College Series - Belgorod State University

Lately it's been a "Paucity of Postcards" rather than a "Plethora of Postcards".  It's been a crazy summer with lots of house guests and a new job!  But back to the college series....

Here's a university I  had never heard of (or the town either):  Belgorod State University (BSU?).  It is located in Belgorod Oblast, which is in the southern part of Russia, on the border with Ukraine. [Note:  "oblast" is an administrative division in slavic countries.  This is not the same as "state", but rather more like "zone", "province", "area" or "region".]

Belgorod State University is quite large, with 89 departments.  It is known for its program dedicated to teaching Russian, both on campus and around the world.  Looks beautiful!

St. Petersburg, Russia

The thing that surprised me the most when I visited St. Petersburg was the colors of the buildings - all painted pastel with white trim.  Like the pale blue in the church above, but also pale greens, pinks and yellows, and on all types of buildings, not just churches.  It is quite beautiful, actually.

I was lucky enough to be in St. Petersburg during the White Nights, around the time of the summer soltice when the sun does set, but the sky never really gets dark.  St. Petersburg is the most northern city in the world with a population over one million, at about the same latitude as Oslo and Anchorage.

The references to the White Nights I've found on-line talk about six weeks of the White Nights Festival.  I don't remember any sort of festival, but I do remember that we were there on the day of the actual summer solstice.  It seemed the entire city stayed up all night, mostly hanging out by the river, watching the bridges raise to let ships pass through, enjoying fireworks and drinking vodka.  It was pretty wild and wonderful all at the same time.

This postcard comes to me through Postcrossing, but unfortunately the sender neglected to put the reference number on the card so I can't let him know it arrived.  So Ishtvan in St. Petersburg, if you happen to read this, "Thanks for the beautiful card!"

Christmas from Russian 2009

Christmas in Russia! This card arrived this week from Irena, through Post Crossing. I don't know what the greeting says on the front, but I love the image.

Moscow, Russia

A few years back, I spent two weeks in Russia. My friend, Nelli, works for Intel and was based in Moscow for a couple of years, so I went to see her. We stayed in Moscow and then together took the train to St. Petersburg - she had business there.

Nelli's apartment was right off Trevskaya, which is one of the main streets in Moscow and runs right into the Kremlin and Red Square, no more than a 10 minute walk.

Until you see Red Square, it's impossible to imagine how huge it is. (Confession: I had no idea Red Square was outside the walls of the Kremlin. I thought the Kremlin was a building, not a walled fortress with multiple buildings, including a church, inside.) While I was there, Red Square was almost completely blocked off, as it was being prepared for a huge demonstration in celebration of the anniversary of the end of the Great War (Russian name for WWII). This vast emptiness devoid of pedestrians made the square seem even bigger.

Russian soldiers from multiple regions of the country were in town for this celebration, dressed in regional and/or historical soldier garb. The hats were probably the most exotic aspect of their uniforms, with most being made of some type of black and white fur or wool.

St. Basil's Cathedral is on one corner of Red Square. The above photo does not do justice to its brilliant colors, particularly the tiled domes. The domes and turrets looks like blown glass, especially on a sunny day. Most floors and rooms are completely accessible, and it's possible to wander throughout the church.

I grew up in the era of Russia (or U.S.S.R) as the evil empire, and communists as something the U.S. fought on multiple fronts throughout the world - athletically, scientifically, geographically, nuclearly, philosophically. The avid reading of spy novels and watching of James Bond movies merely amplified their enemy status. I added to my own existing mindset by reading The Charm School, by Nelson deMille, on the way over on the plane. It is a classic cold war spy novel, set entirely in Russia and much of that in Moscow itself.

The entire visit to Russia was mind boggling for me. As we drove around town, many of the landmarks and buildings and roads were familiar, from spy novels. But the bleak, everything grey and colorless, no products on the shelves images I had were blown away by a vibrant city filled with contemporary stores, well lit and graphically interesting advertising (!!), and energetic, excited young people everywhere. It was wild.