Thursday 28 August 2008

All the rest of the photos

Well I'm back, I will blog again in a few days and sum up what its like to be home and what I did in St Petersburg. I have spent several hours uploading the pictures and need to go out and eat so will annotate them later.



The only photo I could be bothered taking in St Petersburg - it looked better in real life


Alternative view of Petrozavodsk best known sculpture on the lakefront


Art gallery




The opera house which is about half way through a 3 year renovation, it looks seriously impressive closer up


Lots of the city blocks have areas of greenery around the back and quite often wooden houses, I photographed this one purely because of the striking colour of the house.



local beauty spot called the devils armchair












look closely - its a double decker car






map on the wall of my classroom, I spent 3 months looking at this map when I was struggling to remember something.






Insect bites - I had these all over



Logs in the river in Kondopoga - along the lakefront are hundreds of garages all of them at least hal a mile away from any flats of houses!









Me and Larisa - Larissa isnt as stern as she looks, but I wouldnt dare go to class without doing my homework




Eastern europes larges paper mill


















The above 4 are all pictures of Kivach waterfalls a locl beauty spot, it is a russian tradition on wedding days for the party to visit a war memorial, several beauty spots and the statue of a dead commie. The result is that on a summer Saturday you happen across newlyweds everywhere you go.






2 more of the paper mill












another wedding






Lake and fountain in one of the cities many parks



cruise ship docked in Petrozavodsk



Outside the Karelian resteraunt - where the village theme commences



Korean students giving a talk



My honey pie



I think this bloke was the vice-chancellor of the uni








2 pictures of the war memorial with eternal flame. In the top picture its the view beyong the memorial with the tractor factory in the distance - really I am not making this up, zoom in on the picture and look closely and you will see the tractor monument thingy outside.



One of the cities formal squares




Kazan, the host families dog










The bus station in Sortavala - the sign on the left of the marlboro sign says that it is the cash desk of Sortavala bus station, I was rther pleased that I was able to find it to get the bus home.




releasing balloons at one of the bars I went too, apparently it was the bars birthday.






The above two are countryside near Sortavala



















The above are all the nicest buildings in Sortavala



View towards the promenard and across the lake, their are some very popular beer and kebab tents and of course lots of public sculptures.





Countryside on Kizhi island







View from the que for the drop toilet on the way to Sortavala







Some of the lesser buildings on Kizhi






My mum - slightly off topic




View from my window during a rainstorm



View from on the lake.

6201 Princess Elizabeth - for anyone who I have mentioned my mums train enthusiast tendancies too - this is the engine. Thanks to Steve for the photo.