Impressions of St Petersburg

To sum up my impressions of St Petersburg: I really hadn't expected there to be so much historic central areas. It really is a great European city much as Peter the Great must have wanted it to be. Apart from the distinctively Russian churches the general feel is totally European, perhaps more Italian than anything else. And yet everything is on a scale that probably makes its Italian equivalents look hobbyish by comparison. With its original islands fully built on, the rivers now seem like canals giving it the feel of Venice. Of course, here we were in Summer. I expect that in Winter it all reverts to a cold series of cityscapes in snow and ice. I heard someone ask "why would you come here in winter?" but I'd be curious to realise the contrast. It was certainly cleaner and more civilised than I must have expected. I say that because I seemed to have been surprised. To be sure there is a strong element of decay visible both in the city and the surrounding countryside. But with no way of knowing which is part of a current neglect and which the remnant of past neglects I feel that the amount of historic restorations under way must guide the benefit of the doubt. Of the Russian people that we encountered I have only good to report. The tourist arrangements were all quite orderly, firm and mostly friendly. Our tour guide was informative and adaptable, being particularly good to accommodate our wish to spend more time at the Hermitage. Despite being well warned about pickpockets we had no incidents - of course we had prepared by having tamper-proof bags and covering each other while photographing. And in general Russians going about their city lives seemed entirely normal. I think we did both notice a slight commonality to the look of people - a degree of monoculture that is not familiar in our multicultural cities. Language presence in the city was, unsurprisingly, mostly Russian but I was surprised by the amount of English text visible and not only in signs for tourists per se. If I assume that English would serve as a usable non-Russian world language then such signage might indicate an amount of international residents.