The two sides of russian new years eve

skating on ice

skating on ice

Suhofrukty

Suhofrukty

Orthodox Christmas

Borsh

Zenith

Bridges over Нева

Святочные гадания, the orthodox festivities

Святки. As we know, many of the religious festivities take roots from pagan ones, that cross generations coming to our times. Although the orthodox Christmas is a recent celebration in Russia, due to religious limitations during communist times, there are some rituals that are preserved specially in villages and towns. Святочные гадания is one of them. During the period of time that goes from the Christmas day to the three kings day, the young girls gather and play several fortune teller games, most of them aiming to know who will be their future husband. The most famous is throwing the shoe through the gate singing. Who will get the biggest distance will be the first one to get ma rried. You can find these games here.

The bridges of St. Petersburg

(I’ve seen) the Golf of Finland frozen

Hermitage and the city born into culture

Вобла driving, the big adventure

Лада sightseeing

The subway museum

I’ve been hearing for a long time a lot of fuzz about how St.Petersburg subway was such beautiful as a museum. After the subway of London, Paris, Lisboa, Budapeste and some more, it would be difficult to surprise me. In the beggining

The supermagazin experience

It is funny to catch on to the cultural differences by a visit to the supermarket. As we were looking for the ingredients for the so much appreciated new years caipirinha, I step into a interesting new world of products that would make one wonder. The pears, for example are all giraffe one’s, showing a long neck and, as it would be clear, the so called tropical fruits are inexistent. Instead there is a huge diversity of dry fruits and sweets that are used in many ways in the Russian cosine. The way the products are exposed doesn’t differ much of what I know from Portuguese supermarkets though the prices are a bit higher. I’ve seen many canned and frozen food but there’s also a great selection of red fish. Guess what, some of the meat comes from Brasil, maybe because the local production of meat is not enough or maybe because is cheaper to bring it from so far away. This is also a surprise for the locals who don’t have an answer for his.

And I can’t forget to tell you about the вобла diverse selection. Вобла is a dry fish that you eat when having a drink. You can ask for it in most of the bars and probably you’ll see people in the park having a beer and taking it’s skin out while sitting on a bench after a day of work. There are many mini-markets right next to the metro stations, selling daily life products, fruit, dry fruits, sweets and booze. I’ll be leaving you with Клюква в сахаре, one cranberry inside a ball of sugar. It was a very popular sweet in the times of the USSR that vanished during some time to reappear again in the hands of children.

Пушкин and the Russian poetry

Паьел (русакеьч) Арсеньеь

ЖЖ, the worldwide Russian blog

Livejournal is an russian made blog system that is mostly used by russians and americans. Believe it or not it is even more popular than MSN within russian internet surfers. In fact it is much more than a blog and, although it is very basic, it has a wide range of possibilities where you can loose yourself in. You can keep contact with your friends and with the world, as well as you can keep your own diary, all in the same space. For me it is mostly another great way to keep in touch with all the people that I knew there and give them some feed-back from such a far distance.

By the way, the world known Google was also made by russian programmers living in the USA. This is something that most of us didn't know yet, I couldn't have guessed.

St. Petersburg ... by night

The lights of the city
From bar to bar, the tourist experience
Concerts, clubs and coffes

Дед Мороз, Christmas spirit again and again

(Faiths Irony), a movie for all times
Дед Мороз, the russian Santa Claus was also red
The Christmas spirit all around ?!
Christmas market and medved

Last Christmas shopping

The last days of shopping before new year
To spend money, more and more
The shopping life
Capitalism overcoming

The many temples of Leningrad

The church of the spilled blood looking like Moskva
Orthodox church strictness
The Buddhist temple
Many nations, many religions

Looking from the inside

The true story of the Russian salad

Olivier, the Russian salad
Uncovering a mystery
Different kinds, same perspective
Other traditional goodies

Time for ... vodka

Блины, the russian pancakes

A bit on the fast food блины
The russian chains
Блины is the symbol of the sun in march when people say goodbye to the winter
Saying Масленица

The day I met Lenin

A bit of history of Bolshevik
USSR remaining symbols
Looking for Trabant
Remainings of USSR
Imperialism strikes back

St. Petersburg, the European door to Russia

Dubbed as the Venice from the lands in the north for its palace-lined waterways, St. Petersburg has escaped to the arquitectural incursions of Stalinism and its grandiose relics of tsarist days are still intact. Sculpted by islands and the sinuous Нева (Nieva) river, the city is a vista of geometrical glance. With a population of 5 million, the city that as much of all the European cities have to offer holding some soviet spirit as you go further on. The cities northern latitude means long days in summer – known as the white nights – and long nights, of which someone coming from Helsinki and Tallinn is already used to.

