Walking Tour

So much to tell y’all, so little time (The laundry room is closing in 15 minutes)!!

We went on our walking tour with Sergei, and I am so glad we didn’t skip out! We met at Dome Knigi, and from there we visited Kazansky Cathedral, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and the church of the Spilled blood. Let me tell you, if you ever go to a foreign city, be sure to have a native show you the historical places. On our walk, we discussed some of the issues Russia faces, including corruption, instability, and economic extremes. We also learned about ways in which the government works within the country. Russia is a ‘managed’ democracy, which means that the government controls the society and the political choices while appearing to be a democracy. The government influences the population through various outlets, including controlling the media and establishing non-threatening political parties in the name of ‘competition.’

From St. Isaac's, we could see the whole city!!!

On our tour, Sergei pointed one such example of the government's control. The building he pointed out was the fire licensing building. In 2007, the European University at St. Petersburg received a large grant from the European Commission to monitor the elections in Russia. The program was shut down after threats by some government official, but apparently, closing the program was not enough. Making it clear that no would get away with attempting to examine the government’s authority, the university was closed down on account of a series of fire violations. Lesson learned. After six weeks, the university was declared compliant with the fire regulations (without changing a thing), reopened, and has since been on good terms with the government. It also has never, to my knowledge, taken such a grant again.

Fire Licensing

It was also a really cool tour because, after visiting St. Isaac’s Cathedral, we got to discuss the relationship between religion and politics. St. Isaac’s is the third largest cathedral in Europe and it is incredible – not only because of its construction (look it up when you’re bored), but also because of its history. During Soviet times, it was actually turned into a museum promoting atheism. In fact, the dove on top of the dome was replaced with Foucault’s pendulum, which demonstrated the rotation of the earth and was used to illustrate how science, and not religion, could explain the world around us. Sergei discussed with us how the government now supports religion as a means of further controlling the people, because mainstream Russian Orthodox services influence people to support the current government. He also spoke about growing up in Soviet times and said that it wasn't until his 30s that Perestroika allowed him to see new perspectives and critics of the world around him, and while some things are more open, Russia still has a very long way to go.

The Dove in St. Isaac's Cathedral

Ack! The laundry room lady’s yelling at me. Judging by her shrill voice, I think it's time to go…