Let me show you how my city, St. Petersburg, prepared for Christmas. On Saturday I went for a walk across the city center - I had no business deals, decided just to walk around with my camera, looking at the festive wintertime decorations, to stroll along Nevsky Prospect and Palace Square, to check the annual Christmas Fair at Arts Square. All these locations are close, within walking distance of each other; a good starting point for most similar routes is "Nevsky Prospect" or "Gostiny Dvor" Tube station.
The latter greets passers-by with a Christmas tree and a huge Santa Claus statue,-- which of course sets a mood for the holiday.
Nevsky avenue right in the middle - around Gostinny Dvor tube station.
Kazansky Cathedral has another Christmas tree right in the front...
This huge tree is located on the Arts Square - an annual fair and festivities are held here, a carousel, a skating rink and many street food stalls are built - a real paradise for a person with a camera! I could not leave here, I just got magnetized and caught all sorts of genre scenes.
The first plot I came across was the symbolic cleaning of the number "12" on the clock, indicating the exact time of New Year arriving.
Later, I met this fancy Steampunk character...
...and lots of kids. Children were making snowmen, hugging huge toys - characters from old and beloved Soviet cartoons (and their mothers were taking pictures), sitting at a table drinking hot tea and having snacks, standing in a long line to ride the carousel, happily looking out of the windows of a toy train, trying to open the ice skating season... and many other cool things.
The carousel was too big to fit in my camera in one piece. I had to split it in two. =)
Skating ring is not huge, like some others, but have a perfect ice, cool lighting and atmosphere... the entrance is free - thanks to the municipals!
There is a lot of fun here - simply because it is a fair!
I spent about 40 minutes here, and could have walked until night fell - but I wanted to check out another Christmas tree on another central square - I mean Palace Square, which is located near the Hermitage. This Christmas tree is rightly considered the most important one. I took apparently an hour break for lunch, and by the time I got to the next desired location - it already became dark and, what's worse, the snowfall had intensified.
The rest turned into the night photography and perhaps would better fit into a separate post.
It doesn't look that great in the photos... of course I still took a couple dozen photos... but I rightly thought that I would need to come here in calmer and clearer weather. By the way! yesterday was the shortest day of the year - this means that until the Summer Solstice the daylight hours will gradually increase each day. Nice!
Frozen Neva-river is also decorated with light trees.
Let me round up my post here - obviously it is impossible to fit unfittable in one blog only. To be continued!
| location: | St.Petersburg, Russia | December 2024 | natural light |
| camera/lens: | Canon 5D | 70-200mm, 16-35mm | raw-conv |
