Silly Saturday... just kidding

So today I was determined to take part in a challenge and do ‘silly Saturday’, but as it turns out Russia is a country devoid of silliness. I didn’t see a single silly thing all day. Adults are adults and children are children. Silly things are for children and it’s just considered odd if adults mess around or are silly. I did see one child being silly sliding on the ice, but they were getting told off for “being a hooligan” and I couldn’t take a photo easily.

With that in mind I ended up having to take this huge, miserable statue instead. Part of Russia’s propaganda drive to fill the ideological and national identity vacuum left by the collapse of the USSR. Erected in 2016, it shows Saint Vladimir who adopted Orthodox Christianity in 988. He is supposedly the founder of Russia, but Ukraine claims him as the foundation of Ukraine too which has caused various controversies. Ukraine and Russia were all part of the same state at the time though so actually it shouldn’t be that controversial but here we are. Also a morally dubious figure who had hundreds of concubines. The statue saw protests when it was first put up from locals who generally hate it. Not as much as the statue of Peter the Great (frequently voted among the ugliest in the world), but that’s a blip for another day...