Not Petrograd Nor Leningrad

A short story I used to teach in high school literature said that a certain town had no name, or several names, which is the same thing. A deep thought and undoubtedly a true thought, with this interesting city a prime example. Changing from one name to another through Petrograd and Leningrad and on to St. Petersburg, this astounding chance to visit Russia was highly interesting and at time breathtakingly beautiful.

Several Churches and Cathedrals have survived the officially atheist Soviet Union, and some of them have been refurbished and renovated in this city. But the seventy years of Soviet rule are virtually unseen, unmentioned. Only one time did we see the hammer and sickle and looking closely you will see it is built in to a building. If this building is demolished or refurbished, all sign of the seven decades will be gone. With the Tsarist era preceding the Soviet era, modern Russia as seen in St. Petersburg is rootless. No Communist roots, no Tsarist roots, no past to hold to. Every country and its people should have its equivalent of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln. I learned that to be the strength of the monarchy in the United Kingdom, of course. They have William and Henry V and Elizabeth I and so many others. What do the Russians have? I grew up hating and fearing Communism, too, so I understand that era cannot be mined for much of value. But the feeling I had of the people's intellectual and economic and patriotic rootlessness is still a shame.

A look at Peter the Great's Palace -- one of them -- in the next post.