Petrozavodsk

July 7–8, 2007

Unbelievable! There are proper access ramps for riding up onto the pavement in Petrozavodsk (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is another such exception). Typically in this country you only see caricatures of ramps — a metre of dropped kerb running five centimetres lower than the rest. Kids in prams and cyclists must feel triumphant.

The disabled burst with happiness upon seeing these ramps, which is what is depicted here.

Large traffic lights overlook the main road, smaller ones — the secondary road. No need for signs to figure out who has to give way to whom.

You can spot a never-before-seen breed of traffic lights here. It’s entirely possible that these are fossils from the 70s.

Pedestrian traffic lights (animated ones, just like in St Petersburg and Ryazan) sit at chest height (cf. automobile traffic lights in Sochi).

Almost all of the poles in this city look just like the ones in this photo. I once spotted similar ones in parts of Riga and thought that they’d forgotten to remove them after the 1930s ended. But here they are, on every street corner. I subsequently saw similar ones in Bratsk and Irkutsk.

By the way, the details and the reality of the city resemble St Petersburg more than anywhere else. From the aforementioned pedestrian traffic lights, all the way through to the “Rive Gauche” stores and “Chaynaya Lozhka” cafés, and their ilk. The across the street banners are the same as in St Petersburg too — narrower and twice as high as in Moscow.

The city slopes down to lake Onega (where the main protagonist of a well-known comical tale in which every single word begins with an “o”, father Onufrii, went to take a postprandial break). Sculptures given to Petrozavodsk by its sister cities line the waterfront.

Petrozavodsk has an awful lot of these sister cities, as many as seven (I have always been of the opinion that each city should really only have one sister).

This sculpture, a gift from La Rochelle, resembles a typical action movie scene where the bad guy falls onto a metal bar.

You’ve read through to the halfway mark.

Polovina [Half]

There are New Year’s decorations in the street. Rightly so, I don’t put away my office oil heater over the summer either — what’s the point, winter will be here in no time.

Old buildings in Petrozavodsk are a rarity, so as a result the city looks a bit like one endless stretch of the Frunzenskaya Naberezhnaya neighbourhood.

Exemplary building 1949 competition

There don’t seem to be any traffic jams, and yet drivers’ give way reflexes aren’t triggered by the sight of a pedestrian.

No entry for unauthorised or private vehicles!

They install steering wheels on trolleybus roofs (cf. tram roofs in Chelyabinsk).

Telephone trying to be trendy.

This rubbish bin was in the Soviet cartoon “38 parrots”.

Menacing taxi ad.

If you like being alive — pick the best 057 Taxi

The time has flown by.

Two happy days in Karelia

I was in a couchette car on the way back to Moscow. At last, I got back at my travel companions for them being so young — not only was I the most plastered person in the carriage, but my socks were also the stinkiest.