............................and now for something completely different A Visit to a Cemetery Possibly not everyone's idea of a relaxing day out but as @Diane Lane mentioned they are very calm places and I find them fascinating. The one we visited yesterday is very old dating back to 1738 and so large you could get lost in it. It also has 3 churches, one is a famous chapel devoted to Saint Xenia. Saint Blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg (Russian: Святая блаженная Ксения Петербургская), c. 1719–1730 – c. 1803 born Xenia Grigoryevna Petrova (Russian: Ксения Григорьевна Петрова) is a patron saint of St. Petersburg, who according to tradition, gave all her possessions to the poor after her husband died. Her husband had been Colonel Andrey Fyodorovich Petrov, a chanter at the Saint Andrew Cathedral. After his death, Xenia became a "fool-for-Christ" and for 45 years wandered around the streets of St. Petersburg, usually wearing her late husband's military uniform. St. Xenia's grave is in the Smolensky Cemetery of St. Petersburg. It has been marked by an ornate chapel since 1902. She wascanonized by the Russian Orthodox Church on February 6, 1988. Her feast day in the O.S. is January 24, which is February 6 in theNew Calendar. St. Blessed Mother Xenia is noted for her intercessions in helping those with employment, marriage, the homeless, for fires, for missing children, and for a spouse. She is venerated in several countries. There are about 40 churches and chapels built in her name. Here are a few pics I took.
Wow, so beautiful @Terry Page , I'm glad you tagged me. I've been meaning to pop in here, and will be back when I have the time to give the thread justice. I love older churches and cemeteries, as well as other older buildings. I hate hearing about historical buildings being torn down, and they've done that here in the Houston area over the years. That's one thing I really miss from back home, as well as having a church on every block and cemeteries in the middle of the city.
The ballet Sleeping Beauty which we saw last night was an amazing experience, the costumes the orchestra the performers were all first class. The new Mariinsky theatre is not to me an attractive building, simply modern and functional, I much preferred the old original building, but times change and this is the modern vision. It was built not to replace the original one to meet a high demand from mainly tourism, for more performances. The seats were in the stalls so though the best seats we liked the boxes we had in the old building a lot better. A few photos
Another blonde for you to compare @Chrissy Page The lead performer was a Korean dancer Kim Kimin, who is now resident with the Mariinsky ballet company, he was amazing as he threw himself into the air, breathtaking to watch. Here is a video of him in a scene from Sleeping Beauty in Hong Kong
@Terry Page , no this is just a blonde, the fist pic made me do a double take. For one second I thought it was me.
Lost In Translation A funny little tale from this morning, Lisa had problems with her internet, in that it wouldn't connect. I spent more than an hour on the phone going through all the possibilities including bypassing the WiFi with a cable and so on. We eventually gave up and Lisa rang the ISP, where she spoke to a woman in Customer Services and attempted to explain the situation, however because Lisa has gained a pretty good knowledge of IT from me, it has all been in English. The women in Customer Services don't speak any English and Lisa doesn't know the Russian words for the technical terminology so got nowhere, eventually they put her through to an engineer who did speak English so they sorted out the issue by conversing in English.
I know that Moscow is far from being Terry's favourite city, but it's sad to see that they are doing away with the trolleybuses there. I know things can go awry with them when wires get gnarled up, but it's a shame to see them go. There are still a few places in Europe where trolleys operate - Budapest and Milan are two of the bigger cities and I recall using the trolleybuses in Turin a few years ago.
Just to bring this up to date, having had several warm wet winter's here in St.Petersburg, this one is a cold and an early one. It doesn't usually snow much until December, but we have heavy falls early in November, though at the moment it's mainly light with warmer periods. The forecast is -8c (17f) for the next few days. A few recent photos here. This was a couple of weeks ago taken with my phone camera.
Not to worry , Terry, it is just that Global Warming causing the early snow. Let us know if the polar bears make it down to where you are. Seriously, though, the pictures are beautiful. I love the carving on the tops of the window frames ! ! Compared with how modern all of the buildings are here in the US, those older buildings in other countries have SO much more character to them.