Friday, May 3, 2013

Look again,

So you are walking around the city of Saint Petersburg after you visited Grand Maket and all of the sudden you see an image that you think you saw on a puzzle before. I was looking around because I do that. 
I am not sure if we were walking to a station, or waiting for a bus, or what the circumstances were. The poster behind the lady all trimmed in furs, was very intriguing to me. What is it advertising, I don't know. It seems like one of those Cirque du Soliel esque programs. It was in town during 2/8-24 so there was a possibility we could have gone to it. It had interesting characters on the poster, the puppet master guy, the protagonist, the love interest. 


(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Triumphal_Gate)
Then I noticed the Moscow gate, which I didn't know exactly what it was or why it's in this location. Underneath, or around the gate runs a street trolley, taking up the middle of the street. Most of the buildings in the photo are residential. 

So this was the rare occasion that Loki actually had on tennis shoes. Sergey has jeans on, but would wear fleece "long underwear" under the pants. Sergey normally didn't wear gloves, Larisa doesn't have gloves on and Loki has his hands tucked into his jacket. 

This was the trolley that runs in the middle of the road. Not this particular section, but other sections of trolley, drivers will drive on the trolley path north or south to get around cars etc. Also yes, that's a Carls Jr over there to the left of the screen. Everything above the Carls Jr is residential. 

So here is my picturesque view of the Moscow Gate. The cars are driving in three or four lanes, depending on where you can squeeze and what time of day it is. The "billboard" on the bottom in the "shelter" 80000 is in Rubles so that would be about 2600 USD. To the left is a real estate sign. I think they are saying either the price is 1.3 million rubles or thirty thousand dollars. The middle sign is for Gazprom, which is the national oil industry. Gazprom provides natural gas for homes, and gasoline for automobiles. It's been around for 20 years only because it was created post communism collapse. The third sign is a transit sign. Each is different and makes absolutely no sense. If you speak Russian you are good to go. 

Oh and the signs constantly flip/change. 

This is one of the few subway images I could collect. We had purchased the stroller at this point, but because we were taking the taxi we didn't bring it with us. 

Sergey and Larisa frequently "debated" the taxi/subway/ walking conundrum. Generally I preferred the underground or bus transportation because driving on the streets is ridiculously scary.  

Grand Maket For the last time!

I think the most interesting thing about this image, is the detail that they put into creating it. Clearly it looks like police officers trying to arrest someone. The crowd of people, the uniformed Police, the automobiles, and the buildings are all carefully crafted.


This is an image of Pulkova airport, I believe. I am not really attempting to read it that well. Most of the displays are pretty accurate considering that I am looking at them from above, and that everything is written in Russian. At this point I was super excited because we would be leaving soon enough for the states. The young(er) man standing to the left of the photo has pretty typical hair for a youth. 

Here we are attempting to leave. That is Sergey and Larisa talking/holding Loki of course. It was really pleasant this day, and while we rode in a cab to the museum, we walked to the train station. 

This is the master diagram of the train layout. I was amazed, slightly, at how much time and detail was put into the train layouts.  

I thought this was an interesting image, because I initially thought it was a photo of Alexander square, but on second examination it is actually a photo of the miniatures.  We were able to eat at the Grand Maket, and they had pretty traditional russian food. Also they had tea, coffee and soda and some dessert type items. It was very interesting that this place was so huge, and that there was so much room for guests. Clearly this is a large tourist destination. 


This is the work room where the items are made and the trains are made. I learned that most of the items are made right there on site. I think that speaks for how much time is spent on the lay outs. You will notice that Loki has on tennis shoes, eventually I would bring an extra pair of shoes to trade out instead of his snow boots, if we would be at a location for an extended period of time. This day because it was nicer, and "warmer" I was able to convince Sergey and Larisa to allow Loki to go without his snow boots. Towards the end it was very difficult to get prepared to leave the apartment with all the dressing we had to do prior to leaving.