Luzhitsy: A Travel Essay
The Votes are the smallest ethnic minority in Europe. They speak a Finnic language and live in two villages in Russia to the west of St Petersburg. Two years ago, in August 2015, I went to visit them. This is my account of the trip. The article has been published by East-West Review (as part of From St Petersburg to Pskov by way of Luzhitsy ) in its Spring/Summer 2018 issue (Vol 17, no 1; ISSUE 47) and by Hungarian Review in its May 2018 issue (Volume IX, No. 3). Peter the Great Between St Isaac's Cathedral and the Neva, stands St Petersburg 's most famous statue - "The Bronze Horseman". It is a statue of Peter the Great on his horse trampling on a snake (representing Sweden , I'm told). The horse rears up onto its hind legs and Peter's right arm stretches out over the city. The horse and rider stand atop a massive irregularly cut block of granite that alone weighs 1625 tonnes. On this pedestal you read that the monument is a tribute to Peter