St. Petersbourg, Russia

All went well at the airport. Either the rules have become less strict or more normalised or I played my bit as a tourist and breezed past the customs agents with ease. The airport Pukovo in St. Petersbourg is better lit than in Moscow and is much friendlier. It is a small airport for such a city. It seems even smaller than Luxembourg's airport.
It is 11 o'clock at night and still light. The cars have their headlights on and the street lights are lit, but it seems like that magic moment when the sky is still light, but the earth is dark.
It has been maybe 10 years since I have been to St. Petersbourg and much has changed. This evening, sitting in a Suchi bar on Nevskii Prospekt, I looked at all the young Russians and a few foreign students in fashionable clothes, playing on their Iphones and remembered being on this exact corner when the city was called Leningrad. Then, the cars never put on their headlights, not bcause it was light but to save the bulbs which were hard to find. There were hardly any restaurants, much less suchi bars. Most of these kids don't remember what things were like then and I'm happy for them. It is amazing how things have changed in 15-20 short years.