Hotel Bristol, St Petersburg

"A SIGN OF THE TIMES IN RUSSIA: THE BOMB EXPLOSION AT THE HOTEL BRISTOL, ST. PETERSBURG"
This was a story in the Daily Graphic on March 25, 1905. The report beneath the illustration read: "The bomb explosion at the hotel here shook the building to its very foundation. Windows were smashed, and some of the walls were cracked. The man who carried the bomb is supposed to have carelessly dropped it, and he paid for his blundering with his own life. At first he was reported to be an Englishman, but it has since been established that he was a revolutionist. A number of people in the hotel were injured by the explosion, and many passers by at the time were hurled to the ground."

In my tireless quest for news of all Bristol hotels, funded by my prize money, I looked for evidence of the former Bristol along the Moika River where it once stood, and though there are other smart hotels there today, like the Kempinski and the Pushkin, there was no sign of it, and nobody I asked could tell me anything about it. On the whole, the name Bristol did not survive the revolution in the Soviet Union, though I thought it might have resurfaced, as it has at the refurbished Hotel Bristol in Odessa. more

Misty swamps

Moscow & St Petersburg, July 7–14, 2007

I dreamed of this sleep. I dreamed of the swaying bunk and the iron-willed rails carrying me north through the night from Moscow to St Petersburg. Birch forests, tundra, misty swamps. Serfs and tsars, revolutionaries and oligarchs. Red days, white nights.
MOSCOW BESTS: Kremlin churches, icons, Red Square space, Stalin skyscrapers, metros, river trip, those pavement cafes on the street behind the Bolshoi (closed for renovation). Elku Pulku and Mou-Mou self service restaurants: healthy local food without a menu or a waiter. (In 1905 waiters went on strike against the ignominy of having to accept tips.)
ST PETERSBURG BEST BITS: White nights, rivers and canals, Russian Museum, writers’ house-museums. Food for thought: Chaika, by the canal, with jazz and Baltic fish; The Idiot – me too for not going there.
Disappointing not to hear any music in this land of towering composers, but in high summer cities are often emptied of their orchestras.
So much to read now: Natasha’s Dance, Pushkin, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam...