Well, about 14,000 airmiles, 2 hrs at passport control at Shermetievo Airport in Moscow just getting into Russia, several missed connections in London, the wrong flight coupon lifted by Aeroflot (Aeroflopped?) on the way home causing me not to have a valid flight coupon from London to Chicago, overbooked flights, long boring layovers, and all of the other "fun" stuff that goes with international travel later, I'm back in the USA. Despite all of the hassels assocaited with the travel part of the trip, Moscow and St Petersberg are both great cities for a visit, and if anyone is every inclined, I would recommend them, especially St. Petersberg, heartily! The people are warm and friendly and very willing to be helpful to visitors, the food was great and so was the vodka for that matter! Suffice it to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself while I was in Russia.

I did get to see a couple of lighthouses along the way while I was in St Petersberg. Maybe a first for anyone from the CF's going lighthousing in Russia?!

I and everyone else in St. Petersberg also got to be frustrated by Bush's visit to St. Petersberg over the weekend. His visit there basically tied the city in knots with security measures - no maritime traffic on the Neva River, intersections blocked and traffic snarled by his motorcade Saturday evening, The Hermitage shut down for his tour of it on the 299th anniversary of the city of St Petersberg (you have to wonder who did the planning and whether or not they took into consideration things like local, MAJOR celebrations - would Putin visit DC on July 4th? duhhhhhh....) Oh well...

I'll post some shots from Russia tomorrow or Wednesday when I have my slides back, assuming that they weren't X-rayed into oblivion alaong the way. I was able to have my film hand checked at a number of steps along the way. The least hospitable airport security folks, without any doubt in my mind, are those in Chicago!

Gary


[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 05-29-2002).]

Gary, that really stinks that Chicago was the least hospitable about hand checking exposed film.

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Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest

I was probably being charitable labeling the security minions in Chicago as "least hospitable." They were downright offensively nasty! They thoroughly reamed one guy for not taking his computer out of his backpack and told him that if he wouldn't cooperate that he would be arrested! Airport security? More like storm troopers working for the empire! Did these characters escape from the set of Star Wars III? Seems that their "authority" has totally gone to their heads and by God it's their right to be tyrranical about it and if you don't like it...

Gary, the reason for the lack of manners is because about 2 weeks ago, the old airport security was replaced by off duty Chicago Police full time. The Chicago PD has never been known for thier politeness.

Since I'll be flying out to South Haven and California in the next few months, I posted a note on a usenet board to see how people fared getting photo equipment through airport security. The concensus was that security checks varied widely from airport to airport, and sometimes even from security booth to security booth! One fellow related that they swabbed all of his unprocessed film rolls for explosives and then demanded to take one roll at random and pull the film out of the cannister!

Interesting Mark re the Chicago police. I wasn't aware that they'd made that change but that would no doubt explain the massive arrogance that I saw passing through O'Hare.

Gary

Hey, Gary, welcome home! Glad at least it was a SAFE trip.
Bud

Gary,
Glad you made it back. Are you sure all the security wasn't for you! After all, your photos are priceless.
Seriously, that sounded like quite a trip, and anxious to see how the photos fared.
Pam

Thanks for the welcome home everyone - it's appreciated and it's nice to be back. I hope that the photos I shot that I'll post on here will live up to your expectations, Pam!

RUSSIAN CATHEDRALS

The cathedrals in Moscow are spectacular to say the least and are wonderful photographic subjects. Although my trip was business, my hosts were extremely gracious in making opportunities for me to do some photography. When I travel to do photography, I take about 70 pounds of photo gear - multiple camera bodies and usually about 10 lenses. On this trip, since it was business, I took a single camera, my Nikon N90, and just one lens that I use for travel, which is a Tamron 28-300 mm. The wide range gives you plenty of composition freedom. The only downside is that it is a little "slow."

St Basil's


Probably one of the "classic" cathedrals of Moscow is St Basil's, which was unfortunately partially covered in scaffolding for maintenance or renovation, making it harder to get some of the sorts of photos that I wanted. At any rate, here are a couple of photos of St Basil's for a start.

