Putin's visit. Siege breaking. Orthodox Baptism of Jesus Holiday.

When it is better to have a city tour? As a rule, it is good to have a city tour on the weekend, the streets are empty and we can see several times more things. This weekend appeared to be the chain of celebrations and events which made the streets not so empty.
This weekend some of the streets were blocked due to our president’s visit to celebrate breaking of Siege of Leningrad (name of our city during the Soviet time) during the Second World War. The city was surrounded by Nazis for 872 day starting from the 8th of September in 1941, on the 18th of January in 1944 the Siege was partly broken and a narrow corridor was open, several days later, on the 27th of January the ring of siege was completely broken. So it will be even bigger celebration on the 27th of January.

Our president came to Saint-Petersburg to put the flowers to the memorials dedicated to siege of Leningrad. President Putin is originally from Saint-Petersburg. The war really touched his family. His father was fighting Nazis in one of the most dangerous places Nevsky Pyatachok Nevsky spot I would say – it was very important Bridgehead during the siege. Because of the injury he left from there and survived.
Yesterday Putin went to Nevsky Pyatachok and Piskaryovskoye Memorial cemetery, they buried dead bodies during the Siege, more than one million people died in Leningrad during the Siege. Before the war the population of the city was 3,5 million people. About one million people became soldiers, one million was evacuated, one million died. The biggest war cemetery became Piskaryovskoye Memorial cemetery.
This weekend became the chain of celebrations and special events.
Russian orthodox church is celebrating the Baptism of Jesus.

Yesterday was the Eve of Baptism of Jesus and today, on the 19th of January, Orthodox Christians are celebrating Baptism of Jesus holiday! The water on this day is special. There are big barrels with Holy water in the churches. Due to the special quality of the water on this day we have a tradition of diving into the water in the open air. For this purpose, they cut the ice on the river or a lake in the shape of a cross, or if there is no ice they are using wooden boards to make the place of diving have a shape of cross, this tradition is not considered to be obligatory. They say that you are cleaning the body and the soul if you are diving on this day in this special water. It is like washing out all the deseases and curses. This special water is cleaning and washing out everything. The priests say there is no use in diving in cleaning your body if the person keeps evil in his soul. They say one doesn't have to dive to clean his soul, it is better to be good and kind inside. I cannot but agree.
You can also imagine that having such a tradition of diving into the open water at this time of year we usually have the coldest time now. Sometimes and often we have about minus 18 degrees Celsius (-0,4 Fahrenheit) here in Saint-Petersburg at this time of winter. This year the winter is especially warm so we don’t even have snow. The temperature now is about plus 3 degrees Celsius (37 Fahrenheit) which is not typical for this time, which is usually the coldest in the year and we usually have so called Baptism Frosts.
That is how our Emperor Peter the 3rd died in the 18th century. He participated in the Baptism celebration, got ill and got a smallpox. He was the grandson of famous Peter the Great.

I've made a picture of the Scale Model of Saint-Petersburg museum and we can not just imagine but see it in the picture how such celebration used to happen. Though we continue this tradtions nowdays this year I can not take a picture of the cross shape ice hole and you can guess why. Yes, for the reason of no ice. It is too warm now. This is the first time on my memory when we were celebrating the New Year without any snow. Though we already had some snow in December before the New Year. When they were talking about global warming and all the connected problems I used to calm down reading a piece of Pushkin poem (From Eugene Onegin)
В тот год осенняя погода
Стояла долго на дворе,
Зимы ждала, ждала природа.
Снег выпал только в январе
На третье в ночь.
The autumn weather stood for a long time in the yard that year. The nature was waiting and waiting for winter. Snow fell only in January. On the night of the 3rd.
At first I felt upset – now it is already the 19th not the 3rd like in the poem. Then, I realized, that before the revolution Russia lived according to the different – Julian calendar, this calendar is now used by our Church. So according to Gregorian calendar today is the 19th of January, but according to the Julian calendar which they used during the time of Pushkin (beginning of the 19th century it is just the 6th of January.