Rushin' 'round Russia: St. Petersburg

Since I had the option, I flew into St. Petersburg just to reconnect with the city we lived in from 1999 to 2003, the year it celebrated its 300th anniversary. Things have changed especially on the outskirts of the city, and that was noticeable as we drove in from the airport. There were lots of new buildings that were not there the last time I was here (2007) and the airport itself has had major additions and renovation. But much also remains the same, except maybe cleaner (at least from a distance)!
The photos I include here are not necessarily first and foremost for general consumption. They are intended mostly for me and my family - familiar places and images from the years we lived here, as well as things that are new (Subway sandwiches, for example). As I was walking around yesterday with my friend and successor, Bradn, I said to him, "I could see myself living here again." In spite of all the change, much remains very familiar, and I feel very much at home here. I would take a little time to adjust, though. My Russian needs work. I have to concentrate when Bradn's wife Natasha tells me about things at length. She speaks quickly (i.e. normally, the way we all speak our native languages), and I really have to focus, or I lose the thread.

Bradn and Natasha have three children, Matvei (the Russian form of Matthew), 10, Martin, 6, and Lucas, 6 months. I speak to them in English, as their father does, but they mostly answer in Russian.

I wish I had more time to enjoy this city, but I have been spending a lot of time indoors preparing for my upcoming seminars and sermons. I did get out and walk around yesterday afternoon a couple of times, and took a lot of photos. Here are the best shots from the first evening:

Mr. Lenin still hangs out in the south of the city that bore his name for 60 some years.

"Beeline." The place I got the SIM card for my phone.

People on Nevsky Prospekt.

Obligatory shot down the Griboedov Canal toward the Church of the Savior on the Blood, built on the site of Tsar Alexander II's assasination.

A couple in the dark on Nevsky.

Angel on top of the Lutheran Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (a.k.a. Petrikirche), the main Lutheran Church in the city.

St. Peter and St. Paul.

Another shot of Nevsky.

Originally the Singer Sewing Machine building, it became in Soviet times and after "Dom Knigi" ("House of the Book"),
the city's premier book shop. I first visited it on December 24, 1984, and bought the score to Handel's Messiah.

The Kazan Cathedral. Never really liked it. Still don't. But it's a landmark. (I'm not a fan of Neoclassical architecture in general. Yes, even St. Paul's in London.)