Parks of Leningrad (Saint-Petersburg)

May 21, 2008

I call this city by its former name, the name of those times, when I lived there.
I want to speak of its wonderful parks. At the age of twenty I spent summer in Poushkin, named also Tsar village. It is not far from Leningrad, you can go there by train from Vitebsk railway station. There are two spacious parks there: Katherine Park named after empress Katherine the second, and Alexander Park. Katherine Park is more decorated, full of statues, pavilions and grottos. Katherine Palace in baroque style reminds of Winter Palace in St-Petersburg.

It is a museum full of wonderful furniture, china, exquisite clocks and other objects of luxury.
Everywhere in Katherine Park you can see engraved lines from verses by Poushkin, the famous Russian poet, who studied in Lyceum here and wrote a lot of verses dedicated to this place.
Alexander Park is not so sunny and smart. It was rather gloomy in those days and more in romantic style. There are many ponds there, and green trees look into waters. Much later I visited this park and found it again beautiful and lively. We could hear an orchestra, playing wonderful music in the open and birds sang at the same time, supporting the musicians.

Another wondeful park is Pavlovsk park, it is the biggest of all. Its long straight lanes are very regular and impressive. There was a music pavilion there, This park wasn’t so decorated, as parks of Poushkin, being more natural. You can reach Pavlovsk also by train from Vitebsk railway station.

From Baltic railway station you can go to famous Petergoff. It is famous with its unique fountains, there are scores of them.

The biggest is Samson, a very prominent and high. There are lots of small fountains, some of them with tricks. There is also a palace there.

In Leningrad itself there are fine parks: Michailovsky, Victory Park and many others. A very fine and spacious park is in Elagin island.
It was always a place of culture with many attractions. It is on the shore of Baltic sea, there is a beach there. In my young days there was sometimes a balley on the water and many other shows. The most interesting celebrations were at the beginning and at the end of “White Nights”, usually in May and June.

In Leningrad there is a very famous Summer Garden (Letny Sad). It is near the Neva river. There are a lot of statues of Greek Gods and nymphs. In the centre of the garden there is a monument to Ivan Krylov, a famous Russian fabulist. The garden is surrounded by a long water pool named “Swan ditch”.

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A Trip to Romania

May 12, 2008

I went to Romania in 1985, when there still Chaushesku was the dictator of the country. I saw the country in the period of stagnation. Nothing then changed, “perestroyka” was only beginning in the USSR. My first impression of Bucharest, and in fact shock, was on the first day of our arrival, on Sunday in the middle of September. Our group then just came by train from Russia. In the morning a group of tourists went by foot to a supermarket without our guide. I had a small bag in my hand, where half of my permitted sum of Romanian leus (then a Soviet citizen could have only a limited sum) was in a purse. It was my first trip abroad, and as it is known, only “nomenclature” could go abroad and with a special permition in the Soviet Union. Nobody had told me about the danger of robbery and pickpockets. In an instance I was robbed by a thief and I did not notice it. My companions saw a little boy of about five who opened my bag and took the purse very skillfully. I tried not to be disappointed. In the supermarket my college was almost robbed by a cashier, who did not want to give her change, a rather big sum. But she and I were persistent, and at last the woman gave in. Not everything was so bad.

On the next day we were taken to the country and visited a kind of museum: a typical peasant house  with a lot of objects made by craftsmen.. We went by bus about the country and watched wonderful views and nice small towns. We could even buy clothes, in the USSR that was a problem. We were in Romania only three days, our next country was Hungary.

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ITALY - part 2

May 7, 2008

As we travelled from the South to the North, we were staying in very good hotels with good and diversified breakfasts. A very new and modern hotel “Ibis” near Rome was a little sophisticated with a system of turning on and off the light that had to be learned and a modern system of locking the door with a card. In this hotel there happened a strange mess in the morning when our guide hurried us up, while we had to find and wash cups and plates for our breakfast, there were no waiters at all. They said it was a kind of strike.

A wonderful hotel “Grand Plaza” near Florence was a restored ancient building with high wooden windows and doors. It combined ancient grandeur with all the modern comfort and services.
The architecture of Venice was unique and beautiful in its own style. Venice was the last place of our tour, and we were to depart from Verona.

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