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In St. Petersburg: Thursday, November 20th, 2008, 11:36 pm (GMT+3) Weather Temperature: -1° C (30° F) • Feels like: -1° C • (30° F) • Flurries • Humidity: 92% • Barometer: 28.81" Hg (731 mmHg) • Wind: N 1 mph • Sunrise: 9:12 AM • Sunset: 4:17 PM •

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Happy birthday, happy birthday St. Pete! On May 27th the city celebrated its 300th anniversary and this is
an international event with 41 presidents and prime ministers coming from all over the world.

The celebrations started on 23rd of May and finished on 1st of June. The night from 27th to 28th May was the culmination - media says there were 200 000 people in the city center that night. Our special reporter, Max, visited the central event - the laser show - and took a few exclusive photos, which I proudly present to your attention.


People crowded on the embankments and bridges	Show start	Show goes on

In the meantime, professional photo and TV reporters, and of course VIPs were watching
the same show from the Hermitage museum roof.

This photo by Alexander Belenky/Sptime shows some gap between elite and regular watching places :) You can find more St. Petersburg anniversary photos from SpTimes here.

Yes, various interesting events took place during anniversary. Memories of these events aren't the only things to stay with St. Petersburgers. Two year preparations work made huge impovements in St. Petersburg, from center to its outskirts, from renovation of palaces and monuments, to roads and embankments. St. Petersburg started to have a much better look!

It's surprising, but local prices weren't significantly increased during anniversary time. If you are thinking about going to St. Petersburg this summer, let me tell you: the prices for accommodation, excursions, restaraunts are regular or maybe just a little bit higher.

I heard often from people who study Russian that they lack studying materials and good teachers and also Russian-learning communities in their home countries. Here is a report on that from Australian girl, whom I taught some Russian slang in the April issue.

By Roz (P03A) in Cloudy Melbourne.

No one said learning Russian would be easy. Especially to an Australian whose only language is English, and lives on the other side of the planet. It throws up a whole myriad of new challenges. However, these are fun, interesting and often suspiring, revealing new things not only about unfamiliar, far-off Russia, but comfy ol' Melbourne aswell.

Learning the Cyrillic alphabet was my first hurdle, which thanks to a series of incredibly boring meetings and lectures provided the opportunity I needed to memorise it. However, trying to pronounce the letters and words has proved a lot more difficult, requiring me to overcome an unforgiving Australian accent! The 'Seychas' news that broadcasts every morning is not much help. The newsreaders speak so fast that most of the time every word merges into one undecipherable murmur. My Russian teacher and some Russian colleagues at work are a great help, but I only hear them talk sporadically and I quickly fall back into speaking Australian-English.

Learning Russian vocabulary has been a trial. The local Russian newspaper is made up of many Anglicised words. Some of my textbooks are hopelessly outdated (I am sure people in Moscow do not still wear flares!!). Other books vary from containing some particularly useful words to a down-right eclectic and useless list, such as:

- Blast furnace
- Ore
- Spinning rod
- Trawler
- Stamp-collecting (who admits to that?)
- Jubilee
- Fox terrier

Such words are unlikely to make it into daily conversation, unless of course you are a stamp collecting, fox-terrier owning, monarchist engineer!!

In addition, there is also a startling array of ready-to-go phrases. They range from the ever-handy "it is good to dream", recommended for fending off Mr. Sleaze-bag at nightclubs. Then there are the phrases whose usefulness lies only in providing articles such as this comical relief. In English they translate to:

- "What is the coat of arms of your town?"
- "When was the canal dug?"
- "What do you call this embankment?"
- "Let's look at the tigers!"
- "I want to see the hounds"
- "Show me some brushes for enamel painting, please"
- "How many rubies are there in this watch?"
- "What fodder grass do you sow?"

This list of phrases has not been made up!! Sadly, they, and others like them, are from a little Russian-English phrase book published in Moscow, 1957, which I found in a Melbourne used bookstore. The book has come a long way from where it originated, and I have an even more formidable journey ahead if I am ever going to make myself understood in Russia! Somehow, I don't think asking about coats of arms and tigers will get me very far in St. Petersburg! However, even if I do learn useful phrases such as "I would like a strong coffee, please", there is no guarantee that I won't sound like I am saying, "I want to see the hounds". That Australian accent just won't go away.

Certainly, the tyranny of distance reduces me to relying on scraps of information to learn bits and pieces about Russia and Russian language. In amongst it all, I am lead along the right path by attending Russian classes where I not only learn grammar and conservational skills, but a lot about my own language aswell. Almost weekly, our teacher has to outline the mysteries of English grammar to us in order to teach us Russian!

Increasingly I am coming to realise that we are living in a very "global" city. Learning a language helps you to participate in this domain. It is a lot of work but you can have fun and meet many people along the way! Good luck everyone and hope to see you in St.Petersburg some day!