This first photo was taken at night off a tripod borrowed from one of my hosts - he happens to be an avid photographer. The cathedral is lit at night with fluorsecent floods that give everything a greenish-color cast so the color was adjusted in Photoshop to bring it back to normal as shown here.





This second photo from the side gives a better idea of the massive size of St Basil's, which was built in the mid 1500's. The opposite side is sheathed in scaffolding. Unfortunately, the sky was sort of a flat gray that makes it difficult to see the crosses on top of St Basil's famous domes.

KREMLIN CATHEDRALS

The Kremlin contains a number of beautiful cathedals. There are four around Sobornaya (cathedral square).

Blagovshchensky Cathedral


Blagovshchensky Cathedral, or the Cathedral of the Annunciation is one of the four cathedrals on the Sobornaya. Although it was threatening to rain while I visited the Kremlin, the sky added what I thought was a pretty dramatic backdrop for some of these photos.



Uspensky Cathedral


Another cathedral just across the square was Uspensky Cathedral or the Dormition Cathedral.



Shot at night from across the Moscow River with a 300 mm lens, again with color correction in photoshop for the lighting...






[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 05-29-2002).]

[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 05-30-2002).]

Welcome Home, Gary.

Great shots of those lighthouses of religion!

Great pictures Gary! John, well said about the lighthouses of religion. I believe they are!

Bert

Not Lighthouses but great pictures none the less Gary!

Gary,
As always, great photos! I like John's comment of lighthouses of religion.
Keep them coming.
Thank you.
Pam

Interesting thought on "lighthouses of religion" John... very appropriate in many respects, I suppose. I didn't get much scanning done last night - was building a bookcase for my wife to organize some of her stuff on, but that's done so I can play with my photography tonight.

Church of the Ascension - St Petersberg

This beautiful church sits on one of the many canals in St Petersberg. Fortunately, the day I was roaming the city with my camera, there was a clear blue sky to offset the many domes of this cathedral.




Much later in the day, shot from a boat tour of the Neva River and the canals, I got another shot of the domes lookin up.



The Kremlin - Moscow

Taken earlier in my trip, when I shot St Basil's Cathedaral at night, it sits right next to the Kremlin. Again, this image was color balanced in Photoshop to take care of the green fluorescent floodlighting.



Hope everyone enjoys some of the sights of Moscow and St Petersberg.

Gary

Great pic's thanks for sharing and welcome back.

Chuck

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bigdragon

WOW! (again)

Your photos are beautiful. I was on a 2 week cruise in July 2000 starting in London. The cruise went to the Scandinavian capitals. We had the opportunity to spend 2 days in St. Petersburg. Your photos bring back fond memories.

We toured the Hermitage. It was very HOT while we were inside. There is no air-conditioning or climate control inside the Hermitage. It is sad because there are so many beautiful paintings that are deteriorating from lack of control of humidity and sunlight.

I would highly recommend this "lighthouse" cruise. It is a great way to tour 7 countries and not have to re-pack or wait at airports. All you have to do is go to bed and wake up the next morning in a new country. There are several lighthouses to see from the water, especially cruising into Stockholm, Sweden.

[This message has been edited by Lorie Roe (edited 05-31-2002).]

KREMLIN CATHEDRALS

As I mentioned in a previous post to this thead, there are four cathedrals around the Sobornaya or Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin walls. I was able to get one good shot that at least shows portions of the classic onion domes of the four cathedrals to one extent or another. This photo was taken at 300 mm from the bridge across the Moscow River at around midnight. The color was temperature corrected to remove the greenish fluorescent color cast.





Assumption Cathedral

The domes of the Assumption Cathedral are less numerous than those of Blagovshchevsky Cathedral but no less beautiful.





Hope you enjoy these.




[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 06-02-2002).]

[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 06-02-2002).]

More and more great pictures, Gary.

Were you free to go where you wanted and when you wanted in Russia? Did you feel personally safe from crime while there?

