Visit St.Petersburg

The last night was a special one! Two funny things happened! The 1st thing  – I blended up a new word – “whights”. The same like “smog” in London, which is “smoke” plus “fog”, we will have our "whights" in Saint-Petersburg. Mine one means “white nights” which makes “whights”. We have “white nights” in Saint-Petersburg, Russia in May and June every year (except if it is rainy and cloudy nights). It means that the sky is not getting dark in the night and comparatively dark time is very short (between midnight and 2 in the morning), even this darkness looks rather like a twilight than a night. So, tonight I just wanted to say “white nights” and accidently said – “whights”. I had also an idea about “whites”, but “whights” looks better), “whites” is an existing word with its own meanings, not all of them nice, then, no singular use for “whites”, so it is “whights”.

The main Russian writer - Fyodor Dostoevsky lived in the 19^th century and the phrase – “white nights” was his idea – before him different other writers called our nights using a variety of words, for example “clear night”, “light night”, “transparent night”, “light summer twilight”, “light midnight”.
Dostoevsky wrote a romantic novel “White nights” and the name got stuck to the nights and became their official name.

The 2^nd special thing about the last night is that it was the summer solstice at 00.44 the last night. Then on the 21st of June together with United Nations we are celebrating the day of Summer solstice. The blond lady like me can explain it like something connected with the position of the Sun which was the closest to the most Northern point of its route. The Sun was in this position. Starting from this day our white nights or whights will be getting darker and longer, and the days will be getting shorter.

In Saint-Petersburg time of white nights is the highest tourist season – it is the time of the highest hotel prices. Saint-Petersburg doesn’t possess the white nights exclusively, a lot of other towns places with whights, like Murmansk town in Russia for example. There are many towns even closer to the Northern pole than Saint-Petersburg but no one of them is the same big (5 or they say already 6 million people and 1,439 square kilometers, or 556 square miles, it is the closest to the Northern pole city with population more than 1 million people). Then there is no one of the towns on the same latitude are more important – no one is the same beautiful and attractive, no one so big and close to the Northern Pole became an open air museum – so beautiful its ensembles are - the combination of the buildings, the streets, its canals, bridges and rivers, its parks and statues. It is the The latitude of Saint-Petersburg is 59°57´N.

So night sightseeing tours became very popular here. But not just because of white nights. One more reason why all the summer through I deliver special night tours for my tourists – is raising of the bridges. The bridges across the main river Never are raised every night, one by one, according to their schedule. The reason for raising – to let the ships, mostly cargos to pass along the river Neva, get into the next rivers and bring their goods to the other parts of Russia.

In winter when the temperature is below zero Celsius the rivers are frozen, there are neither navigation nor raising of bridges in the city. Starting from the middle of spring when the ice is gone and till around the middle of autumn, when the rivers start freezing, the bridges across the river are raised every night, except stormy nights or danger of a flood. We have 10 bridges across the river Neva to be raised in the night, each one has its own certain time for raising. For example, Dvortsoviy is raised at 1.10 a.m., the next one, Trinity bridge (Troitskiy Most) is raised at 1.20 in the morning, then at 1.25 a.m. - Annunciation Bridge (Blagoveshchensky most), at 1.40 - Liteyny Bridge, the next ones - at 2.00 and 2.20. Usually the night tour to watch raising of bridges lasts from around midnight till 2.00 or 2.30 in the morning.

So, the bridges are raised, they are up, the ships are moving.

Then, a couple of hours later, according to the schedule, the bridges are to be put down one by one, the 1^st one should be down at 4.50 a.m., the next at 4.55 a.m., the next at 5 in the morning and so on, one by one again. But now it tends to change, often, in just 1 or 2 hours after raising the bridges, if all the ships have passed through already, the bridges are put down earlier than in it scheduled. It is a good surprise for the people, who wants to cross the river, and sitting next to the bridge, waiting when it goes down at 5 in the morning, but, look, the bridge goes down earlier – they can come back home or escape from this bank to the other. A good surprise!

But this raising - it is not only beautiful, it also a big problem for the citizens. We’ve got a joke: If you are a guest of the city you would say “Wow! Raising of the bridges!” if you are a citizen you would say “Raised bridges! Damn them!”. Just about 10 years ago when all the bridges without exception across the river were raised in the night, there was no possibility to cross the river in the summer night. Even no small ferries of boats – when the big ships are moving along the river it is strictly prohibited to stay on the river in a small boat – too dangerous.

Now we’ve got a new cable stayed bridge “Bolshoy Obukhovsky Bridge” which is high enough, so the ships can go under it, so it is never up and we can cross the river and get to the other part of the city any time of the day or night. It is far from the center – it is so high and long, that having it in the center would ruin not only the view of the city, but we would have to demolish a lot of important palaces and historical buildings to construct so long and big bridge. The total length is 2,824 meters which is 9,265 feet, the height is 120 meters which makes 395 feet. That is why they didn’t make it in the center.

Now it became possible to cross the river in the summer night, but it takes more time and petrol. Let’s imagine, you are standing in front of the bridge in the city center and need to get to the other bank of the river, which is in about 1 kilometer or 0,62 miles opposite to you or even less, but it is summer and night, and the bridge in front of you is raised, but you have to get there badly you can use this Cable Stayed bridge - it will take you about 25 kilometers or 15 miles to get to that bridge, to cross the river and come back along the other bank. By the way, nobody remembers the official name of the bridge “Bolshoy Obukhovsky Bridge” and we just call it – Cable Stayed bridge which sounds “Vantovij Most” in the Russian language.

Though before this high bridge was constructed and completely opened in 2007, some gentlemen made use of the raised bridges. I remember my good friend asked me to let him stay in my flat because the bridges were raised, just a friend’s hand. Just in time I remembered that it was late November, the navigation the same like the summer was over, no raising of the bridges anymore. Now the banks of the river are not separated anymore and the boy’s life is getting more difficult!