Roz / P03A
e-mail rosrymer@hotmail.com

Thanks Roz, I will try to help you and others by Russian lessons in our next issues. Now let's see what PetersWalkingTours guys have prepared to entertain us.

White Nights
column by Petr Kozyrev,
Peter's Walking Tours
e-mail : info@peterswalk.com

A few themes that top the May and June charts in St. Petersburg:

Graduation

June is the graduation month for most of St. Petersburg's universities and schools. Local residents cannot imagine the White Nights festivities without crowds of graduates partying along the banks of the Neva. Groups of dressed-up girls and boys with bottles of champagne and flowers occupy all prime spots on the embankments during the night, singing songs, watching opening of drawbridges, huge barges passing by. Particularly popular among ex-students are the place with the Sphinxes in front of the Academy of Arts, the stretch of the embankment between the Summer Gardens and the Troitsky bridge, the Field of Mars, and of course the Palace Embankment.

White Nights

White Nights is a period of summer roughly two weeks before and two weeks after the summer solstice, June 22. During that time, the sun only disappears for a couple of hours, and hides only 7 degrees below the horizon - the evening twilight gradually turns into sunrise. The city becomes very romantic during the white nights - silhouettes of palaces and open drawbridges have long become the popular backdrop for love dates, late night strolls along the Neva and the canals, wild parties that only end when it's time to get up and go to work. Get equipped with the timetable of the drawbridges - each of them opens and closes at fixed times every night. Our recommendation - get yourself a bicycle and spend a white night out on two wheels. There are plenty of 24-hour street cafes and kiosks to keep you going.

Another important aspect of life in St. Petersburg in June is 'snow-in-June' - the bloom of the poplar trees. There are thousands of poplars (this particular kind is called cottonwood sometimes) in the city. Latin name is Populus deltoides. During the Soviet period, the authorities were planting them to drain the swampy soil - poplars take huge amounts of water. Also, they grow fast - that probably fitted well into Soviet Five-Year plans for making the city greener. Nobody took into view the fact that the bloom of poplars is an annual disaster for many local residents - substantial numbers of people are heavily allergic to it. Running noses, itching eyes and sneezing are the common symptoms, with asthmatics feeling particularly bad. Another devastating result of the poplar-planting policy is old trees falling onto people's heads during windstorms. [Hey, it doesn't happen daily, both windstorms and tree falling ... I can only remember 1-2 serious cases of that for past few years, Editor's note]
Old poplar trunks rot out from the inside - you can see hollow stumps and broken trees lying on the streets after storms, which are not infrequent in St. Petersburg in summer. Damaged cars, broken windows, an occasional victim of a fallen poplar branch are reasons enough for city authorities to start getting rid of the killer trees - several thousands of them were cut down over the last couple of years, and plans are to eventually replace them with less harmful and certainly more pleasant linden trees.

St. Pete outskirts

With summer temperatures in St Petersburg getting as high as 30C (86F), local residents get to enjoy a couple of months of proper hot and sunny summer - swimming and sunbathing become vital activities. Some of the more popular places to go are the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland and lakes north of the city, on the Karelian Isthmus. Gulf of Finland at the eastern corner of the Baltic sea is rather shallow - the water warms up enough for a pleasant swim. Sandy beaches at Repino, Komarovo and Sestroretsk become a carpet of tanned bodies, as thousands of residents of the sweaty and sticky St Petersburg head out during weekends. The lakes is a very St. Petersburg entertainment - this territory used to be Finnish until mid-20th century, and villages and lakes there still keep their Finnish names. You feel almost in Finland swimming in the waters of Heppojarvi (Horse Head lake in Finnish), or playing volleyball on the beach at Repino (until 1945 it was called Kuokkala in Finnish). As one Moscow visitor remarked when visiting St. Petersburg, 'it feels that you guys here almost speak with Finnish accent'. To get to the beaches, take a local train from Finland Station - 45 minutes westbound to Komarovo, or just over half an hour to Toksovo in the north, which has a few good lakes. Stock up on meat for the barbie, and buy your beers at the platform upon arrival. Don't forget the volleyball and fresbee - goodtime guaranteed.

Peter's Walking Tours occasionally organise Day Out trips for budget travellers - you only pay for your drinks and food, no extra charge. Inquire at info@peterswalk.com - we know all the best places in the area.

Thanks Mr.Kozyrev ... and now after all of this storms and goodtime promises,
let's have something to eat in ...

