As many of us can guess - beyond Vyborg lies the country
called Finland. To say exactly - Helsinki lies. In the strict sense, it's
not the Saint-Petersburg suburbs, but after mentioning Moscow as a part of
it, it's need to recall that everything is relatively and 300 km is much
less than 600.
As long as there is a lot of stuff and I don't want to cut
it down, there will be two albums and the second one is mainly devoted to
the city's center and architectural sights.
Since Saint Petersburg is close to
Helsinki, the visits of Finnish to Russia and vice versa are the common
things.
By the many reason we decided to travel by the car and actually it's
a right choice, especially when you are not a driver.
The trip was not that business one, but it couldn't be called
entertaining too.
We spent three days at Assembly '99 Demo Party. It's
essence you can guess partly through this picture and mainly through my
special notes
devoted to this event.
ЭThis is the Finland, quite close to the
border. There will not be such entrance to the forest further.
As for
passing the border - it was not so annoying, except for the queue. The
custom inspection was made by the stern customs official in the leather
uniform, who went round your car from the distance of 1 meter. At the
Finnish side there was something quite similar.
Just after the border there are several
differences that my camera couldn't catch. There weren't roadsides, for
example, you can stop only in special exits. Also there were a lot of
strange-looking villages with similar-looking painted and covered with
boards cottages, which seems to be just dusted off. Fields and garden
beds were sowed with unknown light-colored plant, which is uncommon in
Russia.
As for the road - our driver noticed that
it was rough lengthwise, opposite to our roads, which are rough
crosswise. It was noticed because our car was rushed from side to side.
Moreover, asphalt is mixed with crushed stone that improve traction, but
poor tyres… You feel disgustingly cycling down such road, though there
are bicycle paths there.
This picture (as the following ones)
might present the suburb of Helsinki. Helsinki itself gives an
impression of several districts divided by green zones and connected
with a net of highroads.
The road system is non-trivial, putting it mildly. There are many
road junctions at different levels and situation when you turn right in
order to get left is very common.
I must confess that we didn't have much
spare time, so we stroll mainly from city's center to Hartwall Areena.
It's funny that railways are guarded with a metal net fence, so walking
down the sleepers is very problematically. Forest by the roads is
guarded too, but with a rope fence. It has occasional passes through in
the form of labyrinth, in order to prevent animals trespassing to the
road.
The glacier might pass here, so there are
a lot of rocks and big stones in the city and nearby. Very often roads
and railways are cut through them, as you can see from the previous
pictures. There were explosions - examining closely, the traces of
vertical shafts can be seen. Sometimes you can see such rocks and
garages cut out right in the rocks.
This park is a cross between Summer Garden and park in Pavlovsk.
There are the flowers on the garden beds. And the bicyclists rushed
down the cycle paths at the great speed, unexpectedly and, of course,
noiselessly.
The local ducks, I dare to say, are
bigger than our ones :)
There weren't so much water as in Saint
Petersburg, but there were more boats and motor-launches.
We weren't
fortunate with weather, but there would be more clearly later. The
climate is similar to our, but maybe a little colder.
The elk. Simply the elk.
And this is the hare right by the cafe.
Such buildings are not common for the
outskirts. It looks like a new-made.
And such ones are typical. The
interesting thing - there isn't anybody in this picture. We met just two
people (they walked together!) in a half an hour and situation "the
month after neutron explosion" is very common. There weren't people at
all, except for the city center. Now I know at least one reason for low
criminal level in this country: there isn't anybody to commit a crime
and it's hard to understand, where to look for a victim.
Trammy. By the way, about cars. If you
get close to the road, even not wishing to cross it, cars begin to stop
one by one, waiting for you to cross. It looks strange. Feel yourself
ill at ease. There was no police in the view at all - for three days we
saw only one police car and it was at the parking.
Either people have been intimidated, or well mannered.
Such a new-erected building. Nothing
special - we've got a lot of such ones.
Have you ever seen so many road signs
"Parking" in one place?
It looks like these…hm, bins were taken
into the street and forgotten there.
Night.
There were no people during the day, but during the night the number
of people seems negative.
In spite of it, illumination on the streets was OK.
