Sunday, August 10, 2014

So finishing up from July

I realized that I am pretty far behind on postings. So here are some final images of our time at the Summer garden. So a lot of things about Russia are odd and unexpected. The city, the downtow specifically Nevsky prospect is the main "drag". There sidewalks are wide and there are lots of different types of public transit. Including subways, but subways are underground. How do you get around if you have say a slight disability.
 Well as you can see from this wheel chair "ramp" (if you want to call it that), this is the tentative response to someone with a wheel chair. Or a stroller? The staircases to get down to the subwayss are more frightening and way more unsafe. The way down is very steep down those stair cases and it makes it more scary. In fact everything is steep and kind of dangerous. Also it gets worse when the weather is worse. So just imagine everything unsafe and slippery and probably neck breaking all the time.
 This is a very famous bridge. In fact all the bridges are famous in the city proper. The canals were created to make it into a Russian Venice way back. The city itself was largely designed, specifically the layout and streets etc, by Peter the Great (as the story goes) after he went on travels throughout Europe. The majority of the buildings were made/designed/created after his death. Other bridges include lion's holding the mouth of the crossing, and the bridge that they dumped Rasputin's body into after the botched assasination attempt. Many rivers held bodies after many botched or completed assisinations and murders. (King Alexander the First was assisinated by the river in Saint Petersburg.)

 This is one of the many, many small playgrounds built around apartment circles. The children usually play at them. But we wake up super early in the morning, so there isn't a lot of children playing around them. Also I don't like that Loki will play after 7 pm. Which is when a lot of children are out and playing.

 This is in the same play area. Their are some green areas but not a lot of grass, I would assume this is because of the weather/frozen snow. But there are some trees and it's clear that children are using them. Also the adults congregate there. It is really weird to see older adults there. I am not accustomed to seeing as many men as I see here at the parks. Either grandfathers, or fathers. Sometimes they are with their spouses, and the kids. Sometimes it is just the guys and the kids.
One final shot of the bridge. It's really strange to see the river, not frozen. I can't explain how frozen the river was when I was here the last time. I mean it was frozen, solid, people were ice fishing in it. People were boring holes, and ice fishing in the river, sitting on it. Men, large men, some even had chain saws. Now it's all smooth sailing, the water is deep so it must be pretty damn cold when it freezes.

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