Could you buy Fuji film there? Was Kodak there?

How did you get around in Russia?

Thanks, John.

Russia in the present day is a very open country, very much unlike the last time I was there nearly 30 years ago at the height of the cold war. Then, you couldn't go anywhere. The thought of being in the Kremlin with a camera popping off photos of the cathedrals would have been unthinkable!

Both Kodak and Fuji film were readily available although I must admit I didn't see slide film, but then again, I took what I needed along as I thought I'd have a hard time finding Fuji Professional slide film without a lot of effort. There was a lot of Konica and Agfa film to be had as well on the various stands that I saw.

Since I was there on business, my hosts took good care of me in terms of making sure that I had time to photograph since they know it's a very serious hobby for me. Of course the fact that several of them are also avid photographers didn't hurt any either. For the most part, I never felt unsafe anywhere I went in Moscow or St Petersberg. At the same time, I'm sure my hosts wouldn't have let me wander too far off the beaten path without a warning. You are allowed to photograph in museums and such in Moscow and St Petersberg for a modest fee - typically $1.50 to $3 or so. Who could complain?

While most of the people that I ran into spoke at least some English, getting around Moscow without someone who can read the Russian Cyrillic alphabet would be tough. The only English signs that I saw were on the ring road around Moscow and all they said was "Moscow" which after you've seen it once in Cyrillic you remember anyway. The Moscow Metro, which is a primary way of getting around the city has NO ENGLISH signage what-so-ever! There is evidently somewhat of a move afoot to change that, but, at present, that's another reason for being with someone who knows the language.

In Moscow, we either took the Metro, or one of my Russian colleagues drove. The later was no small feat... traffic in Moscow would make someone from LA nervous! Imagine a 6 lane road - 3 each way - now, at speed, turn it into a 10 lane road without widening anything. You've just defined Moscow traffic! Not for the faint of heart to be sure. Moscow is a large, bustling, international capital with about 10 million people and has the traffic problems to match. Between Moscow and St Petersberg, we took the overnight train. We left the station in Moscow exactly on time at midnight and were in St Petersberg at around 7:45 AM on schedule. My train experience in Russia was no different, albeit a little less plush, than what you'd find in Western Europe.

Housing in Moscow is quite different from what you find here in the US. The vast majority of the Muscovites live in huge apartment blocks... thousands and thousands of units. Those left over from the Soviet era have all of the problems that you might expect and need renovation. More modern construction, could be readily transplanted to most major cities and would fit in. Apartments are relatively small by US standards but not uncomfortable.

Hope that some of this slice of my expereince in Russia is of interest. I'll continue to post more photos from the trip as I get them scanned, including some lighthouses (see the new thread Rostral Towers - St Petersberg for the start of that!)

Gary

Great photos as usual, Gary, many of which I didn't get to see before we left for CA because I wasn't on HL. I don't think I told you this before, but regarding airport security, remember you told me to put the 2 rolls of film that I hadn't shipped to the hotel in my slacks pocket and then pull them out when I got to the security area and put them in the little basket? Well, that's what I did -- only this time, they put the stupid little tray through the x-ray machine! In San Francisco on the way home, I was "picked" as the random person just before boarding to have my carryons checked. This woman had absolutely NO consideration for how she handled my lenses, filters, camera, etc., especially my brand new Canon Ultrasonic 17-35mm lens which is going to take me the rest of the year to pay for. This is despite the fact that I was trying to admonish her to be careful handling them because there were expensive lenses there. She couldn't have cared less and put big smudgy fingerprints on some of the lenses because she took the lens caps off!! I had to check them all and clean them before I could use them the next time.

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Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest

It's probably a good thing that I don't fly with my Nikon 500 mm f4 AFS lens. You can't put a filter on the front of that big monster... 122 mm in diameter... but it does have a protective element in front of the first lens element. Probably a good thing I don't fly with it, because some callous moron would end up with a broken finger for leaving a print on the front of that puppy!!!!

Gary