St. Petersburg, known as the capital of the North, is the second largest city in Russia. Recently, the world's famous city will meet and the top 20 people in the world who will participate in the summit of the heads of state of the 20 countries will gather here to discuss and arrange the most difficult and most concerned issues on our planet this century!
Some people say that if you go to Russia and don't go to St. Petersburg, you don't go to Russia. If you go to St. Petersburg and you still don't know anything about Peter the Great, then you are not in St. Petersburg, not even in Russia!
In this world, I have never heard of anyone who can be so closely associated with a city, when you have not been to this city, you have heard people talk about him, when you come to this city, you smell his breath everywhere, you see his marks everywhere, and when you want to leave, you feel the connection between this person and the city, with the flesh and blood of this country and even the soul.
Even when you lift up your pen and try to record the past and future of the city, and record your insights and feelings about coming to this city, you still can't get around it, but you can't get around the legendary experience and outstanding contribution of this person, he is the greatest monarch in Russian history, Peter the Great, whom Engels called "the real great man"!
As a man, he is tall and mighty, standing tall in the sky, more than two meters tall, and the tallest king in the world, (if today, he may be the star of a famous professional basketball team!) He was arrogant by nature, dared to act boldly, said everything, and was full of personality charm that was different from ordinary people. As a generation of monarchs, he was open-minded, went with the flow, and was keen on reform, and within a few decades he achieved Russia's historical status as a Eurasian power!
Interestingly, he and our Kangxi Emperor were almost in the same era. After the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, he issued a ban on the sea, and since then, although the various generations of the Qing Dynasty have made achievements, they have closed the country, basically eating the old roots of the old ancestors, and the fortunes of the country are gradually declining, and when they reach the Mercy, they are even more sick and weak, and everyone dares to bully.
Since peter the great ascended the throne, he has set his sights on Western Europe, which was the most prosperous and powerful at that time. In the beginning, the reason why st. Petersburg, which was seen by tourists in the eyes of today's tourists, was built on the land seized from sweden by the northern power Sweden, because it was close to the mouth of the Baltic Sea, and the construction of this city was to open the gateway to Europe and build a window to observe the world of Europe!
Our Kangxi Emperor also had three visits to Jiangnan Micro-service, but what came out of it was nothing more than some legends of wind and snow. At that time, Emperor Peter also traveled all over The european countries in a humble capacity, did not hesitate to ask questions, collected a wide range of knowledge, and brought the knowledge and experience he learned back to Russia, and then opened the country's doors, broke the closure, broke through the resistance, and carried out the "total Westernization" reform starting from beard, clothing, and etiquette, and finally changed the course of history, so that Russia, whose national strength was weaker than our Great Qing Country at that time, quickly became one of the european powers!
On the early morning of our first visit to St. Petersburg, after visiting the bronze statue of Nicholas I, we came to the most iconic and attractive statue of Peter the Great in the city. The maneed horse raised its front hooves high, as if preparing to fly over again, the horse's hind hooves stepped on the long snake symbolizing evil rebellion, and Peter the Great, who was sitting on the horse, raised his arms and pointed with his eyes to the deep distance...
When you come to St. Petersburg, there is a place that you have to go to, that is, the famous Peter and Paul Fortress, which was originally a fortress first, and then a city. Between the Neva River and the connected Baltic Sea, this ancient city was built to guard against invasion from the northern powers, guard the throat road to the city, and protect the safety of st. Petersburg.
When it was nearly noon, the first batch of European tourists who came across the sea really flocked to the attractions inside and outside the Paul Fortress, and Chinese and foreign tourists were even more flocking. Three hundred years ago, the fortress of the city wall is still as tall and strong as ever, and it is said that it was later used as a prison, imprisoning the crown prince who opposed reform and plotted to rebel and overthrow Laozi, and also imprisoned literary giants such as Pushkin, Gogol, gorky, and Gorky, as well as the ideological pioneers who led the trend of the times.
...... The rushing waves of the Neva River make people seem to be able to still hear the footsteps of the Russian nation's arduous progress, and the fortress walls full of bullet-stained gun smoke, which make people seem to be able to glimpse the historical storms that have rolled up and down for centuries!
