This astonishing video, posted on Kuriositas, of Russia’s capital under the czars is called “If You Never Wanted to Visit St. Petersburg, You Will After Watching This.” St. Petersburg recently celebrated its 300th anniversary as a city – it is quite young. Look not merely at the featured buildings but at the streetscapes in their vicinity and marvel at how intact the city has remained through all the vicissitudes of its history. Citizens recently defeated an effort by Gazprom, Russia’s state energy monopoly, to erect a megatower there. Was it wisdom or poverty that prevented the communists from doing to their old capital what London, possibly now Paris, and so many American cities have done to erase their beauty and torpedo their livability?
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About David Brussat
This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred.
History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book.
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Thanks for that. It is a pity about your reference to “czar Putin”. This remark demonstrates how far the neocon psyche has penetrated the views of people who should know better.
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The “neocon psyche” could mean anything these days, but is usually taken wrongly to mean warmonger. The neocons sought an active anti-communist policy. It worked like a charm. One could say a lot worse about Putin than that he wields power like a czar. Please enjoy the video rather than plumbing psyches that you have not the information to grasp.
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I apologize for being out of order. But everywhere Putin is abused as if he is a monster. The UK government has recently effectively accused him of being a murderer! He is not a dictator like the last czar was. He has not shamed his office as the puppet Obama has. He deserves to be respected and called President Putin – otherwise we risk playing to the agenda of those who seek aggression against Russia
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Peter, I don’t know enough to comment intelligently on the validity of accusations against Putin. I removed the reference to Putin because my reference to helicopters/drones was challenged. So hopefully now the post is blameless!!
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I disagree, it definitely was filmed from a drone. You can’t fit a helicopter that easily through the arch at 2:35
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Maybe you were right. I will check to see if there was something that caused me to leap to a mistaken conclusion, but I do think reference was made in the Kuriositas text to a helicopter used to produce this film.
… After checking I can find no reference to any helicopter. Who knows. I will change it.
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Reblogged this on Eu Vivo a Melhor Idade and commented:
LINDÍSSIMA ST. PETERSBURG
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