Broken Ring

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The capture of Leningrad was one of three strategic goals in Hitlers initial plan, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, for invading and conquering the Soviet Union. Hitlers strategy was motivated by Leningrads political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution, its military importance as a main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet and its industrial strength, housing numerous arms factories.

The Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade was an unsuccessful military operation by the Axis powers to capture Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) during World War II. The siege started at 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed. Although Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city at 18 January 1943, the total lifting of the siege happened at 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest and most destructive sieges of major cities in modern history and it was the third most costly in terms of casualties.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment.

The siege continued until January 27, 1944, when the Soviet Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city. In the summer of 1944, the Finns were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the Vuoksi River.

On October 29, 1966 a monument to the Road of Life was erected. Entitled Broken Ring, this monument pays tribute to the many lives broken by the blockade.
--Wikipedia Sources


Daily forecast: Max 3 degrees, Min 0 degrees

The amount of walking the day before in the near zero degrees had started to pay its toll, Michelle and I were less than energetic to get out of bed for what was to be our last guided tour in St Petersburg; exploring Yusupov‘s Palace. Finally, after summoning what little motivation we had left we made it down stairs into the lobby where our tour guide was already waiting for us.

“I hope you brought your umbrella!” she said greeting us, both Michelle and I looked blankly back at her, still waking up, and our bodies not eager to return outside into the cold.

I then recalled the forecast that I read from the night before; maximum of three degrees, and a minimum of zero with a chance of showers.

She then continued “It has been snowing all morning”.

Hearing those very words I suddenly snapped out of my fatigued phase and my face lit right up. We then proceeded out to the street where our driver was waiting. Opening A gentle gust of snow filled breeze blew into our faces greeting us as we exited through the hotel doors.

Our guide ran straight ahead to get into the car as if trying to evade a torrential down pour of heavy rain, but it wasn , it was snow! From her eyes and those of any local bystander we must of looked ridiculous, we were in complete awe, observing everything the snow had touched, taking photos of each other and of the canal in front of us. Eventually we made it to the car and began our tour.

Almost every word from start to end of the tour was white noise for me; I was too captivated by the view outside. The entire cityscape seemed to transform, what was a cold dull-looking post Soviet city (which despite the gloomy description I loved) was now a white, almost happier looking city (which I loved even more). There was no doubt about it, St Petersburg was built for the snow, and everything about it took on a happier transformation. I couldn help to think how fortunate we were, although various internet sources reported that the first snow for Russia is usually expected by mid October (hence my insistence on touring Russia at the end of our trip), our travel guide a few days ago dimmed that hope saying that it usually doesn snow until January/February.

We arrived at Yusupov‘s Palace, located across from the grand bay that cut through the very heart of St Petersburg. Entering the palace I glanced back over my shoulder taking in one final look of the snow falling outside as it was more than likely the snow would of melted away by the time our four hour tour was completed.

The palace itself was very impressive, each room carefully restored back to its original glory - the palace boasted a number of drawing rooms and lounge areas, each decorated in a unique colour scheme, usually a blue, red, yellow and green room. The floors were paved with only the highest quality marble and wood finishings, the plaster work on the ceilings easily rivaled those of European castles I had previously seen.

Interestingly though, more important than the value of a material was the perceived value of the end result. Although there were a number of extremely intricate designs that boasted genuine gold and genuine oak materials, there were equally a number of design features mimicking particular materials which ultimately were more expensive to produce than their genuine counterpart. Examples of this were the marble pillars in one of the guest lounges; the room although square in design had pillars placed in a circular fashion giving the room a cylindrical illusion. The marble pillars, almost sky-blue in colour were in reality nothing more than the result of an acrylic process. Although they looked real, they clearly were not as the colour was not a natural marble colour. Yet, despite the fact that the pillars are fake, they are worth more than if they were cut out of genuine marble. Another example being the wood carvings; a lot of the embossed carvings in the wood were in fact simply plaster mouldings stained to look like oak and then glued onto the wooden piece, be it a door or wall feature. Value didn seem to be a case of what materials were used rather what the end result looked like. Similarly the chandeliers, although a fair few of them were genuine gold and crystal, a number of ‘gold looking ones were in fact nothing more than paper mache painted gold.

No matter how incredible each room we passed through looked I always gave glance to the windows first determining whether or not it was still snowing. I felt like a kid on excursion waiting for the recess siren to sound so I could go out and kick a footy. The only difference was I was paying for this class.

Class ended two hours earlier than expected, partially because being the start of the off season the palace wasn nearly as busy as what it usually was so we had no waiting times to enter the individual rooms and partially (not from our guides lack of asking), we (especially me) simply had no questions for her.

We collected our coats from the dry room and started pondering what we should do now. Michelle suggested visiting the statue of Lenin that we had passed in the transport that picked us up from the airport the day we arrived. Fortunately, although a good thirty minutes out of St Petersburg, both our driver and guide take that direction home, so we went along for the drive as far as the statue of Lenin, less than a couple of kilometers from the Broken Ring monument where the 1941 Leningrad Blockade took place.

The three of us parted company with our driver, our guide supervising our metro ticket purchase back to St Petersburg central before leaving us in the wilderness and then we were on our own. We raced back upstairs from the metro underground to street level which had a good few centimeters of snow on the paths with it still snowing and headed straight for the Lenin monument. It is funny to imagine that less than six months earlier we were in the tropical heat of Vietnam taking vodka shots from a water bottle in front of a Lenin statue we found and now, in the midst of a Siberian snowfall, in front of a larger than life statue of Lenin in RUSSIA. Unfortunately this time we didn have any vodka, more so to just keep ourselves warm than to toast Lenin. For reasons I have yet to fathom, the Vodka here is a lot smoother to drink than the crushed-ants-tasting spirit we are familiar with in Australia.

After sliding about in the snow, taking numerous amounts of photos and pegging snow-balls at each other in less than zero degree weather, whilst snowing, we began walking towards a obelisk looking structure in the distance, which our guide had informed us was the Broken Ring monument.

The Broken Ring monument was massive. It was the center feature of an even larger multi-lane roundabout, clearly marking the entrance into St Petersburg. Beyond the monument looking outward away from St Petes was a vast landscape of snowcapped trees and valleys. In August 1941, some 68 years earlier, all railway lines to Leningrad had been severed, and the city was encircled on land by Finnish armies to the north pressing onto the very spot we stood and German troops to the south attempting to invade through Stalingrad.

None of this, neither the Lenin statue nor the Broken Ring monument would have looked anywhere as impressive without the snow blasting the statues from the side as it currently was. We wandered around for probably close to an hour before realizing that we were slowly losing sensation in our feet and in our hands. Stopping at a pizza hut store on the way back to the metro we warmed ourselves back up both agreeing that this experience bet all three guided tours hands down. This was the real Russia both of us had been looking for.

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