Residual Observations

For a city that was founded the same year as Yale (1703) St. Petersburg is remarkable is every respect. Seldom does a city so young boast so much history. Its writers and muscians are perched high in the pantheon of European cultural acheivement. It also has an impressive architechtural history; its streets, canals, and wide boulevards make it feel at times like Paris, at times Amsterdam, and at times Venice. The city also weathered a devastating 900 day Nazi siege. There are still signs on the streets indicating which side is safer during artillery shellings. The central core of the city, the oldest, most charming, and cleanest part, is very well manicured and quite pleasant. The outer reaches, however, are much more depressing. On our way in from the aiport on the public bus we saw concrete jugnles of Soviet apartmet blocks, and on our long run we found its outlying parks in dismal condition and its building in woeful disrepair. More so than perhaps anyplace either of us have ever been, Russia seems to straddle the threshold of the 1st and 3rd worlds. So clearly one or the other at various moments.

Soviet architecture had three main styles: Constructivism, Stalinist Gothic, and "ugly-concrete". Of the former two there are many wonderful examples in Moscow. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many aesthetically compelling buildings were constructed during Stalin's monumental building campaigns of 30s. The most impressive acheivement of this era was the construction of the Moscow metro which is, hands down, the nicest, most beautiful, most charming and delightful metro ever. The metros are quite literally decorated like palaces. Stalin called them "palaces of the people". They are clean, deep, run often and on time, have chandeliers, and are all thematically decorated with scenes comemorating the revolution, everyday life, and ornaments of socialist realism (which is generally very kitsch and ideological insistent in annoying ways) but seems somehow to work well here.