| ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - It cost $1.5 billion, a price even the
Czars might have blanched at. But for the current Russia leader, Vladimir
Putin, this is no ordinary birthday bash.
For the next three days, in grandiose style, he hosts world leaders at the
300th anniversary of his adored hometown St Petersburg, Russia's second
city.
It will be a chance to inject some national self-confidence as he showcases
the former imperial capital of palaces and canals -- Russia's most elegant
city despite decades of neglect.
Designed as the country's window on the West, St Petersburg has played a
compelling role in Russian fortunes.
"This is an ideal place for reconciliation," said Alexander Afanasyev, an
aide to the governor, said referring to the big power meetings Saturday and
Sunday certain to touch on Iraq.
But for many, reconciliation is not a word that immediately springs to mind
in a city associated with autocratic Czars, cruelty and revolution.
The French aristocratic traveler Marquis de Custine who visited in 1839 was
so appalled at the disregard for human life the Czar showed his subjects
that he wrote, "In reflecting upon the terrible life of the inhabitants of
this camp of stone, one can have doubts about the mercifulness of God."
The Winter Palace, focal point of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and now
gleaming after a major face-lift, was built by workers many of whom
perished while toiling in absurdly high temperatures imposed so the walls
would dry more quickly.
Cradle of the "Golden Age" of Russian culture, some of its greatest artists
met sticky ends in the then capital.
PUSHKIN DIES AFTER DUEL
Russia's greatest national poet, Alexander Pushkin, died at the age of 37
after a duel fought over his spendthrift wife whom he suspected of
infidelity.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, whose brooding novels were set in Petersburg, became
mentally unhinged after being spared from execution within seconds of being
shot.
The 900-day Nazi siege in World War Two scorched an indelible mark on the
city. Even now, grandmothers refuse to speak to new generations about the
event in which hundreds of thousands starved to death, driving some people
to cannibalism.
Despite its remarkable cultural heritage and the breathtaking beauty of its
public buildings, St Petersburg remains a poor city. Its politicians say it
is getting poorer.
It has one of the highest crime rates in the country. Many of its sprawling
housing blocks are dilapidated and sanitary conditions are getting worse.
Homeless children gather for warmth round the city's Eternal Flame erected
in memory of the 1917 revolution and the later civil war, one of the few
places where the communist Red Flag still publicly flies.
As security forces moved into high gear for the arrival on Friday of the
first of the more than 40 leaders, querulous voices were raised about the
whole extravaganza.
"This is a very contradictory happening, a coin with two sides to it,"
Maxim Reznik, the local leader of the liberal opposition Yabloko party,
told Reuters.
"The VIPs will see the gloss of St Petersburg. But in reality we are going
into the next 100 years with rats multiplying in our housing blocks," he
said.
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