Reflections on Urban Architecture and Culture

So, I arrived in this huge city,

stepped out onto the station square

and was struck speechless.

I could never have imagined that

cities like this existed.

There seem to be lots of buildings,

but there’s no city, really.

It’s just some kind of

more or less chaotic development.

And I didn’t immediately realize what was going on. What was going on was that

I simply grew up

in Leningrad, yes, I grew up in the city center, and that was it,

everything that surrounded me,

I had observed it directly since childhood. And only later did I

realize how important it was.

Yes, this harmony captured in

stone,

shapes

a person’s way of thinking, it even shapes a certain

cultural code in them.

That’s how significant it is.