A unique monument to urban planning
St. PETERSBURG”
St. Petersburg can quite frankly be named “the city of
bridges” as it owns more than 500 bridges.
Yazı/Text-Fotoğraflar/Photos: NECATİ SÖNMEZ
This beautiful city of Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Mandelstam,
Eisenstein and Shostakovich has something for every taste. The finest novels of
world literature were penned here. One of the sharpest bends in history was
taken in this city.
One of the suburban churches of St. Petersburg.
Sunbathing people on Neva River.
Meeting a famous city is like coming face to face with a
celebrity for the first time. Experience proves that these ‘chance’ meetings do
not almost end well. Similarly, some cities admired for years from afar may
turn out to be a real disappointment in the flesh. You may, for example, suffer
just such a trauma in Venice, that Mecca of world tourism industry. The
certified romance of the city as attested by films is dispelled instantly,
leaving you to seek solace from the madding crowds of tourists on some remote
island... Some ci-ties, on the other hand, may keep a reserved distance at
first and slowly draw you in... You may, for example, develop a passion for
cities such as Mumbai that initially slap you in the face. In other words,
cities and people form relationships very like relationships between people.
Then there are cities that display their appeal in every
aspect. It’s virtually impossible to avoid being enchanted by them. It’s
famous; you look, admiringly, from afar; you look for the first opportunity to
visit and you find it even more charming once you do manage to get there:
Behold St. Petersburg! It has something to offer everyone. In addition to being
a unique monument to urban planning, it’s the perfect host, able to converse
with you on any topic, from music to literature... This beautiful city of
Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Mandelstam, Eisenstein and Shostakovich has something for
every taste. The finest novels of world literature were penned here. One of the
sharpest bends in history was taken in this city.
According to Dostoyevsky’s hero, St. Petersburg is “the most
abstract and pre-conceived city in the world.” Osip Mandelstam, one of the
writers who is most readily identified with the city wrote in 1925, “I got the
feeling that everything in St. Petersburg would be magnificent and grand.”
Pushkin, for his part, wrote of his passion for the city in the famous ‘Bronze
Horseman’ (subtitled ‘A St. Petersburg Tale’) “I love you, Peter’s masterpiece-
I love your elegant and sharp face, the majestic flow of the Neva, your granite
banks, your fine wrought-iron fences and the faint light of the night-time
dark...”
Founded thanks to Czar Peter the Great’s incredible
fortitude in 1703 at the cost of thousands of workers’ lives, this city has
sadly been described by a number of predictable phrases to this day: The Venice
of the North, The Paris of the East, etc. Yet, St. Petersburg is quite possibly
is the most sui generis of all. Leaving its cultural texture aside, its
melancholic soul, proud bearing, its distance from the mod cons compared with
its peers and white nights... all these in one city that still managed to
remain relatively unspoiled by the ravages of modern tourism.
St. Petersburg is a city of bridges. Over five hundred
bridges span the Neva and the canals, like fine necklaces. The most famous are
the drawbridges over the Neva, yet there are hundreds of others one crosses
unwittingly... Needless to say, calling St. Petersburg ‘The City of Bridges and
Canals’ does injustice to its gigantic cathedrals -the city has possibly one of
the highest numbers of cathedrals anywhere in the world-, wide parks, grand
monuments such as the Alexander Column on Palace Square or traditional
establishments such as the Marinsky Theatre. In short, a city that defies a
simple description: One who displays an ever-larger number of identities like a
Russian doll...
The winds of change that go hand-in-hand with recent
investments bring far more than a change of outfit. In some ways, the modern
face of the city is losing some of its unique landmarks. Of course, the spirit
of the city, ever harder to capture, is unlikely to disappear in an instant...
One of the first places that preserves this spirit is that major treasure
trove, the Hermitage Museum, also known as the Winter Palace. This magnificent
museum’s collections of virtually complete history of Russian and in part,
European art, is enough reason to pay St. Petersburg a visit at least once in a
lifetime.
The café we popped into during our city tour for a brief
break and a hot drink was called the Café Idiot! The café has been serving for
years in the semi-basement of a canal-side house; its tiny library and select
clientele make it the perfect location to send Dostoyevsky a greeting while
sampling Russian delicacies. If, that is, it hasn’t changed hands by the time
you got there, and been converted into a shopping centre! The speedy entry of
capital is transforming the city centre at a dizzying rate.
However staggering the pace of change, the city will manage
to preserve its spirit one way or another. There will always be a Petersburg
tradition, immortalised by literature; the mysterious soul of this uniquely
historic city will continue to stroll down the streets somehow. This is the
soul that suddenly confronts you in a bronze statue in the park, on a narrow
bridge, in a stone courtyard, or, if your visit falls near the end of June, in
the cold snap of a white night.
Katerinensky Palace.
The River Neva shore.
One of the parks located inner city.