The United Kingdom

My travel notes and stories

The first thing you discover when you come to the United Kingdom is how little we really know about England and its people. The situation is further aggravated by the international tension which we are experiencing now. The only thing regarding politics that I'd like to mention here is an understanding of how heterogeneous England is internally and how many contradictions it has to settle between different social groups. But as we agreed earlier, we will not talk about politics, we're interested in the atmosphere, history and culture only.

The main thing that we know about England pretty well is rock music. I think that in this matter our perception of England is true enough. The Beatles, Queen, Deep Purple and Rainbow, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin, Nazareth, the Rolling stones, Sting, Iron Maiden, Status Quo, Eric Clapton, Gari Moore, Jor Cocker, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart and many others --- these are all musicians of British origin, all are very loved and respected in Russia.

It is curious that the tradition of rock music itself originated exactly in England during the post-war period . The rebellious youth noticed that if you connect a guitar to an amplifier, it produces a really interesting sound. After that they turned it into a wonderful cultural phenomenon.

Absolutely everyone knows that the three main symbols of England are Big Ben, the Tower Bridge and the Tower itself. The name Big Ben is purely unofficial. The proper name of this tower is Elizabeth Tower. It is part of the Palace of Westminster --- a place for meetings of the British Parliament. So the palace itself has much more importance, but the tower has become indeed the most recognizable symbol of the UK.

Elizabeth Tower of the Palace of Westminster

The most curious fact about Parliament that I know is that representatives of different parties are separated by an aisle having the width which should not allow them to reach an opponent with a sword. I think it's very reasonable.

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Tower Bridge is widely famous for its shape, in which many people see something truly English. The shape of the bridge is really peculiar.

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The original silhouette of the bridge are given by the upper gallery, which was intended for the passage of pedestrians when the bridge was raised for ships to pass. Since 1982, the gallery has been used as an observation area.

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Near London there is a castle, perhaps, more important to the British monarchs than Buckingham Palace. It's Windsor Castle, which has almost a thousand years of history. The current dynasty of monarchs has been named after this castle since 1917, and the tombs of many kings and queens are located here.

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When the King or Queen of the UK arrives at his/her residence, a flag is raised over the residence. The picture shows the flag over Windsor Castle.

I'm right next to the Queen of Great Britain

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Historical London

On Victoria Embankment you can see an authentic ancient Egyptian obelisk, created in 1450 BC. This is one of a series of obelisks called Cleopatra's needles. Other obelisks with the same name can be found in the Vatican, Paris, New York and, of course, Egypt.

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There is a time capsule hidden under the obelisk --- a series of attributes of English life from 1878, including photographs, a box of cigars, children's toys and so on. It seems to me that this is one of the first time capsules that started this curious tradition.

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The inscriptions on the obelisk could have remained unreadable without the help of the stone, which can be seen in the British Museum. This is the Rosetta Stone which by an outlandish chance preserves same text written simultaneously in ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek. Since the ancient Greek language was known, with this stone the deciphering of the language of the ancient Egyptians began. It was going on for most of the 19th century, but before the discovery of this stone, the entire contents of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor weree just curious tombs without any idea what kind of culture is obscured behind them.

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One of the most famous religious buildings of antiquity is Stonehenge. For some reason, its shapes and silhouettes seem mysterious to many people. Especially on photos with a sunset in the background. Unfortunately, I couldn't choose the time of the visit, so I just got Stonehenge without sunset.

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When visitors get to Stonehenge, they discover that it is much more prosaic than in the sunset pictures. I must admit that this is truly the result of a tremendous effort, but it hardly represents a major historical mystery. I think everything there has a clear explanation, it's only a matter of ingenuity of the builders. In particular, the stones can be lifted to any height you want, if you build an embankment and then very carefully remove it.

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This is a statue from Easter Island. It's one of my favorite exhibits in the British Museum. I really like the story of how Thor Heyerdahl got to the island and just asked the chief of the long-eared tribe to make such a statue for him. When asked why the chief did not tell other Europeans that they had erected all statues everywhere there, the chief calmly replied that those Europeans just didn't ask him. That chief of the tribe has an outstanding sense of humour.

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Cultural London

The building on the photo is exactly the building where George Orwell placed the Ministry of Truth in his novel 1984. The protagonist of the novell works there. Nowadays, this building is one of the buildings of the University of London.

"The Ministry of Truth" in George orwell's 1984

This is the cross on Abbey Road, where the Beatles were photographed for the cover of their Abbey Road album on August 8, 1969.

