Russia: St Petersburg (Russian folk dance)
After 2 days in Moscow, we went back to St Petersburg.
Artilleries outside the Artillery museum
The golden spire dome of St Paul's cathedral is the symbol of St Petersburg. St Peter and St Paul fortress was originally a military fortress and later became a prison for political dissidents eg son of Peter the Great and Trotsky.
At night we went to Menshikov's Palace to catch the Russian folk dance. It was totally awesome! It is a combination of a folk show, aerobic dance, circus and gymnastics!
I've uploaded some clips:
Instrumental
Dance
Twirl
Acrobatics
After the folk dance, the 3 Taiwanese and I went to a Chinese Restaurant. Amazingly, it was actually cheaper to eat there than at other eating outlets in Russia. We were all surprised cos we expected it to be much more expensive. Damn, should have eaten there for all the meals. The Taiwanese ordered food like mad and lamented how much they missed the food in Taiwan. Yeah, nothing beats a 清淡 bowl of soup dumplings and noodles in the cold winter of Russia.
Russia Conclusion:
St Petersburg has nicer architectures, a richer history while Moscow has shorter history and less places to visit. However, St Petersburg seems a lot less happening than the capital Moscow. Quote: "St Petersburg struggles to be a ghost capital that seems frozen in time". Compared to St Petersburg, Moscow is more metropolitan but that means it is less different from other European cities.
Moreover, St Petersburg buildings cannot be higher than the Hermitage(Winter Palace) which is abt 20m. It was only recently they lifted the height limit. As such, St Petersburg has no skyscrapers and its skyline is rather horizontal.
One thing I missed was the KGB Museum in Moscow which we would have needed to pre-arrange tours. This is interesting: "notable KGB operations"
It was hard to go around w/o understanding or speaking Russian. Most do not speak English nor understand it. And all the food is labelled in Cyrillic alphabets rather than English alphabets
Polluted air, like india, except the air is filled with industrial chemical smell!
Eating out in Russia is not cheap, contrary to my inital expectation. According to the St Petersburg Times papers, which I read when I was there, the explosion of oil exports out of Russia led to inflation of prices and some critics compared the sudden wealth to the Dutch disease
Artilleries outside the Artillery museum
The golden spire dome of St Paul's cathedral is the symbol of St Petersburg. St Peter and St Paul fortress was originally a military fortress and later became a prison for political dissidents eg son of Peter the Great and Trotsky.
At night we went to Menshikov's Palace to catch the Russian folk dance. It was totally awesome! It is a combination of a folk show, aerobic dance, circus and gymnastics!
I've uploaded some clips:
Instrumental
Dance
Twirl
Acrobatics
After the folk dance, the 3 Taiwanese and I went to a Chinese Restaurant. Amazingly, it was actually cheaper to eat there than at other eating outlets in Russia. We were all surprised cos we expected it to be much more expensive. Damn, should have eaten there for all the meals. The Taiwanese ordered food like mad and lamented how much they missed the food in Taiwan. Yeah, nothing beats a 清淡 bowl of soup dumplings and noodles in the cold winter of Russia.
Russia Conclusion:
St Petersburg has nicer architectures, a richer history while Moscow has shorter history and less places to visit. However, St Petersburg seems a lot less happening than the capital Moscow. Quote: "St Petersburg struggles to be a ghost capital that seems frozen in time". Compared to St Petersburg, Moscow is more metropolitan but that means it is less different from other European cities.
Moreover, St Petersburg buildings cannot be higher than the Hermitage(Winter Palace) which is abt 20m. It was only recently they lifted the height limit. As such, St Petersburg has no skyscrapers and its skyline is rather horizontal.
One thing I missed was the KGB Museum in Moscow which we would have needed to pre-arrange tours. This is interesting: "notable KGB operations"
It was hard to go around w/o understanding or speaking Russian. Most do not speak English nor understand it. And all the food is labelled in Cyrillic alphabets rather than English alphabets
Polluted air, like india, except the air is filled with industrial chemical smell!
Eating out in Russia is not cheap, contrary to my inital expectation. According to the St Petersburg Times papers, which I read when I was there, the explosion of oil exports out of Russia led to inflation of prices and some critics compared the sudden wealth to the Dutch disease
posted by Kaiz at 3:08 PM
1 Comments:
i think you missed the armoury! collection of all the weapons and treasures of the russian empire! it is like the lourve of russia in st petersburg! cant remember the exact name of tat museum at the corner of st. petersburg....
anyway some nice photos, some of the poses were exactly that of mine (e.g. the church bell and entrance at the kremlin! - swear that it's like a photoshop of mine with urself superimposed over mine! haha...) I hope you entered the cathedral of st. paul, i went but it was (believe it or not) closed! ooh.. there is tis other cathedral at st. petersbury tat looks like the one at red square (you know with the coloured roofs (i.e. the famous one in tetris) which is even nicer.. did you go there?
from the looks of it you saw quite some other things i din see... folk dance performances, ate at restaurants, artillery musuem, stayed at hotels, etc etc... juz goes to show how much there actually is to see in juz 2 cities alone! hope you got to try things like the shyamura (i think its spelt like tat!) and tried the metro system there (the stations design were amazing!)
we should share some of our photos sometime! cheers....
- tx
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