This is a post to go with #WednesdayWalk challenge by @tattoodjay, and also Ecency discord challenge with the weekly topic 'Summer Walk' -- sounds similar, isnt it? So I decided to combine both!
I had a long walk with my old friend, starting in the middle of Nevskiy avenue (which is the central, parade street of St.Petersburg) to the Palace square, along the Neva river embankment to the New Holland Isle, then to the Kolomna residential district, passing the Admiralty Shipyards and along the Griboedova channel (which is very long, believe me!) to Sennaya square.
Here I tried to draw on the map our route. It took not 15 minutes, but more than 3 hours, I did not count. At the end, our legs were fridgebuzzing demanded a bench, or better a table in a cafe ... (but I will not get ahead of the story). I limited myself to my current preferred lens for street photography: Canon 70-200mm; everything you see in the post was captured by it. But I wasn't focused exactly on photography, just was looking around, because the main thing during this walk was communication - we had not seen each other for several years and there was a lot of news to share and discuss.
Seagulls on the roof of a pleasure boat, near the Palace Bridge. We stopped here for a few minutes, watching the seagulls cycle: some landed, others took off, others cleaned their feathers and turned their heads around. Meditative picture.
There are fish in the river! In good weather, you will always see fishermen with fishing rods on the embankment. But young people are almost never seen among them - perhaps this is a dying hobby? ..
You can sit by the water, very close; take off your sneakers and cool your feet. It is cool to sit chatting and looking at the flowing water and enjoying the river breeze - on such a hot day is an extra pleasure.
This is the front, fashionable part of the city, where everything is for entertainment and the convenience of tourists ... it's nice to walk here.
In the meantime we came to New Holland Island. This place (as happened historically) was occupied by the military in Soviet times, and when the municipal authorities took it away, the island collected dust for almost 20 years, waiting for reconstruction - the city did not want to give away such a good piece of land in the city center for nothing, but there was no energy and funding to make this place our own. Finally, a few years ago, this (small) island was put in order and opened to the public. Now it's very good here! (During his previous visits to the city, my friend just saw only the closed Island, and now his foot has set foot on this piece of land for the first time; the gestalt is closed!).
Today this place can host small concerts and festivals (note twenty posters for events this month!), there is a great playground for children, and most importantly - a lot of greenery where you can stretch and indulge in laziness (or something else, whatever you want).
Despite the fact that the day was a weekday, and it was office hours - look how many leisured people!
I could not resist the temptation to stitch two frames into panorama. Gorgeous summer field!
By the way, it turned out to be the hottest day of the week, with a temperature of 28-30 degrees. See? The dog that was taken out for a walk softened from the heat and spread on the ground as soon as it was on the street!
As soon as we left the hospitable island, and went deeper into the Kolomna district, and soon encountered a wonderful scene: a hilarious interaction between a stray cat and a dog (another dog, not this one, tired of the sun!) ... But I will not show it now, this should not be confused with other impressions. 😂 One way or another, a very cute cat went about her business, unaware that at the same time she was leaving an indelible traces in the blockchain.
This is already the embankment of another river - the small river "Pryazhka" flows here, and the area cannot be compared with the Neva embankment .... the embankment here is no longer granite, rather modest ... and then disappears altogether, resting on the territory of the shipyards - further access is prohibited. If you want to travel back for 50 years, this is a right place for your photo walk. There are no ads, neon lights, shopping malls... the number of cars is lesser.
By the way, I took a few captures of the water - it was really dirty in the area, like this:
Bad thing for ecology, but good for taking pics... I hope to produce something artsy after I apply more processing to these captures, will try a few ideas.
Thats a good opportunity to show you one more photo, as we talk about ecology (althought I took this photo not on this walk):
At the top are several icons of monuments, and at the bottom are plastic bottles. This promotional poster promotes cleanliness! The Russian slogan reads: "Rubbish should not become the main attraction of the city!" Good design, in my opinion - both beautiful and convincing.
The photo shows the final stretch of our journey along the Griboedov Channel to Sennaya Square (the residence of student Raskolnikov, the hero of Dostoevsky's famous novel 'Crime & Punishment'). 150 years ago Sennaya Square was a very poor and dysfunctional area of the city, inhabited with thieves, prostitutes, beggars and other declassed elements - now the real estate here is very expensive.
Ok, here comes time to finish our photo-walk. I was exhausted and did not take any more pics, and put the camera away. Soon we settled down to rest, with a bottle of Chianty and appetizers, and spent another joyful 3 hours. And my further way home (in the middle of a night) is a completely different story! Happily, May to June at St.Petersburg is the season of so called 'white nights' 😜
| location: | St.Petersburg, Russia | June 2023 | natural light |
| camera/lens: | Canon 5D | Canon 70-200mm | raw-conv |
Thanks for walking with me! see you next time.