The cross on Abbey Road

London is full of places in one way or another associated with the Beatles. Much closer to the centre of the city than Abey Road, everyone can find the building where the last public concert of the Beatles took place on its roof. This building is located at 3 Savile Row in Mayfair.

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Behind the wall on the photo is the mansion where Freddie Mercury lived and died in November 1991. The house is located in Kensington and is often referred as Garden Lodge. Now the house belongs to Mary Austin, to whom Mercury wrote the song "Love of my life". The house is surrounded by a wall to protect it from fans who, however, leave inscriptions on it.

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As you know, the historical address of 221B, Baker Street did not exist, but it had to be created to let people visit the apartment of Sherlock Holmes. There are portraits of famous actors who played this role at the entrance. Among them we see, of cource, Vasily Livanov. The organization of the Victorian apartment in some details surprised me very much. Especially since the apartment is vertical - it has four floors, and on the fourth floor there is only a toilet.

A portraits of Vasily Livanov in the apartment of Sherlock Holmes

In the City, a stone called the London Stone is embedded in the wall of one of the buildings there. He has been at this place for at least a thousand years, and according to legends he cannot be moved elsewhere. Otherwise, it will lead to disasters in London. During the World War II, he was specially sheltered for additional protection. Legends associate it with the legendary founder of Great Britain, Brutus of Troy. Some people believe that this is the remains of the altar of Diana, erected by Brutus of Troy at this place 3 thousand years ago.

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Business and education in London

Widely known that the center of London's business life is the City of London, but actually there are two such centers. The second one is Canary Wharf.

Skyscrapers in Canary Wharf

Canary Wharf was a part of large-scale Margaret Thatcher's program to develop East End --- an eastern half of London, which historically had a reputation for being a pure developed district populated Mostly by working class people with low incomes.

Still in Canary wharf

Of course, I couldn't ignore the City of London either. The City isn't bustled with business life only, it houses many historical buildings, temples and educational institutions as well. But if you are interested exactly in the business part of the City, then you should go to the Moorgate underground station.

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In 1975 on February 28 a train crash occurred at the Moorgate station. A driver of the train did not stop moving on approach the end of the tunnel. He may have lost consciousness, but the exact cause remained unknown. As a result, several train types of protection were developed and installed, including "Moorgate protection" as this system is called in England. We will return to transport of London llater.

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The London Underground and London railway stations play a special role in London's business life. In addition to the well-known fact that the railway and the city subway came to us from London, we can say that transport in London as a whole has had a great impact on the development of urban transport in the world. Any girl who is unable to list the 11 lines of the London Underground will inevitably seem to me very boring. She understands nothing in modern romance (obviously, the Piccadilly Line is the most romantic subway line) and, probably, in the history of urban transport at all.

Thanks to Harry Potter, King's Cross became the most famous railway station in London, but my favourite one is Victoria. Victoria Station is completely different from anything what we expect from a usual railway station in our understanding. Instead, it looks more like a modern terminal of a large airport.

A picture of a man standing in Victoria station main hall
Victoria station main hall

Returning to King's Cross, I'd like to remind that it is rarely mentioned by itself alone. It is more often mentioned in conjunction with its twin, St. Pancras Station. St. Pancras is known for being the station from which high-speed EuroStar trains leave for the continent.

A picture of a man standing nearby speedy trains at St. Pancras Station
EuroStar trains at St. Pancras Station

In general, in Russia, the most famous railway station in London should be Vauxhall , because from its name the Russian word "vokzal" ("вокзал") comes.

Streets of London, squares and parks

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Nobody would be disagree that any walk in London should start from Piccadilly Circus. It is an perfect place for meetings and walks, always noisy and crowded.

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Londoners are sure that this is a meeting place for lovers. The place is very romantic indeed. Very likely that it's the most romantic part of London.

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Trafalgar Square

One of the four monument pedestals in Trafalgar Square has been used for temporary installations that replace each other approximately once a year since 2005. It so happened that I was able to take pictures with four of them.

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Parks

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Another park in central London, but away from Hyde Park, Green Park and St. James's Park, is Regent's Park. For me, this is primarily the place where the final scene of John Fowles' novel The Magus took place.

Flowers in Regent's Park

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People on streets

While walking on streets and in parks of London, you inevitably meet a large number of interesting and even sometimes very funny people. In addition to the kasplay tradition, which is popular here, a lot of people are very interesting by themselves and usually don't deny my ask to take pictures with them.

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This photo was taken on March 8, what makes me think that International Women's Day is indeed international. It seems to be celebrated not only in Russia.

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