Thursday, December 20, 2012

Subway Adventures

I had an appointment "alla casa di Puskin" (at the Pushkin House, an archive), but the lady called me when I was about to leave and said she was sick and had to postpone to Monday. So I could have gone to another library, but I wasn't feeling very happy in the first place, and I decided to stroll on Nevskij Prospekt. 
I could have walked there, but I decided to beat my fear of public transportation and try the subway, at least. It is so deep! When I saw the escalator seemingly descending to the center of the earth, my first reaction was to run away. My second thought, of course, was about the Inferno. Then I decided not to think about where I was, and I moved on to my favorite Russian pastime: observing (as in staring at) people. I wanted to photograph all the guards who were sleeping (many of them!), but given the amount of military I resolved I'd better not. I wish I could give a more thorough description, but I'm very tired and I'll stick to the basic. So anyhow getting there was easy; the problem arose when I had to go back. I spent at least 20 minutes walking in circle in the station, looking for the line that was supposed to take me back, which had apparently disappeared. Or, rather, the line was there, but the station was missing. So after a thorough comparison of maps and guides, I understood the trick: apparently in Saint Petersburg if a metro stop is the intersection of multiple lines, the station gets a different name for each line! So I thought I came from Sadovaja, when I actually came from Sennaja square, and that was what I had to look for. You can imagine the pleasure I felt when I figured this out. There are a few stops that cannot afford multiple names, so they content themselves with numbers ("Stop name 1," "Stop name 2," etc). I guess it's fair: to every line its own name.


So this was actually the frame, in between is all Nevskij Prospekt with its grandiose, European splendor. Another time - now just a snip preview of the Winter Palace.


 Winter Palace


Our Lady of Kazan

2 comments:

  1. Ma c'era il vento a trenta gradi sotto zero? E per caso hai incontrato Igor Stravinsky?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqrCQQklxPA

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  2. :) Non avevo mai sentito questa canzone (non una grande fan di Battiato)

    ReplyDelete