Пискарёвское мемориа́льное кла́дбище

Over the weekend I made my way to the Пискарёвское мемориальное кладбище you can see what Wiki has to say about the cemetery by clicking on the link above or you can go to the cemetery's official site here. My opinion may be skewed because I live in the city center and have to see all the parade rehearsals for Victory in Europe day but I am amazed at how much of a big deal this holiday is here. Of course when you think about it and imagine the lack of words fit to describe the depravity suffered by the citizens of Leningrad during the siege the significance of the holiday makes a little more sense. The cemetery is not the only one where victims of the siege were buried, but it is the largest. It holds roughly 500,000 of the estimated 1.2 - 2 Million victims of the siege. Arguably the battle of Stalingrad 42-43 produced more casualties, but did not drag on for almost three years with the utter demoralization of the population that occurred at Leningrad.
The memorial was finished in 1960, and was built over the 186 Mass graves that were dug in a gravel pit during the war. Below is a picture of the entrance.Here is the view from the entrance, up front you can see an eternal flame, on the right is one of the mass grave markers and in the distance you can barely see the statue of Mother Russia at the other end of the memorial grounds Below are pictures of the grave markers, the ones marked with the stars symbolize that the grave contains soldiers of the Red Army, the hammer and sickle symbolizes civilian casulaties.Like most monuments and memorials in Russia I was struck by the shear enormity of the graves, look at how far they extend. I know 500,000 victims is hard to imagine. I think today on CNN the pandemic alert is out for a couple hundred swine flu deaths worldwide, I am certainly not marginalizing the fate of victims of this disease, but trying to imagine the suffering of this city.Here is the statue of Mother Russia, holding a garland of oak and laurel leaves. All throughout the cemetary funeral music plays over loudspeakers to hep set the somber tone.

Behind the statue on a wall are inscribed some words, the first paragraph is pictured below, the translation is below the picture.

Here lies Leningraders
Here are the Townspeople (residents), Men Women, Children.
Besides them the Red Army soldiers
With their entire lives
They defended you Leningrad,
cradle of the revolution.
Number their noble names here we cannot
So many there are under the eternal granite guard
But know when honoring these stones
No one and nothing is forgotten.
Engravings on the wall behind the statue.

Soldiers maintain the grounds, I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this one with his water bucket.

File this picture under "so many things cross all boundaries." If I had a dollar for everytime I saw a soldier with a rake I would be able to bail out chrysler..

Long walk

With Nikki off on her business trip I took advantage of some great weather this weekend to walk and explore the city. With Victory in Europe day fast approaching I thought it a good time to make the trek to Piskarevskoe Cemetery, a solemn memorial on the northeast side of the city where approximately a half million of the estimated 2 million victims of the siege of Leningrad are buried in mass graves. After looking at the maps I though I could make it to the cemetery in a morning walk and then walk a little ways back and take the metro the rest of the way home, I should have re-evaluated my own walking motivation. Some of you will remember the last time I competed in an army ruckmarch competition it didn't work out well for my foot (see photo of foot here). But that was with full gear and weapon etc. etc. So I set off at about 9 in the morning and met this blockade out my front door...

You see there was a race course with runners sprinting at top speed, as they run around the corner they cross right in front of our exit onto the street. The race coordinators were so kind as to put up red and white tape across my exitway, so getting out the front door was a lot like playing frogger with really fast people.After about two hours of walking I noticed that the outskirts of the city on the "Vyborg" side are fairly suburban with lots of parks spread out among industrial factory sights.And their was a stark contrast between the very beautiful architecture of the older center city and the utilitarian architecture of most of the housing in the burbs..

Also, some truths cross all boundaries, here are construction workers that I walked past twice, separated by about an hour for each pass, much like construction workers all over the world, why work when their is a pretty park, and a deck of cards....Anyhow I walked for about 2 and a half hours and realized I was still easily an hour from my destination, so I turned back and walked about another half hour to the closest metro stop and took advantage of public transportation to get home, I made a new plan to take the metro as far as I could and then walk the remaining hour or so to get to the cemetery the next day and that worked out much better, My next post topic will be the cemetery itself, after I finally made it all the way there with a little help from the metro.

International Workers Day

Today is the International Workers day holiday in most of the world so it is a day off from school for me, which gives me an excuse to walk around (in the brilliant sun none the less) and snap a few photos. For the festivities the roads downtown are largely closed today, which it is a good thing that Nikki's school informed her of that fact early in the day otherwise I might have been trapped on the other side of town grocery shopping this morning.

First and foremost the festivities here for the holiday were marked by a very large police presence, I did not take pictures of them mulling about with their paddy wagons and get back sticks as quite frankly they scare me. But I did see these hoses set up right next to a large police presence and thought, oh my gosh they have the spray cannons ready to go, this international workers day might get messy, or at least wet....

