Just a handful of shots I thought you guys might like of street life from St Petersburg in Russia.


1. Street scene a block from my hotel.


2. Sun setting behind St Isaac's cathedral, as seen from Palace Square.


3. People in costumes handing out pamphlets on the street.


4. People walking over one of the many, many bridges in St Pete's.


5. Kids throwing chunks of ice to try to break the frozen surface of the river. Note the street sign telling the ice which direction to fall.


6. All the rivers and canals are freezing up for winter.


7. Kids play in the street.


8. Fantastic light through the falling snow.


9. Lots of snow.


10. People dressed in period clothing to have their photos taken with tourists, but in this setting their clothing looks more appropriate than modern clothes.


11. People on the street.


12. Another canal, this one hasn't completely frozen over yet.

Awesome, awesome, awesome - number 2 is my favourite. But the charm of number 1 is a close second. I was glad to see you posting on your blog again. I was worried you had disappeared in Mongolia - some kind of Fashion TV Police raid on your hotel

Great to see these and the ones on the blog.

Very interesting work - all that snow must have been quite a shock to a southern boy like you...

Fascinating stuff.

Lovely color of the light in your pictures. Fantastic contrast with the warm light and the winter scenery. Some of your pictures look timeless...

I can't tell which one is my favorite... I like them all!
Excellent pictures Adrian...

Thanks for sharing..

Thanks for the feedback lady and gents. I really loved St Petersburg, and hopefully these photos capture the magic atmosphere just a little bit.

Chris, yes my blog stalled for a little while. I had some technical issues that took me a little while to get sorted. I continued to write my blog off-line and am just now combining the text with the images and posting them, so there will be a bunch of posts in quick succession covering my journey through Russia.

Toad, you're right about all the snow being a bit of a shock. I can't believe people live like this every winter!
I made sure I went out walking every day (and was averaging about 3 hours/day), and while I loved every minute of it, it was only because I'm on holiday and didn't have to actually do anything or be anywhere in particular. I imagine the novelty would wear off by the end of winter. :/

Irma, believe it or not I'm actually on my way to Germany right now! But sadly it's just a passing visit on my way through to France.
I really want to catch up with both you and Uli at some point, but I won't have time to visit both of you now. I am planning to come back through Germany after Christmas (travelling from Amsterdam to Berlin by train which would bring me through Hamburg). I would love to catch up with you at that time if that suits you.

Oh, and I just posted some more updates on my blog if anyone's interested.
http://kombisaurus.blogspot.com

Quote:Irma, believe it or not I'm actually on my way to Germany right now! But sadly it's just a passing visit on my way through to France.
I really want to catch up with both you and Uli at some point, but I won't have time to visit both of you now. I am planning to come back through Germany after Christmas (travelling from Amsterdam to Berlin by train which would bring me through Hamburg). I would love to catch up with you at that time if that suits you.

Yes, it is great to meet in Hamburg. I have already someone who will do the driving in the city for us ...

I spend an hour or so reading your blog yesterday. Fascinating stuff, really - and some great photos. I will have to remember that as a method of documenting long trips. Do you have a laptop with you that you use to post-process?

Irma,, Sounds great thanks. I'm looking forward to it.

Toad, yes I'm travelling with both a laptop and iPad. I do all my photo processing in Lightroom on the lappy and generally write the blog text offline on the iPad during quiet times (on trains, in waiting rooms, etc). Then I combine the text and images together when I post it online.

I love the portability of the iPad - it really is a *lot* more convenient for travelling than a laptop or even a netbook. But it hasn't got enough storage or processing grunt to handle my photo needs. If it could do that then I could conceivably leave my laptop at home. Maybe the next generation of tablets....

Kombisaurus Wrote:I love the portability of the iPad - it really is a *lot* more convenient for travelling than a laptop or even a netbook. But it hasn't got enough storage or processing grunt to handle my photo needs. If it could do that then I could conceivably leave my laptop at home. Maybe the next generation of tablets....

My thinking exactly.. I currently have a netbook with a 10" screen - and it is very good for travel. The iPad would likely be even better - however its lack of storage space for photos and inability to run LightRoom or PhotoShop pretty much rule it out for me. The netbook is still darn small, and it does it all (even though post processing on a low-res screen is not much fun). Seems like the viability of small computers is reduced if you have to carry 2 of them...

Great shots and also your travelogue - blogspot, Adrian.
Irkutsk .. I have heard of, as we flew over Russia and Mongolia on our way to Hong Kong. It was on the TV screens of our flight path, for a long while on the non stop journey.
It is nice to see what it really looks like. From 40,000 ft it looks a lot smaller.

Hahaha NT.. yes Irkutsk is a lot bigger when you're on the ground. Life-size in fact!

That's interesting you say you flew over Siberia and Mongolia between the UK and Hong Kong.
I saw many large planes flying high above both Siberia and Mongolia leaving fantastic vapour trails. Given how empty the countryside is, it was interesting to see the sky relatively busy. Particularly in Mongolia where the skies were so clear and blue, a plane with a vapour trail is always very noticable. I wondered what routes those planes were flying.
I remember thinking at the time "those people up there don't know what they're missing out on".

Well Adrian, we had 15 hours on the plane, so I had plenty of time to look out of the windows.
We flew from Heathrow and because a school band (with brass and woodwind instruments such as euphoniums and sazophones + drums) joined the plane there, we were upgraded to business class for free.
We landed at Frankfurt (where the kids got off) but we stayed business class then, on the remaining 13 hours nonstop to to HK. We had these little TV/Games consoles in the seat, plus the full reclining seats.
That was in '91 for my silver Wedding anniversary.
Anyway I hope you enjoy your trip, as much as me and my wife did.

I will have to have a look and see if any of my pics are worth showing.

I'm loving the photos and enjoy following your progress via your blog. I was thinking wistfully about the romance of crossing vastness of Russia on the trans-Siberian railway… and then I remembered that it's barely below freezing here, we've had about a half-centimetre of snow (total) that hasn't stayed on the ground, and it's only the start of December, yet I'm huddled up in my down parka, barely visible under my toque and gloves, as I quickly shuffle the hundred metres from the subway to my apartment.

Yeah, right - wintertime Moscow, here I come.

Thanks for taking the time to write about your trip, both on your blog and here. Stay safe and have lots of adventures.

Great photos it gave me the cravings for Bilinis with a piece of Kulebyaka.

At least I still have my cold war friend at home which is a Kiev 4, resting comfortably in it's
original Ukrainian made ever ready case.

Cheers,
Simon