Saint Petersburg

February 4–5, 2012

Saint Petersburg continues to grow handsomer every time.

Umbrella vending machines have appeared on the streets (an umbrella costs 100 rubles).

Umbrellas in Spb. 100 rub. You know, dear friends, that in our city an umbrella is a necessity.

There are plenty of pay toilets (the cashier is sitting between the cabins).

Special protrusions have been installed on turnstiles in the metro: they make it more difficult to hop over without paying and create additional advertising space.

Although there’s already so much advertising contaminating everything that there’s no architecture left (like in Kiev).

A mysterious coupling construction revealed itself between the cars. Purportedly, it prevents people from falling between cars. I think it must snag the sleeves of passengers waiting on the platform.

But an even stranger thing appeared in the street: some kind of generator silently heating some kind of metal plates lying on the sidewalk. The temperature outside was −20 °C.

Traffic lights with sound assistance for pedestrians have begun appearing downtown. Monotonously and shrilly, with an unpleasant voice and loud beep-beeps, the device informs pedestrians which street can be crossed. If I lived near a traffic light like this, its speaker wouldn’t last longer than ten minutes.