As we did a 2 day excursion of St. Petersburg, visiting palace after palace after palace, they all started looking the same to me. It was hard to imagine the opulence that the Russian aristocracy and royalty enjoyed before the revolution in 1917. Everytime our tour guide said that Peter The Great built this palace or Catherine The Great built that palace, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t them that built anything, but thousands of peasant slaves working for 1 potato per day. It’s a wonder that the revolution didn’t happen 100 years earlier.
But of course, with the Soviet regime, they weren’t much better off, 2 potatoes per day and a war machine.
According to the 2019 UN ranking, Denmark is the 2nd happiest country in the world, after Finland. (Canada is #9). Russia holds the 68th spot… not very happy people. And even for the short time we visited these 2 countries, it was something I could truly feel of the people.
There are no palaces in Denmark, at least none worth talking about and in St. Petersburg, all we saw were palaces and churches. So, could happiness be inversely proportional to the number of palaces? Or mathematically…
Happiness = 1Â /Â # of Palaces
So, here are my photos of St. Petersburg, Russia.
[Click on any photo for the slideshow. Please leave comments at the bottom of the page]
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg Subway
St. Petersburg Subway
Subway ticket booths
St. Petersburg Subway
Soviet emblem in St. Petersburg Subway
St. Petersburg Subway
St. Petersburg Subway
St. Petersburg Subway
Fine art in St. Petersburg Subway
Illegal sidewalk market
Illegal sidewalk market
Illegal sidewalk market
St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg
Russian nesting dolls. These are the Russian equivalent of our own Rob Ford Bobble-heads.
July 6, 2019 at 7:44 pm
Great eye Len!
July 6, 2019 at 9:22 pm
Thanks Michelle. I hope you’re still involved with street photography.
July 6, 2019 at 9:28 pm
Len, just got back from Morocco. Check out my site.
http://www.5daysago.wordpress.com
July 6, 2019 at 10:15 pm
More great photos, Len!
And while the people may not be happy (such a corrupt, suppressing system), some of the architecture is beautiful! Is it all pre-revolution, or also from the Soviet era and later?
July 6, 2019 at 11:13 pm
I think they’re all pre-revolution, Peg. The only Soviet archectecture I saw that looked Soviet was some housing projects, which I believe the Soviets were famous for. And, of course, the subways were Soviet, and really beautiful.
July 7, 2019 at 2:18 pm
Great eye Len. Terrific photos.
I would like to amend your happiness formula.
Happiness =1/(# of palaces + # of churches)
Not a single smiling face in the photos. So sad that a country that suffered so much through the 20’th century still suffers through a repressive regime.
July 7, 2019 at 4:20 pm
Yes, good math Len. I totally agree, but I wanted to keep religion and modern politics out of it. See you in a couple of days at NOTL.