A Sunny Day in Russia: Beautiful Vistas and Animal Cruelty

Sucess! I have discovered that the internet cafe does in fact allow you to upload photos. This discovery was made using a beginning Russian student's favorite word...можно(mozhna). It translates to some combination of "Can I?", "May I?" and "Is it possible?." If you can act it out after saying this magic word, you can usually get your question answered...assuming you understand the response.

Anyway, since this was my first foray into photo blogging, I might have overdone it a bit but bear with me. Also, all spelling mistakes are due to the fact that I am not a very good speller as well as that Russian spell check thinks I spelled every single word wrong.

So...two days ago, the weather was beautiful (read: it wasn't raining), and I decided it would be nice to take a walk around the center of the city and preview the sights that we are going to see in more depth throughout the rest of the program. I started with Nevsky Prospect, the "Fifth Avenue" of St. Petersburg and wound my way back and forth between the different monuments, churches and canals which line this strip.


A view off one of the bridges on Nevsky Prospect:



Dvortsovaya Ploshad behind the Winter Palace:



The front of the Winter Palace:

My favorite sight of the day...a soldier taking a smoke break by one of the canals that leads directly out into the Neva. These guys are all over Petersburg:



The Church on Spilled Blood:


When I came upon the Church on Spilled Blood I was amazed to find what must surely be an illegal form of tourist gouging. Amid the rush of sightseers, bliny stands, and babushkas ferociously guarding their porta-potties (15 rubles) I saw what at first glance seemed to be an extremely adorable dog. A double take got me this photo:



HOLY SHIT!!!!! A BABY BEAR!!!! I wasn't sure whether to "awwww" or "oh", so some perplexed mix of the two resulted. Sure enough, a cuddly baby bear was happily playing with an empty beer can in the middle of St. Petersburg, seemingly oblivious to the hundreds of tourists surrounding him. The little can in front of him that said для мёд (for honey) was somehow not very endearing. At least the little guy seemed happy. I asked the people if I could take pictures, "можно...uh...*hand signal with imaginary camera*?". The response was, "yes... uh... можно... *hugging motion*... 200 rubles!". I decided not to support the practice, but the Italian lady next to me couldn't resist. So if you were ever wondering what 200 rubles buys you with a baby bear in Russia, вот:



BABY BEAR ATTACK!!

I had to laugh.

Anyways, as I continued walking, wondering what Russian legislation existed on the topic of baby bear shows I came upon another surprise:



Really? Monkeys? This one was even less endearing than the bear. They both wore children's fleece jumpers and the monkey who was eating his lunch on a folding chair would bear his teeth at his owner whenever he came too close. They were damn cute though and seemed to enjoy the attention they were getting from all the tourists. But there I was, taking pictures of the monkeys, trying to get a good angle when bam!!



Eagle? Falcon? Hawk? I don't know, I'm not a bird biologist. But honestly, where was I?

As I walked home from this impromptu zoo over cobblestone bridges and amid wedding parties I suddenly became disoriented. Along the canal a woman was shouting into a megaphone in Russian. On the street the drivers of the white stretch wedding hummers vied for parking. Up ahead a busload of French tourists was advancing. I had to get my bearings, so I grabbed the handle of a door marked туалет. An umbrella jabbed me repeatedly in the side while the babushka on duty yelled in angry Russian. Apparently it's 15 rubles.