We’re sitting at the kitchen table and Elena, my host mom, is making us Turkish coffee like she does most days. I’m looking at the calendar and planning my week.…
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The thing about St. Petersburg is that there is a lot to do. This city has a lot of museums (I mean A LOT of museums), bars, and restaurants. It…
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Spring in St. Petersburg came suddenly — almost all at once. Maslenitsa was in mid-February, an ancient Slavic holiday with both Pagan and Christian roots meant to mark the coming…
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Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in a forest, requires some…
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Built on swampland and at points running beneath the Neva, the Saint Petersburg metro system dives deep into the earth. Admiralteyskaya is the deepest station, burrowed 105 meters beneath the…
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On a quay of the Neva River in St. Petersburg, just outside the Academy of the Arts, sit two syenite sphinxes. They were transplanted here in 1832 after being removed…