Света), who is a friend of Anya's, offered to take some of us on a tour of where she worked. She is a writer for a St. Petersburg finance newspaper. I was excited to see how a newspaper usually worked (never been to a newspaper office before, only seen some on television).
After a 15 minute walk, a 10 minute bus ride, and another 10 minute walk, we were there. What's really cool is that it is situated at a "business center;" the office for Microsoft was right next door. Walking inside, it looked like I stepped into an Ikea showroom. Everything was colorful and made out of that Ikea styled wood. They even had multiple fish tanks all over (with ridiculous amounts of exotic fish...and some sharks?). After a quick tour we all gathered in a conference room and discussed the development of technology in the world and how that affects news reporting and the development of businesses (from contraptions to facebook). They even told us that if we would like to, we could write articles about budding businesses at Yale and they will publish them in their paper. Sweet.
Tuesday, Olya (Оля), another friend of Anya's, offered to take some of us to the top of the St. Isaac's Cathedral (Исаа́киевский Собо́р), the largest Russian Orthodox church in the city. It is absolutely magnificent in all senses of the word. For the past two weeks, it's been surrounding me: we can see it directly accross the Neva from our university (pictured), we pass by it constantly to get to other National landmarks, sit in the parks around it, and when Eunju and I were stuck because of the bridges, we chilled around it for a while. As a class we are not going to see it, which is really a shame, but we were free to go see it whenever we would like. I wanted to go to the top of the church since I first saw it, so I jumped at the opportunity to go with Olya.
From here, you can see every point of the city. It's amazing.
Nicholas I Monument from above. St. Issac's sits right between Nicholas and Peter the Great (the Bronze Horseman). Funny story: originally, this statue was going to face the other way, away from St. Issac's in order to face the governmental building. However, it would seem as if Nicholas was sticking his butt in Peter's direction (his statue at least), and they couldn't have that. So the plans were changed and Nicholas switched around.
The Neva River and the Admiralty (former Naval base-> now Academy)
The city (lovely shot of the Russian flag if you squint)
One of the many statues surrounding the top of the Cathedral (reminds me a little of "Don't Blink," haha Doctor Who)
The Hermitage (left) and Alexander's Column (right)
After leaving the Cathedral, we bought ice cream and sat in a park facing the Neva along with the Bronze Horseman.
Peter in all of his glory
View of St. Isaac's from where we were sitting
And then on Wednesday we took as nice old trip to the Russian Museum. Originally it was the Mihailovsky Palace, though it was later turned into a museum and opened to the public in 1898.
Here we saw mostly religious paintings (what we are currently studying in our culture class), such as icons from the 14th century, to more modern pieces of the early 1900s. Me being the art fanatic that I am, took notes and will be looking up my favorite pieces soon. Our guide was wonderful. He not only explained the history of the artist and the pieces, but also different aspects of the piece itself (technique, images, etc), what he believed they reflected, and how they related to the time period. He made me toy again with the idea of maybe majoring in something arty.
You needed to buy a special pass to take pictures inside, so I only have pictures of the outside.
A statue of Pushkin in a park in front of the museum aptly called "Art Park" (it's surrounded by theaters and museums).
One of the lions protecting the museum. These lions (along with sphinxes) can be found all over the city, in many different forms. They are a sign of power. However, Lewis Carroll described the lions during his visit as 'playful kittens with big balls of yarn.'
And the rest of the week entailed of us getting ready for our camping trip this past weekend (I'll do a whole blog post on that....I'm coming, I'm coming!). I had to buy a backpack for the trip, given that my bag broke this week and my хозяйка didn't have one (though considering I think she's going on 70, that's not too much of a surprise). The thing is with russian stores, everything is specialized - everything. There is no one stop shopping store a-la Walmart to supply all your needs. Luckily there is a sport's store at the metro station near my apartment, so I was able to grab a backpack there. I feel like my russian reaches its best when I have to buy obscure necessities like an internet router or a backpack, but absent when I'm ordering lunch at a restaurant. I guess the process of learning russian takes a detour? Может быть.
Also, while at the store I swear I heard another song by this guy on the intercom (someone showed me this back in New Haven. Worth the watch). Possibly the only black rapper in Russia.
I'll come back soon with a new update on camping this past weekend. Even while sick, I'm so happy I went. Rural Russia is much different from the hustle and bustle of St. Petersburg.
Пока!
--Н.И--
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