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Kazan Cathedral

I visited the Kazan Cathedral in the centre of St Petersburg. Sorry for the selfie, but I had to put one on the blog.

This cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady of Kazan and construction started in 1801, so it had just been completed at the start of the First Great Patriotic War. The design was based partly on St Peter’s in Rome, which was controversial.

The leader in the war, General Kutuzov, who was born in St Petersburg, asked for help from Our Lady of Kazan. He followed a controversial scorched earth policy and allowed Napoleon into a deserted Moscow, before chasing him out of Russia and defeating the  Grande Armée.  He later died and was buried in Kazan Cathedral in 1813.

After the Revolution, the church was turned into a Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism.

When communism fell, it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1996, and the faithful returned, as I saw yesterday, when I visited on a Wednesday afternoon.

Cadets

Last weekend, I saw a group of boys in military uniform having lunch. The only information my level of Russian managed to get from them was that they we wearing the old imperial military uniform.

I now know that these cadets were set up in 1731. During the revolution, many cadets and graduate cadets fought for the White Russian forces against the Bolsheviks, so most were executed or deported. They survived in emigre communities overseas. 

Some information is at this link:

Russian cadet corps
After the fall of communism, cadet corps were reformed in Russia.

The boys live in boarding accommodation (internats) and study academic subjects as well as military. To graduate as a cadet  is regarded as an achievement and prestigious.

There is no cost to the family of a boy in cadets, but there is a selective entrance exam. Of course it isolates the boy from the family, but some parents like it in cases like both parents working, or single mothers, in order to give good training to boys.

For Australians, this sounds more like boarding schools (which are expensive), rather than military cadets, which are part time.

Pizza 

One of the students here was feeling sick, so we decided to order home delivery. It came, no problem, from the local Telepizza shop. They just use a bit more insulation on the bags which the delivery prole use.

Yummmmm

Долой!!!

This poster is on the wall of my room. You can buy it at the gift shop in the political history museum here.

It says “Down with kitchen slavery! You have another way of life.” 

Did this ever happen? Now cooking is a way of getting away from the slavery of factories. The grass is greener on the other side?