The Смоленское Cemetery, FINALLY.

So, there is this beautiful, old, fucking enormous cemetery smack in the middle of Vasilevsky Island -- seriously, if you look at a map, it is this huge green square --

-- that is the Smolenskoye Cemetery. I had heard a lot about it last semester from kids who lived in Primorskaya in host families or at the dorm and had been meaning to walk through there the whole time, but never made it. I was still fully planning on doing this walk this semester as well, but then time passed, time passed, and when I realized that almost all of the new kids living in Primorskaya had already discovered this cemetery and had walked through it, I knew I severely needed to get on this.

Unfortunately the weather prevented me the three times I tried earlier this week (the mornings would start sunny and promising but it would be snowing in the afternoon by the time I was out of class or just cold and windy and wet), but Louis and I finally went yesterday in the sharply clear afternoon. I shot a whole roll of black and white film in the snow and the low, flirtatious late afternoon sun. (Though! Can you believe it! it is already starting to stay light out so much later, we noticed the other night it was almost 8pm and it was still not fully dark, still dusky. and this Saturday is Daylight Savings Time here finally, so then we'll have even MORE light during my waking hours! Beautiful!)

We went to one of the older parts of the cemetery, the Lutheran cemetery, mostly full of German ex-pats and a couple of Italians, the small strip that is up and to the right of the main green square (see blue arrow). Apparently the main part of the cemetery is newer, with tall trees, more spacious, more like a park. The Lutheran cemetery is older and much more like the Pere Lechaise cemetery in Paris I loved so much in January, except, of course, as this is Russia, it is falling to shit, which is part of what makes it so beautiful, especially in the snow which is white and pristine unlike the snow in the rest of the city.... but it was just kind of ridiculous to be looking at a grave where an old coffin had been removed or something, and to go and peer down into the bottom of the whole and see it full of Baltika 7 and Jaguar alcoholic energy drink cans.

Here is one of the few digital pictures I took:

A lot more photos will follow once I get the black and white film back on Thursday.

I am glad I finally went though and fully plan on going back, especially when the sun is higher and brighter and it is a tad warmer so my hands won't numb as much when I am taking pictures.