Millions of tourists (especially noticeable are Chinese and German) flock to St. Petersburg. Stunning churches, palaces, miles of elegant architecture inspired by Czarist times are filled with apartments, cosmopolitan restaurants and high-end fashion stores. Souvenir shops are packed with buyers.
Inside the Winter Palace, built for Czarina Elizabeth (1754-1762) and inhabited by successive czars, crowds press each other to take in the beauty of rich interiors, the awesome grandeur of how wealth showed itself in imperial times.
One day, I visited Katherine’s the Great’s summer palace, several miles from the city, another truly resplendent place glittering with gold inside and out.
It wasn’t long after, that I found a KFC “palace”. Behold, alongside palaces from imperial Russia, KFC (Burger Kings too) receive royal treatment.
Selling millions of tons of chicken and beef – people still flock to these fast-food eateries – are they expecting a royal feast?
More about this series: Russia Today - Building Bridges
URI Senior Consultant Sally Mahé shares thoughts from Russia, where she is traveling with the Center for Citizen Initiatives. The trip is called a "Diplomatic Mission to the Russian Federation by American Citizens." Its purpose is to provide an opportunity “to make inquiry and analysis by traveling to Russia to learn additional points of view about US-Russia issues." The task is to begin “personal diplomacy to intervene in war-making efforts that could end all life on the planet.”
Along the way, Sally is connecting with URI members and Cooperation Circles (member groups) as she examines the actions of ordinary citizens meeting and building bridges of understanding together.
See the rest of the Russia Today - Building Bridges series here.
