Dear CCI Followers,
Pardon my absence and lack of communication.
I’ve just returned from St. Petersburg, but didn’t make it to Moscow. Temperatures up to 130 degrees were predicted and I was advised not to come to Moscow. St. Petersburg was 100 degrees with humidity upwards to 70%. Canals across the city guaranteed that the air felt thick to breathe to this foreigner.
Local residents seemed impervious to heat and humidity! Sidewalks were full of boys and girls, men and women, enjoying their lovely city during the beginning of “White Nights”. The setting sun in the west was brilliant with ever-changing gold, soft orange mixed with light yellow and blue. The eastern sky was already revealing the new sun on the rise. No wonder the temperatures were sky-high.
The new Russia has truly arrived!
I spent hours each day on the streets or watching street and sidewalk traffic from my second-floor apartment. Due to COVID, short work days left residents lots of time to enjoy their renovated city. There were few masks to be seen. And vaccinated persons are about 10% of the population.
The new treat for me was to see city residents in entirely new styles of clothing. After visiting several clothing stores, I assumed that China has been shipping in totally new styles for Russian consumers this year. Particularly noticeable were women of all ages dressed during the daytime in filmy cloth that fluttered in the wind. Many styles were ankle length with long slits in the sides. These dresses and skirts couldn’t have weighed more than a few ounces. Most young men wore black-fitted slacks, white or black fitted T-shirts with white or black stylish shoes. All had short trim haircuts, a few with neatly trimmed facial hair.
Clearly, they were showing off their new styles in Russia this spring. Finally, Volodya Shestakov, CCI’s 35-year-representative who always dresses in jeans or green togs, commented that “My city streets now look like French streets!”
Automobiles revealed another barometer about where Russia is today. For the first time, there were no old cars on the streets. How is this possible? I watched for hours from my windows above an intersection where five streets come together at The New Holland. These streets have constant traffic from morning to well after midnight. They are not in the middle of town on Nevsky Boulevard.
Where did the old cars go? Who has money to drive these new white and black shiny autos that whizz around St. Petersburg’s streets? I don’t have an explanation for this. For sure, some of them are Ubers. Anytime we needed transportation, one of these polished cars showed up within minutes. Drivers appeared to be from 30 to 50 years old and professional people, not average cabbies. As for city buses, all were new buses this year, mostly painted white with a rare lovely blue paint on a few of them … and all were spotless. Amazing.
Buildings: Many thousands of 19th century buildings exist in St. Petersburg. This spring, the predominance of them had fresh coats of paint. How did this happen in two years? Actually, many of them were being renovated since 2015, but thousands were still in tragic shape until now. And a few still are in poor shape. My apartment is in one of these. It was built in 1850, the exterior is 30″ thick brick outer walls, covered with inches of a chalk-like substance, then painted a pastel color … as are all of these antique exteriors. About every ten years they need to be completely refinished.
Years ago when I realized how much work it would take to keep these buildings looking decent, I suggested to Volodya Shestakov that they should be cleaned of all of this false exterior and just use the brick for the outside wall. He almost had apoplexy!!! He thought I’d lost my mind!
St. Petersburg suburbs are now full of tall 14-floor relatively new apartment buildings with easy to keep exteriors.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
PS: You may know that while I was in St. Petersburg, the United States and England teamed up to provide more dangerous “War Games” on Russia’s southern borders. Does this make any sense??? It does if the U.S./NATO want to assure themselves and others that they are still the “unipolar nation” in the world (whether they are or not).
But it makes no sense at all, since U.S. officials know that Russia can destroy our major cities in minutes if even one missile lands on Russian soil. Remember??? Russia has a fleet of bombers in flight at all times carrying nuclear weapons because the U.S. won’t sign a “No First Strike.”
I’m reminding you of this travesty since so much is being written these days that we forget half of what has been printed. But I doubt that U.S.-Powers-That-Be have forgotten this latest piece of information above (in italics), which was delivered personally by President Putin a couple of months ago. We should be more careful. Even an accident could start the final WWIII.
Reason for my travel to Russia in June?
Due to COVID, I was arrears in fees for monthly house upkeep to Sberbank and my home insurance had expired. Also, I have charitable funds designated for Russian NGO’s that I needed to place in worthy institutions. In addition, my passport and visa expire in early July!