My Russian Life: Long Summer Nights

It's almost the White Nights of St. Petersburg! June 21 is THE big day, but honestly the 3-4 weeks on either end all feel like the city is celebrating life.

It's a crazy time to be in the city - tourists everywhere, sunlight from 4:00 until midnight (and those other 4 hours are not actually dark). And this year, it has actually been warm, so it really feel like Summer.

I went to the Mikhailovsky Theatre this week to see a ballet performance of Romeo & Juliet. The theatre is small but one of the oldest in the city, built in 1833, and was preserved really well through the Soviet period. I was really impressed by the performance, a version of R&J from the 1930's by Sergey Prokofiev, one of Russia's great composers. And the dancers are such amazing athletes.

"Juliet" taking a bow

I walked home since it was such a beautiful night. To give you a sense for the time, I took these pictures between 10:20 and 11:30PM.

Church on Spilled Blood

Kazan Cathedral

I love that the streets are still this busy at 11PM!

I love this building. It's on the east side of Palace Square, and used to be home for the Imperial Army. You can almost see the Alexandra Column (which is in the center of the square) in the background