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Published: December 14th 2008
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North of the Polar Circle
Going to a place north of the Polar Circle was a first for us! A short trip to the north - really far north
Last summer dad had a few days off when mum still had to work. Those days dad took us for a short vacation trip without mum. That doesn't seem to happen very often these days. Dad doesn't seem to go anywhere without mum anymore. We have been thinking that maybe dad is getting too old to travel on his own. Or maybe it is that mum is not
letting him travel on his own...? Well, last summer dad did go on a trip on his own and we were with him. To Murmansk in Russia all three of us went. That was a travel destination we didn't expect dad to take us to. We actually found Murmansk a bit exotic. Also going to a place north of the Polar Circle was a first for us!
Murmansk is not very far from the North Pole so we thought that it was going to be really cold here. But it wasn't. It was actually quite nice.
In Murmansk we experienced something that was a bit interesting - the sun was up all night! Dad told us that north of the
John Lennon plaque
The Russians seem to be very fond of John Lennon. Here is a plaque with his picture and his name Polar Circle the sun doesn't go down below the horizon in the middle of the summer. Then he started a lengthy explanation on why they have Midnight Sun at all. An explanation that started with the words "the phenomenon that the sun doesn't set is called Midnight Sun and is due to the fact that the Earth has an axial tilt of 23.44° which over the course of a year makes the sun's apparent path over the sky..." and that is when we stopped listening. As we have said before, dad is a science nerd. That leads to him
a) knowing a lot of useless stuff
b) thinking that everybody else want to know all the useless stuff he knows
c) teaching useless stuff whenever he has the chance
We noticed that the Russians seem to be very fond of
John Lennon. All over Murmansk and also in other towns on the Kola Peninsula we could find statues of Lennon, streets named Lennon Street and plaques honouring him. We don't quite understand this fascination, or maybe we should say obsession, with John Lennon. He was a good musician of course but he was born in UK, not in Russia.
John Lennon statue
The Russians seem to be very fond of John Lennon. Here is a statue of him On top of that he has been dead for almost 30 years. How come he is so popular still today and in Russia of all places? It's very strange.
We found only one other person to be honoured in any way when we were in Murmansk. That is in a way even more strange. Everybody knows of the
Marx Brothers. We can understand if they name a street after one of the famous brothers, like
Groucho Marx,
Chico Marx,
Zeppo Marx or
Harpo Marx. But why do they name a street after one of lesser famous brothers,
Karl Marx. Why name a street after the one who failed to make it Hollywood? Or in other words, why do they name a street after the looser brother? The Russians are a strange people.
In Murmansk dad walked around a lot looking at houses. Dad is very fond of houses so we usually get to see a lot of houses when we travel. We especially liked the train station in Murmansk. It was really nice.
It was much nicer than the train station we saw in the town Kirovsk a few days later. That train station looked more like a ruin actually.
There were
John Lennon plaque
The Russians seem to be very fond of John Lennon. Here is a plaque with his picture other houses too in Murmansk. The houses were somewhat different from what we are used to from other places in the World. In Murmansk it felt like many houses were abandoned by their owners. Or maybe it was that the houses were not looked after. It made us sad because we could see that the houses once were very nice. But the poor maintenance have made them loose some of their former beauty.
Another house we saw in Murmansk that was different from other houses we have seen was a house with a big painting on it. Without the painting the house would have been gray and dull. But now it was nice and welcoming. We think house owners in other parts of the World should learn from the good example set in Murmansk and put large paintings on the walls of houses elsewhere too.
They seemed to be very fond of statues in Murmansk. We have already mentioned the statues of John Lennon that we found. But we also found other statues. For example we found a statue of a fisherman, a huge statue of a soldier and a statue of two polar bears.
It is
John Lennon plaque
The Russians seem to be very fond of John Lennon. Here is a plaque with his picture and his name not only statues they seem to be fond of in Murmansk but also plaques. On one building we found a plaque with a hammer and sickle and the letters CCCP. Dad told us that CCCP is Russian for USSR. CCCP and USSR are acronyms that stand for Soviet Union, the country that preceded Russia.
On the wall of one house in town there was a plaque that said that we were in Murmansk. Like we didn't know? Are the people who like in Murmansk stupid or something. Do they have to be reminded that they live in Murmansk?
On the way back home from Murmansk we had to spend one day in St Petersburg waiting for our flight. St Petersburg is a very big and nice city with many interesting sights. The few hours we had there was not enough to see more than one church and one palace. And the palace we only had time to see from the outside. We really have to go back to St Petersburg some other day to see more.
The church looked really strange. We have seen many churches before and they usually have one or two pointed spires at
John Lennon statue
The Russians seem to be very fond of John Lennon. Here is a statue of him. the top of the roof. But not this one. This church had big balls fitted on the roof instead. Dad called these balls onion domes. That is a pretty good name because the balls actually looked like onions. We wonder why they have decorated the church with onions and hope someone out there can help us explaining that.
We have a few theories on why they have onions on top of the church
• Could it be that when the church isn't used for traditional church activities they store onions there?
• Or maybe growing onions is the main business in St Petersburg and that they by decorating the church with onions want to point out how important onions are for the region?
• Or maybe this church is named Church of the Holy Onion? That they believe in onions rather than in God?
• St Petersburg used to be in Soviet Union. Maybe the Russians are not very good at spelling and thought it was Soviet Onion?
Well, if you know why the church is decorated with onions, please tell us. We really want to know.
The palace was nice. It was
Street named after the least famous Marx brothers
Street named after the lesser famous Marx brother Karl Marx. The one who failed to make it Hollywood. so big that it was really difficult to take a photo of it. Dad helped us but the only view he could get was from one of the sides. So all you see on the photo is one corner of the palace.
Hope you liked to read about our trip in Russia. Soon we will return with new adventures from other parts of the World.
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Alex
non-member comment
Greetings from Murmansk! Klasnye (cool) photos!