Скачать с ютуб Goodbye Leningrad - Welcome back St Petersburg - Part 1 - ROGER GEORGE CLARK photos в хорошем качестве

Goodbye Leningrad - Welcome back St Petersburg - Part 1 - ROGER GEORGE CLARK photos

In the 1980s and early 90s the English broadcaster, ROGER GEORGE CLARK, visited Leningrad/St Petersburg many times and Moscow twice. He took over 12,000 photos and recorded the fall of Communism. These are just a tiny selection from his record of Leningrad/St Petersburg. 'I went to Leningrad to see what remained of the city of the tsars, not to study Communism,' he says. 'I was astonished at how much had survived and how beautiful the city looked. 'The Russians seldom looked cool. But they had elegance and style - if you knew where to look. I looked for it. That elegance and style rarely took its inspiration from Communism. Has anyone ever looked less stylish than Lenin and the Bolsheviks? No, the Russians in St Petersburg looked backwards to pre-revolutionary times. Despite the Communists and the destruction wrought by the Nazis during the 900-day siege during the Second World War the great buildings from the days of the tsars still existed - huge palaces from a bygone age - beautifully restored and preserved. As for clothes ... You could see people striding round the city in tsarist uniforms. There was even a Lenin look-alike - more handsome than the original, better dressed and less lethal. 'People in St Petersburg had class. Naval and military cadets behaved like public school boys. They were part of an elite and knew it. 'But this was the time when Communism fell apart and the Soviet Union collapsed - the age of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reconstruction). This was the age of the last Soviet leader, Michael Gorbachev, and his deadly rival Boris Yeltsin who finished off Communism and became the first President of the new Russian Republic. 'Leningrad was in turmoil. Demonstrations were taking place all over the city. What's more they were taking place in same settings where they occurred during the 1905 and 1917 revolutions. Modern demonstrators looked as if they'd stepped out of Eisenstein or Pudovkin films. In the past, revolutionaries wanted to destroy the oppressive rule of the tsar. Now they wanted to bring down its replacement - Communism - which had promised much, delivered little and was even more oppressive. Modern demonstrators even dressed in a similar manner to their predecessors. 'That feeling of déjà vu was heightened by huge number of soldiers and sailors visible on the Leningrad streets - just as they were in revolutionary times. Communist Russia was a country in uniform. There were soldiers and sailors everywhere. Indeed, Gorbachev said the Soviet economy was ruined, above all, by "insane militarisation". But if you look at pictures of modern Russia on the Internet they seem to have vanished. Far fewer soldiers and sailors are visible on the streets of St Petersburg than they were in Communist times. I asked a Russian friend why? '"Well" he said, "First: the Russian Army is now much smaller ... Second: soldiers now have more money to buy normal clothes to walk in the city, when they are off duty. And third - it's not fashionable any more to be in the army...." 'People in St Petersburg now wear stylish clothes similar to people in the West. It's a major change. I have, therefore, stressed the way the city looked different from what it does today. I've stressed the military as they look more striking, though I photographed countless civilians. You can see life on board the tsarist cruiser "Aurora", which fired a single blank that started the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. If you're wondering about the piano with the elaborate carving a sailor is playing in the officers' dining-room ... That, I was told, was the tsar's piano. It belonged to the last tsar, Nicholas II, and came from his royal yacht "Standard". We also glimpse naval cadets in the Nakhimov Naval Academy and see conscripts in period uniforms as well as modern dress. 'In addition, I caught a young Vladimir Putin with the city's first democratic mayor, Anatoly Sobchak. I photographed them in the City Assembly Building - the Marinsky Palace - at an historic moment. The pictures were taken on 6 September 1991 when Leningrad changed its name back to St Petersburg. And I was there with my cameras when the US President, Ronald Reagan, and his First Lady Nancy visited the city. They got a warm welcome from many Russians. 'Many of the city's sculptures were produced by the state artist, Mikhail Anikushin. I photographed him in his studio, watched students at work in the Academy of Arts, went behind the scenes at the ballet and photographed a great deal of the cultural life of the city. 'Besides taking thousands of photos - one of the most comprehensive records of the city made by a Westerner - I kept an diary. They would make an interesting book if a publisher would like to get in touch. I've put three set of Leningrad/St Petersburg photos here on YouTube. Also videos on Soviet sailors in Leningrad, the naval fortress of Kronstadt and 1980s Moscow. 'To find out more please visit my website.'