Firstly, a little explanation: it might look suspicious that I'm so happy with all the cafes I described in past issues - Le Paris restaraunt, Gondola cafe and Sinope cafe. That's because I write about places I like. St. Petersburg has an extremely high number of cafes, and new, very nice and interesting ones, open each year. So I won't be forced to write a McDonalds review some day - I will always have a choice. And I won't write about drink-or-die places, where vodka is main and beer is second course. Some expats go there in search of the Russian soul and sometimes in the hope of having a crash course of Russian. But here magic comes into play: when you drink, more and more understanding comes to you, but next morning you might have problems even remembering your name. So let's talk about nice places, where you can meet good people, like in ...

Aurora confectionary, located on Nevsky prospekt, 60. The cafe is named after the Greek goddess of morning dew, Aurora. The place is famous for delicious desserts, cakes and a good selection of black and green tea, plus they have a long wine list and cigars. These ingredients, in various combinations, work like relief from stress, they just take your problems away. This always makes my visits to Aurora longer than I planned. I sit there with friends, or just with a book, and my only thoughts are what to order next. So, if you can't learn yoga, I can recommend Aurora for relaxation.

From its opening in late April, the RST hostel has already served a couple of dozens clients. On the photo - the very first guests of RST hostel from Poland, Grzegorz and Jacek. Thanks for visiting, guys !

We kindly invite you to visit Russian St. Petersburg hostel page and check out what the advantages of hostel accommodation are. You can also write to us at hostel@russian-st-petersburg.com

Russian St. Petersburg Tours and EducaCentre is member of PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association), ALTO (Association of language travel organizations), FIYTO (Federation of International Youth travel organisations). There 3 725 members in these organizations, and we decide to contact them directly with news on RST hostel opening. The effect is amazing : we have more than 1300 replies (1 out of 3 effeciency), and people still keep writing to us. We suggest all associations members to create and maintain "horizontal" links with other members, cause it works very well. If you need advise on details, or you'd like to share your marketing ideas with us, please write at promotion@russian-st-petersburg.com

Thanks to efforts of our management team, we made partnership agreement with Sundowners company, who made famous VodkaTrain tour. According to agreement, groups of Australians and Americans will come to St. Petersburg twice a

month through the year, and RST will provide them with excursions and accommodation.

And that's not all about our international activities - director of RST/EducaCentre, Konstantin Filkov recently returned from Norway, where he signed letter of intent with Russia House society. RST will participate in bringing to Russia Norwegian tourists of "Viking way" and Norwegian businessmen. Special travel and educational program is being prepared now.

Official anniversary celebration programm
The Days of celebration of St. Petersburg`s 300th Anniversary officially started on May 23rd, 2003. All the ten days, following the anniversary were saturated with celebrations, festivals and concerts. Click here for St. Petersburg anniversary events.

Hiro Yamagata’s laser show

Hiro Yamagata’s laser show commemorating the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg is held on May 27, 30 and 31, 2003 at the central part of the Neva river. Hiro Yamagata has considerable experience in working with water and water surfaces is going to implement an idea of lighting all the three bridges in front of Palace Embankment and the surface of the Neva river. In addition, the show will cover the frontal part of the Hermitage (facing the Neva) which will be used like a screen for changing laser rays and laser pictures. St. Petersburg will become the first Russian city where it will be possible to see the art of the great Japanese artist.

Hiro Yamagata is the author of the world famous light performances in Europe and United States. The most impressive show of Mr. Yamagata was the light decoration of Eiffel’s Tower commemorating its 100th anniversary.

source : www.petersburgcity.com

Vladimir Putin welcome foreign guests 30th of May

The official reception of foreign guests and their wives took place on May 30 by the Bronze Horseman. 41 presidents and prime ministers gather in Saint Petersburg on May 30-31.

The leaders from the following countries visit the city: the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, the US, France, Finland, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Slovakia, China, Austria, the Czech Republic, Japan, Belgium, Greece, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Malta, Slovenia and India. General Secretary of the UN Kofi Annan, General Director of UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura and Chairman of the EC Romano Prodi are also expected to arrive.
source : www.petersburgcity.com

Michael Flatley the principal star and choreographer of , the founder of "The Lord of the Dance" troupe comes to Saint-Petersburg to perform for the heads of the state.

Mr. Flatley will be accompanied by 18 of his top dancers and has been in training for the event for some weeks. He will fly to Russia on his private jet and then travel with President Bush on Airforce One aircraft between the cities of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg to do the show, which will also be attended by the Presidents and Prime Ministers of Britain, Russia, China, Japan and all the Heads of State of the EU and the G8, the top economic powers of the world.

The exclusive event will take place in the magnificent Constantine Palace, which has been completely restored to its original glory for the anniversary celebrations. Michael Flatley says that he is 'proud to be given the honour of entertaining the people who run the world in a city steeped in history and art.'
source : www.petersburgcity.com


	!!! See you in June 2003 with my new stories !!! And if you have QUESTION, please ask at peter@russian-st-petersburg.com !

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