Once I got closer to the hoses I realized that they were actually connected to these buses, and not the police vehicles, at which point I realized these were public toilets, Wow, that is surprisingly civilized. (For those of you unfamiliar with the Russian alphabet, the sign below clearly says toilet)

Speaking of hygiene one Advantage to most of the downtown roads being temporarily closed for traffic is that it gives the street cleaners a chance to get on the roads in the daylight. Check out this charge of the brush brigade....

The labor movement must have something going with the weather Gods, as I don't think I have seen the sky this clear and blue yet in St Petersburg, what a beautiful day.


Here is a picture of a public rally of some sort developing off the main square, I kept hearing the words "economic crises" over the loudspeaker and decided it not a good idea to get to close with my camera as It doesn't take too many looks at me for me to be identified as a foreigner.

Some young workers showing their pride.


Now as at most toruisty type places people like to take pictures of themsleves posing in front of the touristy destination. We have seen lots of different poses in the center square. From the routine....
To the cute...

To the a little odd,,,,

To the just plain strange... I mean really is this rollerblader trying to get his girlfriend to take a picture of the Hermitage with his legs as the border of the picture,,, I mean really?

Well anyhow I think the large number of tourboats back in the canal should be our sign that good weather is here for a while, so we will certainly enjoy it while we can...

Egypt loose ends

The most lasting memory to Nikki and I about the Cairo Airport is that we would both not complain if we never had to experience it again. If you get the chance you should ask Nikki about her bathroom experience in the Cairo Airport. The thing I found most annoying was that the gates were organized by destinations, not by airline, or to separate crowds, and they were spread all over the place. We now know of at least 4 terminals that are separate parts of the Cairo Airport and spread at least a 10 minute bus ride from each other, one of the bus rides we went on seriously went to a bus transfer station where we changed buses in the city to get to another terminal. I digress, the picture below is a gate we had to go through, you see this is the gate to Sharm el Shiek, it doesn't matter how many or how few flights are going to Sharm el Shiek at any one time, this is the Sharm El Shiek gate they all go through here. On the other end of this gate you get in a bus that goes to your plane, which may be no where near this gate, but if you are going to Sharm you go through this gate. In this particular picture there were four separate flights going to Sharm all at 6pm, so the gate which was designed to hold one flights worth of people has 4. Also notice the TV screens hanging from the ceiling. They display absolutely nothing. Everyone is crowded near the door because when a bus pulls up an airport employee announces in a 6 inch voice without any use of microphone or PA system the flight information and then depends on the crowded room full of tourists to spread the information. Bottom line Cairo Airport and St Petersburg airport have a lot in common, both are competing for most inept airport ever.



I found this advertisement in a window of a pizza hut absolutely hilarious. I have always respected the company YUM brands because in almost every country I have been in I admire their ability to market the same brands of fast food restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut and to a lesser extent Taco Bell) to the local populace in an effective way for that target audience. With that said what does it say about Pizza Hut or the american fast food industry that they advertise to Russian, British and European Tourists in Egypt with the headline "Sausage fun for everyone." Look at that pizza crust, it has sausages like little pigs rolled in a blanket on the edges. Wow that is interesting... somebody call a cardiologists, you may need one after that pizza.


This tree has the coolest bark of any tree we have seen, it almost looks like it is barnacled, neat huh? Aside from the airport the absolute most annoying thing about Egypt for us was the constant nagging of beggars and "sales people" trying to push their goods on tourist. They grab you and seriously hold you down to at best push their goods, at worst rob you blind. Notice the arm lock this guy has on me below, certainly not because we are buddies. It sort of ruins the whole experience of many of the tourist destinations around the old city of cairo as these people are everywhere.

Technical Difficulties, not another Move

For some reason our blog weather panel has started displaying the weather for Philadelphia Pennsylvania, as opposed to St Petersburg Russia. Not sure the reasoning behind the glitch, or maybe the higher meanings involved (I have certainly found out about the army's plans for our future locations in weirder ways??) however I am trying to fix the glitch, in the meantime the weather here is great, lows in the 30s or 20's, highs in the 50's and we haven't had snow since friday night, yup coming up on 48 hours without snow... thats something to celebrate.

Towel, Art ??

Now that we have been back in Russia for a week we should put an effort into finishing up the posts from Egypt, so here comes towel art..
The hotel we stayed at in Sharm el Shiek was simply amazing, anyone going to Sharm we would highly recommend the Hilton Sharks Bay resort. One of the oddest thing we saw every day at the hotel was that the housekeeping staff would make artwork out of your towels and linens every day, here are some of the pieces of work.
Sort of makes it a joy to come back to the room, not knowing what type of scene will be played out on your bed.

The alligator holding the remote....

Anyhow from towel art to the sunshine, sharm el shiek was a great place to unwind for a week.