A Bit More Detail

• La Presse considers some different strategies to keep rue Saint-Denis in Montréal a healthy thoroughfare and neighbourhood.


• Atlas Obscura explains how the upstate New York town of Hobart made itself as a home for a used book store cluster.


• Guardian Cities explains why anti-gentrirfication activists in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin are fighting to keep their local Aldi, to continue to have low-cost food locally.


• Window on Eurasia notes a poll of immigrant workers in St. Petersburg that finds most quite like their new home.


• CityLab looks at Polish architect Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak, whose brutalism played a key role in the reconstruction of the Poland city of Wroclaw from the ruins of old German Breslau.

• blogTO notes the amazing spike upwards in temperatures for this weekend.


• Dangerous Minds shares photos of some stark war memorials of the former Communist world.


• The Dragon's Gaze reports on brown dwarf HIP 67537b.


• The LRB Blog looks at Donald Trump's interest in a Middle Eastern peace settlement that looks as if it will badly disadvantage the isolated Palestinians.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen reflects on his reading of Julius Evola and other hitherto-marginal writers.


• The NYRB Daily notes the potential health catastrophe that could result from Donald Trump's anti-vax positions.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer suggests that the corruption marking the relationship of France and Gabon over that country's oil is finding an echo in the Trump organization's involvement in Filipino real estate.


• Torontoist calls for regulation of road salt on grounds of its toxicity.


• Transit Toronto looks at the various scenarios for King Street.


• Window on Eurasia suggests Russia's economic growth will lag behind growth elsewhere for the foreseeable future, and looks at protest in St. Petersburg over the return of an old church to the Orthodox Church.

• blogTO notes the opening of a new Taiwanese fried chicken restaurant location in Toronto.


• Centauri Dreams notes an odd crater on Charon.


• D-Brief reports on a study suggesting that geography--specifically, topography--can influence the number of consonants in a language.


• The Dragon's Gaze reports on the craziness of the KOI-89 planetary system and suggests Kepler-91b might have a Trojan companion.


• The Dragon's Tales reports on American fears of a shortage of aircraft carriers.


• The New APPS Blog considers if neurons have preferences.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw talks of the British Museum.


• The Planetary Society Blog reports on new rover science on Mars.


• Peter Rukavina celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Prince Edward Island government website, among other things.


• Savage Minds notes that these days, we don't have much time for slowness.


• Window on Eurasia suggests student surveys in Moscow and St. Petersburg indicate high levels of ethnic and religious tension.

• Bad Astronomy notes odd changing features in one of Titan's seas.


• blogTO U>examines the birth of late-night television in Toronto in the 1980s.


• Centauri Dreams looks again at the finding suggesting much Earth water predates the solar system.


• Cody Delistraty considers the unusual joys of being placeless.


• The Dragon's Tales reports on the Ukrainian war and notes that China is actively courting other countries to take part in its space stations.


• The Everyay Sociology Blog considers the import of street food and its authenticity.


• Geocurrents is skeptical about maps purporting to show state failure.


• Joe. My. God. describes a flight that was delayed by the refusal of Hasidic Jewish passengers to sit next to women.


• Marginal Revolution notes the steady decline of Hong Kong's GDP as a fraction of China's, suggesting that the territory is becoming dispensable.The Planetary Society Blog's Emily Lakdawalla shares some of the first pictures of Mars taken by India's Mars Orbiter Mission.


• pollotenchegg examines the changing shape of Ukraine's demographic pyramid from 1897 to the present.


• Torontoist mourns the life of murdered Eritrean-Canadian community activist Nahom Berhane.


• The Volokh Conspiracy reports on the disturbing rise in the United States of inter-party prejudice.


• Canadian science-fiction writer Peter Watts describes his visit to St. Petersburg.


• Window on Eurasia notes that the papal nuncio in Kyiv has condemned Russian aggression, observes the unpopularity of Ukrainian refugees in Russia, and observes Crimean Tatar complaints about Russian rule.


• The Financial Times' World blog wonders about the future of one country, two systems as a governing principle in Chinese Hong Kong.

russiamagazine

One of the most unusual offers is excursions to the city roofs. Not a lot of travel agencies organize this kind of excursions and it is not that easy to find them. If the tourist manages to find a phone number of such agency or a "roof guide", he will remember St. Petersburg forever and will understand what it means "To See Paris and Die".

The roof excursions are currently most popular with tourists from Finland, according to the local guides. The contingent of the tourists is mainly youngsters which is no wonder: a trip to the roofs requires being fit.

Before the excursion guides normally give some instructions to the tourists: they explain what kind of shoes and clothes it is better to wear for walking across the roofs and explain what difficulties travellers may encounter on their way.

The guides try to choose the easiest and most comfortable routes, but sometimes they have problems with the houses` residents, who threaten to call the police.

On average an excursion to the roofs costs around two thousand roubles for four persons. The walk lasts for about two hours during which the tourists normally visit 2-3 roofs and hear a lot of interesting stories and legends of the city told by the guide.