Ghosts from the past.

The cold war confuses the hell out of me. I can just about grasp the method, and even have go at its deranged logic... but the timescale is lost on me.

Over Half a century of bitter rivalry, ended so recently. In my lifetime even. The realization that to many of the people i meet here, soviet times were not part of some past history, but part of their youth. Strange reminders float around like ghosts from the past. We visit Kronstadt, a naval military base that has always historically guarded the city. The sailors rebellion that took place here was a solid chunk of my A level course and i find it deeply surreal to walk the same streets. Today the Russian navy still has a military presence, but on the whole the island feels deeply run down. Burned out buildings sit next to surviving soviet flats. A few old men drunkenly swan about its streets but otherwise theres a strange stillness to the place.

We head for an old cathedral at the east end of the Island. Slipping the woman guarding the place 100 rubles we're let in. Whether or not this was an official transaction, i don't know but we were left with some keys and told to go to the top of a long staircase. After a short dark passageway and a tiny winding staircase (apparently originally designed for 12 year old choir boys... not backpack wielding 19 year olds) we reach the top and there I find the most beautiful rubbish tip in the world. During the revolution the soviets turned the cathedral into a cinema. Building a roof on the inside cutting off its grand dome. Standing now amongst the dust and rusting beams is a very odd feeling. Light streams around the echoing dome bouncing shadows off the mess below. It looks stunning. Sitting amidst it all is an old badge. Though i have no idea what it says its colour scheme and famous hammer and sickle give its origins away. This is the sort of thing I'd expect to be scurried away to a museum and kept behind three feet of bullet proof glass. I see an old historical artifact. The fact it lies here, carelessly propped against the old steel seems to bring home just how recent the whole thing was. To some its still just a memory of older times.

We go on to explore the Island, ducking in and out of burned out apartments, down hill sides and over broken glass. Perhaps because england is such a small place, and land so valuable we just never see places like this. Left behind. For me its a great novelty and the site of an urban place slowly melting back into some sort of nature is fantastic.

Later id try to ask some fellow passengers on the train about times only to fall smack bang into the language barrier. I still have no idea what their recent history means to Russians today. Leaving me with only these narrow impressions and continued confusion about where the past ends and history begins.

As we head back to St Petersburg the sky yet again becomes obligingly beautiful for my camera. Within a couple of days I've moved on again.

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Lunch: Big meaty red soup