The next attraction we were going to visit was the cruiser Aurora moored on the banks of the Neva River. At this time, the number of people was counted, and it was found that "Comrade Vasily" was lost in the team, which was also a photography enthusiast who was over seventy years old in Hunan, and the two tour guides had to separate one person to look for it, and the rest followed another tour guide and rushed to the next scenic spot. (The tour guide is like a nanny along the way, and it's really tiring!) ）
Although "Comrade Vasily" was temporarily dispersed, his mentor's close friend Comrade Lenin was still there, and the eighty-two-year-old Chinese old Bolshevik, when he was born, almost caught up with the earth-shattering October Revolution of the last century in 1917, which affected the whole world for a hundred years, and this revolution in which the proletarians first seized power was triggered by the first shell fired by the guns of the warship Aurora under the command of the real Comrade Lenin towards the Winter Palace, a "bourgeois stronghold" not far from the shore.
Today, next to the Aurora, vendors are gathered and business is booming!
Yes, today history has already turned a new page, and history has a new commentary (whether it is "opening a new era for mankind", or bringing great trouble to the world!"). The Hermitage under the gun muzzle, as the fourth largest museum in the world, is attracting tourists from all directions.
And the Aurora warship, after some hesitation, the Russians still let it remain intact, one is to respect the past history, and the other is that for Russia, which has just joined the WTO, it is undoubtedly a big "egg" that generates tourism income.
I originally wanted to pay some visiting fees to go to the ship to take pictures, but the tour guide reminded that there are international thieves rampant, sometimes it is simply open stealing and stealing, listening to everyone look at each other, which dares to go on this "thief ship" again?!
The long river of history has flowed through countless bends, and the road of human social development is also ups and downs. The October Revolution two hundred years after Peter the Great, and half a century later, the social changes of 1989, have stirred up great waves in the course of Russian history.
Coincidentally, the day we came to St. Petersburg was the anniversary of "8.19", and I heard that in the Memorial Square of the Decembrists' Uprising, hundreds of people with dissident views or fantasies about another "color revolution" were gathered, but the vast majority of Russian citizens responded to this.
After "8.19", the status of the Russian superpower collapsed, the CIS replaced the former Soviet Union, the giants seemed to become dwarfs, people tasted the bitterness of loss and the pain of the beginning of the change, but the original change, after all, was the choice of the Russian people themselves, and it was also full of historical inevitability.
Today, President Putin, who has always had a strong iron fist, ("Give me twenty years to give you a mighty Russia from the time of Peter the Great!"). The descendants of Peter the Great seem to be regaining the self-confidence and pride of their past; relying on vast territories and rich natural resources (oil and gas foreign exchange earnings rolling in), "bread will be there", revitalizing national strength, and the good days are obvious, so I think that the Russians can no longer choose a new turbulent and uncertain future!
(2013.8.20 in Saint Petersburg)
About author:Liu Jianjun, formerly a band player of the Chengdu Military Region Battle Flag Cultural and Labor Troupe of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, is now engaged in violin teaching full-time. He obtained a university diploma in Chinese language and literature from Sichuan Normal University.
He is currently a member of the Sichuan Musicians Association, a member of the Sichuan Violin Education research association, and an examiner of the Sichuan Provincial Social Arts (Music) Examination;
Engaged in amateur photography for more than 40 years, he is now a member of the Sichuan Photographers Association, the deputy secretary-general of the Sichuan Entrepreneur Photography Association, an expert member of the Sichuan National Art Image Association, a signed photographer of the Xinhua News Agency Photo Library, and a signed photographer of Chengdu Classic Hui Culture Company.
He has been a special correspondent of West China Metropolis Daily, and has published more than 100,000 words of written works and more than 500 photographic works in newspapers and periodicals inside and outside the military, such as People's Daily, People's Liberation Army Daily, Sichuan Daily, Sichuan Ministry of Culture, Dictionary, People's Liberation Army Pictorial, National Pictorial, Sichuan Pictorial, Hong Kong Photography Pictorial, Sichuan Today, Song, Leyuan, etc.