Poisoned Palaces - Urban Russia

Russian cities were centrally planned, so they generally have good mass transit, logical organization, and plenty of parks.

This entry will have quite a few pictures—it’s easy to photograph buildings, and many of them were surprising and interesting.

All pictures of modern Russia that I’ve ever seen show glittering cathedrals and palaces or repulsive concrete buildings. The Russia we saw was quite different.

(Well, mostly.)

On our first day in St Petersburg, we walked downtown along Moscow Ave. (Московский Прос.), a wide avenue with a tram line in the median and large buildings and statues alongside.

All Russian cities we visited showed a similar eye for beauty. Most were humble and poorly maintained, but they were certainly not the concrete monoliths we expected.

In the city of Suzdal, outside Moscow, there is a protected area to preserve the beautiful 19^th-century wooden houses in their original state. I’ll show more pictures of Suzdal in its upcoming entry.

Of course, the most beautiful architecture was in St Petersburg

and in the Golden Ring cities.

I particularly enjoyed the parks. Unlike our bland, football-field parks, their urban parks are bursting with diverse vegetation. (This was in Vladivostok, which is why it's so gloomy.)

I can’t talk about the Russian cityscape without mentioning their monuments. It seems that 1917-22 and 1941-45 are still keen in their minds: every city has multiple well-tended memorials and statues. I’ll elaborate in the Russian history entry.

Another visible feature is the new downtown which appeared since 1991 to cater to the New Russians. Each city has its own district of very high-priced cafes, restaurants, and boutiques. An example is the beautiful art-deco GUM (official shopping area of the USSR) in Vladivostok, which changed seamlessly to a high-end shopping mall after 1991. I wonder whether it was always this way—could average Russians shop in this GUM in the USSR?

The corollary to this is the poor neighbourhoods. Often it seemed that buildings had not been painted or repaired for decades.The water supply was from hand pumps, and heating was from excess steam from a nearby power plant or factory.
It might not be obvious, but these old storage sheds are solid steel. I guess they built them to last in those days.
In Siberia, there was enormous amounts of a fluffy seed. On weekdays, broom crews would clean major sidewalks. Are there any botanists in the audience?

The last point that I need to mention is the widespread pollution. The Soviet Union was notorious for its unrestrained industrialization, and it seems that the Russian Federation is no different. In nearly all of the country, tap water is unfit to drink due to industrial or biological contamination. The roads are full of poorly maintained vehicles burning leaded gasoline. We once saw a cargo truck that was nearly concealed by the cloud of bluish smoke that clung to it. This is especially shocking in contrast to Germany, which is one of the Greenest countries in the world.

I hope that no-one takes offence at my negative portrayal of Russia. I readily admit that Canada also has endemic conspicuous consumption, poverty, and pollution.