Last weekend were the first two days of our course where we had some spare time to really discover the city we live in. We met up with Nastya on Saturday who took us to the Leningrad memorial which commemorates the 900 day blockade of the city during the second world war. Honestly I was quite speechless upon entering this museum and am very thankful to Nastya who knew so much about the subject and explained us what everything meant. The bitter history that this city endured during that period is so paralyzing that at the entrance of the museum, the words "Oh Stones (referring to the wall of the museum), you must be as strong as the people (were back then)!" are engraved.In the museum, one can find out the poor circumstances that the people of St. Petersburg lived through and how they kept encouraging themselves to keep on fighting. Below you'll find some more pictures I took of the memorial.
After our little visit to the monument, some of us decided to go to the Peter & Paul fortress
which is located in the center of St. Petersburg on a little
island. It is also commonly known as the "Russian Bastille" as many revolutionaries were incarcerated here but it is also like the historic heart of the city of St. Petersburg.
On the island, Peter the Great ordered to build the Peter & Paul cathedral which was supposed to convey a message like 'we're a force to be reckoned with' to the world...below you can find some pictures i took
View of the fortress from the Neva river
the Peter & Paul cathedral
Quite funny was that as we walked passed the boat we suddenly noticed a substantial amount of black tinted cars parking in front of it, bodyguards and everything! hahaha felt like we just ran into a James Bond scene! I was ready but my course-mates chickened out! ;)
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