Photostream

Apr 28, 2010

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You might be wondering what that slide show is in the banner. Those are the last nine pictures I uploaded to Flickr. At the time I originally wrote this post, they were pictures from my trip to St. Petersburg, Russia in June/July 2006, now shown below. View the progression of sunset beginning at midnight on July 6:

When I first arrived in St. Petersburg in early June, the sun “set” around 2:00 a.m. (more of a twilight than a setting), and was back at it by 3:00 a.m. By the beginning of July, twilight started around midnight, with some near-darkness around 2:30 in the morning that lasted a couple of hours.

The pictures were taken on my last night there. My roommate and I took the metro to Finland Station from our Lesnoy Prospekt flat to see the bridges rise on the Neva. The last bridge finished rising around 2:45 a.m. The metro had stopped running for the night, so we walked back to the flat in the grey semi-darkness. That walk continues to appear in different guises in my books. (Right now, it’s doing a stint as a walk in the underworld.) So many memories from that trip I will always cherish, but that last, quiet walk, knowing I was leaving for the US in the morning and might never see the White Nights again…that will stay with me forever.

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2 responses to “Photostream”

AmyBeth Inverness

March 23, 2011

I know this post was from almost a year ago, and the trip happened several years ago, but I really feel moved to comment.In 1989 I was a HS Senior, and we spent 2 weeks with the Boulder Colorado – Dushanbe Tajikistan sister cities exchange. Our last night was in Leningrad, and it was cut short because a problem with the flight that brought us there.
The melancholy you describe, walking in the twilight really brought me back to my own last night there, more than 20 years ago. It was a fantastic trip, and that last night, walking on the beach and wondering if I’d ever make it back, will be cherished in my memory always.

Reply
1. Jane
  
  March 23, 2011
  
  It’s a wonderfully special place. I can still feel it and smell it and hear it in such unbelievable detail. Especially the midnight light. Man, that light would break your heart.
  I even remember these silly snacks I bought at the market that last night to munch while watching the bridges: Choco Pies. I thought they were the greatest thing in the world. (Granted, I’d been eating Russian food for a month!) I found them some months later back in the States…utterly horrible. LOL.
  
  The food left much to be desired, mosquitoes attacked us in the heat every night so I barely slept, there was no hot water for half the trip, the classrooms were unbearably hot (and reeking of toxic paint smells while they renovated around us), and the toilets–and toilet paper!–were utter misery. I miss it like crazy.
  
  Reply

Photostream

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