In this very strange year for weather unseasonable floods have been reported in some parts of the world. I was reminded of this recently when giving my talk ‘The Bronze Horseman, A tale of Peterburg’ to a group of hospitable WI Members in Long Melford. The talk focusses on Peter the Great and the founding […]
Ice on the Neva According to the Neva Delta Company website this winter the river Neva in St Petersburg is likely to be frozen for longer than average. This is in marked contrast to recent years in which warmer temperatures have meant that sometimes the river remained ice free, and tourist boats have continued to […]
Standing on University Embankment on the right bank of the Great Neva river, among some of the oldest buildings of Saint Petersburg, tourists, particularly those passing on the river in boats, are often surprised to encounter two large Egyptian sphinxes. Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign at the turn of the Nineteenth century stimulated an interest in all […]
Recently, ‘Peterskaya Uslada’ (Petersburg Delight) posted pictures on Twitter of the extraordinary marble hall that can be found in the Palace that was owned from 1830 onward by the Kushelev-Bezborodko family (see image above). Although the interior was remodelled in the middle of the 19th century by the son of the first owner, Count Nikolay […]
We are now moving deeper into December, and it is dark a little after 4 p.m. It was a little earlier, just after 3 p.m. in St Petersburg on December 14th 1825(Old Style) when Nicholas Pavlovich, newly created Emperor of Russia, ordered guns to be fired to scatter 3000 rebel troops. The soldiers had stood […]
Nicholas 1 confronts rioters during the Cholera Epidemic of 1830-31 As seems appropriate in these times of pandemic, I am currently researching the cholera epidemic that hit Russia in 1830 to 1831. The reason for my interest is that my new work in progress, The Legacy, is set in these years, and therefore the impact […]