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August 02, 2005

back from europe, st. petersburg photos

Apologies once again for the delay in writing. It's amazing how busy you can be yet have trouble explaining exactly what it is you're accomplishing.

The seminar at the national library won't happen before the end of my grant (in less than two weeks). According to my contact there, once he starts trying to get people to sign the paperwork to allow a seminar, he gets questions like "What do you want this seminar for?" and "What's so interesting about the library at the University of Michigan?" The bureaucratic hurdles are insurmountable, so we're considering submitting a journal article instead. (Well, we were already thinking of an article in addition to the seminar, but now it will be instead.) Should be able to reach a wider audience that way anyway.

The trip to Europe was great. I have lots of pictures, but first I owe everyone photos of Sarah's visit to Petersburg.

Here's some classic Petersburg views, many from a boat cruise along the canals and rivers of the city:

And, especially for Jou, I managed to get two shots of some of Russia's fairer sex while taking photos like a tourist:

Sarah in front of Pushkin and on the Square of Arts:

Peterhoff (Petrodvorets):

The bored guy operating the trick fountain:

All in all, Petersburg and the nearby tsarist palaces are in much better shape than they were in 2000, and everything seems to me to be more tourist-friendly than I remember it. So I even more highly recommend visiting Petersburg to everyone than I did before.

In addition to taking a trip to Peterhoff, we also went to Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo) and to Nadya's parents' place in the countryside, where we enjoyed the fresh air and hot-smoked fish (not "hot, smoked" -- it was cold when we ate it).

Unfortunately, nearly any other impressions of Sarah's visit that I might have had have now faded from my memory, so perhaps Sarah will be kind enough to post a comment with some of her thoughts.

Posted by kshawkin at August 2, 2005 11:03 PM

Comments

Thanks, Kev. Hope we get to meet up when you're back in the Charm City MSA (or whatever the census bureau is calling it these days).

Posted by: Jou at August 5, 2005 05:00 PM