Alie Parusa

I have never been in a city that enjoyed celebrating as much as Saint Petersburg. This city could be the holiday capital of the world. This spring we celebrated quite a few holidays, all with big festivals of sorts, concerts, shows, lots of people. On the 19th of June, we celebrated the holiday of Alye parusa, which means scarlet sails. This holiday is the day that graduates celebrate their accomplishment of finishing school. Concerts took place on both Palace Square and on Vasilevski Island late in the evening. The concert at Palace Square was for the graduates and the other concert was for the rest of the city, but the students in our program were lucky enough to get free tickets to the graduate concert. The stage was beautifully placed on the square with a giant chandelier and the palace as a backdrop. At the concert many musicians and groups performed including Serebro, Dima Bilan, Cirq di Sole and some others as well. We watched the amazing spectacle, standing in a sea of Petersburg’s youth, dancing and have a great night in this amazing city. After the concert, the sea of people migrated over to the banks of the Neva to observe the next portion of the night’s show. So many people were lined up along the banks, it was almost impossible to see the great Neva, people had climbed all the trees, climbed onto the tops of cars, and signs, anything climbable was climbed. We found a spot on the curb next to the hermitage museum. Luckily the first part of this show was in the sky. Music started playing and a beautiful firework show accompanied the Russian-pirate-esqu music. The firework show was spectacular, the sky was filled with bright flashing fireworks and lasers and then the moment everyone was was waiting for ----- off in the distance we could see the top of a ship. The ship slowly made its way down the Neva towards the palace bridge. The sails were bright red and people were standing in awe of this beautiful boat that floats on the Neva once a year. It was a beautiful night and a very jolly holiday.