St. Petersburg is the countries second city and thus an important centre for commercial activities. Though, its heart remains as the cultural capital of the country, regarding its astonishing palaces, museums and temples spread all around the city. Mentioned a thousand times in several classics of the cinema, scene for the works of the great Dostoyevsky, this is a city that deserves your visit. Although there’s no snow yet, the iced Neva river covered with the lights of the city, walked through bridges, welcomes the foreigner coming from the lands in the south.

The other side of the postcard

Sex and alcohol shop for fins
Outside of the old city
Drunkenness against romance
Sauna
The fast exchange

CCCP in a glance

Old neighbors, same stories
Feelings towards Russia
Souvenirs and CCCP t-shirt mania
Invasion of capitalism - cinema
Contrast with old symbols
Beer house

Funny hat people

Talinn’s Christmas mystery

Old magic and romantic city
Gluehwine
Marcipan
Christmas faire
Skating in ice
Tea and a cake
Coffee life
French café

Crossing the northern sea

Boat trip
Fisherman’s friend
The northern sea
Free shop attitude
Arriving to Tallinn

Yatkot, the after party concept

Finnish karaoke is something that was a great surprise, a mark in this Nordic culture, that can’t be unsaid. People just go there and sing. It is simple as that: you go for a beer with your friends and family and while you go for the toilet or to make a phone call or whatever, you just drop by the audio system and sing a song, no matter how bad it can go. Believe me, it can be bad. Some of those people should be arrested but this is it. Ain’t life beautiful?!

The nightlife of Helsinki is very diverse, even in the cold dark winter, from posh Swedish cafes to great cosmopolitan clubs and discos all around the city, through the karaoke places and pubs on which I’ve already wrote about. The young gather with some friends at home having a drink before going out. Most of them leave their parents home early with the support of the Finnish government. I believe this is a big step towards their independent spirit, from what Scandinavians, in general, are known for. Regarding the alcoholism problem through the country, all the nightlife ends around 4 o’clock in the morning. Most go back home or to someone else’s home in something that’s called after party. They just take it to the end as it should be and no wonder there’s a blend of condoms with named Yatkot.

Absenteeism, within so many choices

It is known that the absenteeism is the biggest religious choice, within the suomi population. Though, most of the religions are represented in the city by their temples. One of the most impressive ones is a Lutheran church made inside the stone. It is probably one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city and definitely is something not to be missed.
The Lutheran church is surprisingly empty. I was born in a Catholic country where all churches, even in small cities, are gold warehouses; it even hurts your sight and thighs up your comfort. When you enter a Lutheran church, you will probably wonder where was everything taken to, where are the paintings and icons, where are the gold angel statues, was it robbed recently? Five minutes passed and finally you understand that that’s a place to prey, to think, to relax. A place where no one will impose you the heavy cross, where you can find yourself.
Surprisingly the main catholic church in Helsinki looks like a chapel in it’s size and architecture. I guess it doesn’t have much fans within the suomi. On the contrary, and regarding that this was once a russian province with many russian families living here nowadays, the orthodox church smells like Moskva, by its imponent attitude, constructed in one of the high points of the city.

Looking for the Helsinki “professionals”

While there was still some sun left we have to leave home. The prices are amazingly high and it will be pretty hard to deal with when everyone is running around with the credit card at hand, even if it is just to get a beer. People here just don’t use paper money as they call it. The 1 and 2 euro cents coins disappeared from their currency and it’s easy to understand why. Although, the prices in supermarkets are not that high, at least compared with the Portuguese, what makes you think that, with a salary that starts with a 2 digit, there’s quality in suomi life. There’s a place where the ones known as the professionals go to have a drink. If you think about it, a 2 euros beer in Helsinki, outside a supermarket (that stops to sell any alcohol from 21h on) is something that no one would believe anymore. But they exist. And we found them...

