Tidbits From the World

“Russia is probably the country [among the countries in the former Soviet Bloc] which least looks communist”. This is what I was told by a fellow tourist in Moldova, who thought that Russia, being the richest country in the former USSR, would be the most “capitalist-looking” of all the countries in the former USSR (strictly in an esthetical and superficial point of view).

But as I was visiting Russia, that supposition proved false. It is still possible to find a lot of statues of Lenin in Russia, which is impossible to see in countries in the former USSR (where Vladimir Lenin is considered as a ruthless dictator).

Vladimir Lenin’s bust in Leningradskaya train station in Moscow.

The oldest statue of Lenin that is still standing in Russia.

A statue of Karl Marx and the motto of the former Soviet Union (Workers of the world, unite!) in Moscow.

A slogan on top of an old building. “Glory to labor!” in St-Petersburg.

University of Moscow, a building with a typical stalinian architecture.

Another Stalinian building in Moscow.

The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, looks like the buildings that one finds in Moscow.

In China, the Communist Party is still ruling the country, therefore the country is still officially communist. One cannot really find statues at the effigy of old leaders, but at the Tian’anmen Square in Beijing, there is one portrait of Mao.

Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China.

An old slogan written during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s in a hutong (typical historical area in Beijing). It reads “The ideas of Chairman Mao will survive during the eternity!”

Let’s leave China for a moment to see some pictures that I took in Russia. Here are some pictures from Saint Petersburg.

The two-headed eagle is the symbol of Russia.

When you visit Russia, you might find here and there the old Russian emblem, that of the USSR. The Russian letters SSSR (CCCP) stand for Soyuz Sovietskikh Sotsialistichekikh Respublik (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик), which means Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. On the emblem you can see the slogan of the USSR “Proletarians of the World, Unite!”

The bear is also the symbol of Russia. Here, a cub is given milk on a park bench.

Officers in a train station are looking for privates who are out without permission.

Have they gotten their permission to go out?

A car driver is arguing with a traffic police agent.

“Come on, have a ride in my taxi!”

Some people say that Saint Petersburg is like a northern Venice because of the Neva River and some other smaller rivers that go through the city.

A lot of people fish at the Neva River.

An Orthodox Church, in which the most important religion in Russia is followed.

A prayer.

Vladimir Lenin gives a speech, from a balcony, in which he tells the revolutionaries to not give up the socialist revolution, in 1917.

Here is the balcony today. By a strange coincidence, the day that I took this photograph, a Coca-Cola car was parked just under the balcony. History is full of 180° turns.

Old women are probably the people who are suffering the most from the collapse of the Soviet Union right now. Without any pension, or almost nothing, they try to survive by selling fruits picked in the garden of their Dacha (countryside house).

Boris. He is the man behind some of the comments in this blog! After four years of being Internet pen pals, we finally met in his home city. He was my guide, my translator, my historian and my sociologist everywhere in the city. I would flood him with questions. Every answer that he would give me opened the door to a new question. So, long cycles of questions and answers were always taking place until Boris could not answer anymore and would say, “Alexandre, I don’t know! »

A dream come true… I bought this book some years ago. I remember very well the day I went to the bookstore. My dream was to go inside the picture and to find myself in the Red Square in Moscow. And there I am now. Ah, what a marvellous place. I have some 200 pictures of Saint-Petersburg and Moscow. I will publish them in as soon as possible. I am going tomorrow to Beijing by train from Moscow… The journey will have a duration of seven days. Maybe the next picture on this blog will be taken from Tian’anmen square? To be continued…!