Around St. Petersburg
This is one fantastic city that is buried deep in Russian culture and history. Besieged by the Germans for almost three years in World War II it lost 600,000 of its citizens the very first year. Stories of heroism, Communist and Nazi brutality, and survival are almost unbelievable. Today it is a city, like Moscow, caught between huge modernization projects and protecting a glorious heritage. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. One explanation: there are two photos here of the outside walls of the Kirov factory, where heavy armaments continued to be made for the defense of the city in WWII...on a couple of miles from German lines. The workers from this and other factories worked their shifts and then went to the front every day. They, not the Red Army, saved the city in the first months of the war.
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