Another essentially transitory day though we had an interesting stop in Veliky Novgorod. This is one of the most important ancient cities in Russia. It was pretty well totally destroyed during the war but has been brilliantly rebuilt to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.
Fig 1 The Kremlin at Veliky Novograd totally rebuilt after the war
This is one of the oldest towns in Russia and has an exotic history. It was attacked 26 times by the Swedes and 11 times by various German states. The Swedes last occupied it in 1611. It has an ancient Kremlin dating back to the 14th century containing the oldest palace in Russia. Although it wasn’t a fomal member of the Hanseatic league it acted as the Eastern entrepot for the league for trade with the states that became Russia trading in furs and other Russian specialities.
Figure 2 More of the Veliky Novograd Kremlin
The Kremlin is pretty huge as the map in Fig 3 shows.
Figure 3 Official description and map of the Kremlin.
Figure 4 White Nights in St Petersburg, oddly celebrated with fireworks
When we finally arrived in St Petersburg we discovered that we had hit the city during its famous ‘White Nights’ where it never actually gets dark because of an atmospheric phenomenon which lasts from the beginning of June to mid July. Both locals and visitors believe that everyone should spend at least one night awake all night revelling during the period. Bars stay open…
It is a time of all night festivities and said to be romantic. One reason why this might be is that all the city’s bridges are raised for sailing boats, so if you get stuck on the wrong bank you cannot get home….
Oddly they also celebrate with fireworks which don’t really work as well without the background of a night sky.
Oddly we are spending a second successive stay next to one of President Putin’s palaces.
Figure 5 The Konstantin Palace is President Putin’s formal residence in St Petersburg. Our hotel is the second large building to the right of the palace gardens
The Konstantin Palace is one of St Petersburg’s great palaces and has been restored for the benefit of the President. It is here that various summits have been held. There is quite tight security, though probably not as much so as would be the case had the Prez been in residence.
Today I’m hoping to get to see it as I gather it is open to the public.
One of the things that we noticed as we moved towards St Petersburg was how Scandinavian the place starts to be, from the midnight sun to the trees in the forest. Road signs are now in English as well as Russian.
Tomorrow we leave Russia to get back into Western Europe as we arrive in Finland. Hopefully this will be the last complicated border crossing….