Actually, alcoholism is here one of the worst problems and it’s not difficult to see it by the way people drink here, like there was no tomorrow. By the way, estonians complain a lot about the fins that come over on weekends to get cheap spirits and get wasted. Actually, further on in my travel I saw that when in Talinn where you can find this all-liquor tax-free markets, some of them right next to a sex shop to make the scenario complete. Though, all the time I was there in Helsinki I've seen no fights nor so wrong behaviors caused by alchool as you can see mostly all around western Europe, tanking Great Britain as an example. This alchoolism is somehow a mood that can get into you and can even be positive if it isn't taken to extreme all day drunkness.

Helsinki, land of Vikings and something else

At your first sight, Helsinki is a not so colorful port city, specially if you come in the winter while there’s no snow. The cold weather and the lack ness of sunlight are many times a deadly combination, the reason for a big number of suicides (against the idea that many people still have that they do it because they have everything). Although I have to admit to you, the city is quite pleasant to be in. There are nice red fish markets by the square next to the port, making you see Helsinki as a land of fisherman. Of course it is much more than that, all of us know Finland to be one of the most developed countries in Europe, the home of Nokia but this can’t be seen in a first glance. There are no super modern Nokia public phones as I imagined to be, no ultra super skyscrapers dressed in glass and touching the sky, just a simple environment of people that are living there own measures and happy about it. No needs to show of and want to be the capital of the Universe. Their one line metro can tell you: we’re suomi and that’s just who we want to be.

Through the lands in the end of the world

The journey begins in Finland, right on the top north. All of us have heard about the lands in the end of the world, for most of us, the home of St. Claus (in Laponia) and for some others, less informed, a city where penguins are walking in the streets. Well, I’ve only saw business man looking like penguins in my best but can’t say I was looking for them often. Right after departing from Amsterdam, where the sun wasn’t that much already, the sky gains a red fired color called sunset, almost strange to my southern European perspective, to fall quickly into the dark night, just before four o’clock in the afternoon, closing the sky even to the shinning of the stars. While there was still some light, from the plane window you can see all those lakes and wonder where actually there’s land. As someone was telling me, Scandinavia has thousands and thousands of them, you just need to define how big can they already be classified like that.

As the reader probably has read, Finland lands were too long occupied by Russians until, in the end of the WW II they got their independency. Although, many Russians still live in the country and the political relations between both countries are somehow stable, the social situation is not so calm. The old fin sitting next to me in the plane, with whom I’ve been chatting in between my Russian language study times, told me gently as answer to my “Do you speak Russian?” question: “No, I hate Russians.” I know that not all the suomi fell the same way, especially within the young, although this answer didn’t surprise me at all. He also told me that Helsinki is not yet covered with snow, as I dreamt it would be, due to unnormal high temperatures. You rarely can see aurora borealis in the city and, for that, I would have to go some 10 hours by train further north, which is a bit out of my path. Maybe next time.

Packing !?

Preparing to travel has always been much more than packing. It’s spending some of the free time looking through the guides in old bookshops, looking for the recent news and even weather forecast, looking forward to consume all the little details of the stories told and photos shown by whoever was there before. Also is reading those books, listening that music, even if so hard to find wherever, searching for culture alements on documentarie movies in old tapes stored in the basement, to somehow try learn some words that only a few understand. At some point is to be a local much more than the ones who are in fact. To fall in love for what you haven’t even seen with your own eyes yet. Preparing the journey is to be already there, although you’re not …

A starting point ...

I’m Joao Pita Costa, a member of AEGEE European Student Forum. I’m coming with the idea of connecting two far away points: Lisboa and St.Petersburg. I’ll be looking for common points in these two magic cities that somehow give the west and east limits to a Europe made of people and not of territory. I left on the 20th of January from Lisboa towards Helsinki, right in the north of the Europe that I know.

My path will start in Helsinki, in Finland, historically close related to Russia; from there I’ll go down to Estonia, one of the old Baltic USSR member states, that also chare many soviet memories, and from Tallinn, I’ll enter by bus in Russia. St. Petersburg is the starting point of my visit, the main contact. After that I only know I’ll be representing AEGEE Lisboa in the Winter University event in Moskva, as Dasha’s invited guest, the kind AEGEE President from this antenna.

Here in this space the reader should just enjoy the short stories posted and participate in it by writhing comments in Portuguese, Russian or even Slovene (why not?). They may be suggestions from who knows better, questions from what is written and even some quests. I’m open to any challenge my friends. Keep track of this journey as it was your own. My best wishes and thoughts of a sesljui novi god.