Excursions to Pushkin, Peterhof

I did the touristy thing this weekend, taking group tours out to the summer palaces in Pushkin (yes, they really did name a village after him) and Peterhof (which has another name in Russian that escapes me now).

In the Petersburg suburbs the spaces meant for public consumption (e.g., parks and paths) are kept up very well, while those meant for private use (e.g., apartment blocks) are in a terrible state of disrepair. Can't tell if this contrast is a holdover from the Soviet era or if things in the apartment blocks have gone to hell for post-communist reasons. SO MUCH is needed in Russia -- doors, locks, windows, flooring, grout, tiles, paint. Probably also brushes, hammers, nails. Basic, basic stuff. The good news, I suppose, is that it's a big emerging market. On the other hand, since I think the average monthly income in SP is about $300, Home Depot in St. Petersburg will probably have to wait. I did see an IKEA billboard, though.

So, after hour-long drives into the suburbs, we pull up outside the most extravagant examples of baroque architecture (baroqecture?) I have ever seen... Both palaces were destroyed by the Nazis & so have been only recently (and only partially) rebuilt, to the tune of millions and millions of rubles. They are great tourist attractions, of course, and do generate lots of revenue for further restoration, but it was hard to be in those palaces after seeing the decrepit apartment blocks on the way in. There's some new construction, new apartment blocks, going on, but it really seems like the old ones are gonna just stay there until they fall down...