Depeche Mode in St. Petersburg or baby girl dreams

As I was eleven I went with my parents in a bookstore and I was allowed to choose a book.
I found a book with the title " Nijinsky". The next week I didn't speak anything, I read the whole time
about the life of the best dancer in the world, " the God of Dance", Vaslav Nijinsky and the "Ballet Russe".
I was so fascinated by this man and his life, his education in the imperial ballet school of St. Petersburg, his first appearances in the Mariinsky theatre in St. Petersburg, my burning desire, my baby girl dream was to visit St. Petersburg to see with my own eyes all the places of the young Nijinsky.
I needed 37 years until my dreams came true....

We flew again with a small propeller aircraft, from Riga to St. Petersburg. We arrived late and went by taxi to our hotel which is located at the Mayakovskaya station.
We looked for a restaurant at the biggest boulevard of St. Petersburg, the Newskij Prospekt and found a small one where we had a late dinner and some beers before we went to bed.

So, first time in Russia for me and I came with certain pictures of Russia which we have in West Europe and after this journey I knew Russia only casually, but all I can say is:" Go, visit it!" It is better than its reputation. The Russians are more reserved than the West Europeans but very helpfully.
In St. Petersburg I saw many young people in eccentric styles. No one looked at me like I was from another planet, what I know from small cities in Germany.
In St. Petersburg you can get menues in Roman alphabet, the street names and names of the subway stations are written in Roman alphabet, too. Not only in Cyrillic script like in Moscow.
Some people in St. Petersburg spoke English and I saw a lot of modern cafes and restaurants.
I think in 10 years the city will be like a city in West Europe. A basic change needs input.

I had only two days in St. Petersburg and it was to short to see all what these wonderful city offers.
I visited two times the Hermitage, one of the biggest museums in the world, wow, how monumental!!
I walked through the city to find the Mariinsky theatre. Unfortunately I could not go in, because there were rehearsals. But I saw so many impressive buildings, big places and streets. The city is a kind of small Venice with lots of canals and bridges.
The subway stations are so deep under the earth, because the canals and the big river "Neva", weird!!!

Enjoy the pictures of my tour through St. Petersburg:

             
                                         The Jelissejew House, a wonderful deli
                                         

                                               The Singer House, an old bookstore

The Palace Place 

                                                           with the Alexander Column

and the Hermitage

and Winter Palace

a sculpture of the German artist Markus Lüppertz in front of the Hermitage

The church of the rising of the Lord

the Mariinsky theatre

The church of the Mother of God from Kasan

One day I will come back to St. Petersburg, visit a ballet,

visit the theatre museum and regard some churches.

And I'm looking forward to this, maybe in midsummer!

You asking you, what is with the concert of Depeche Mode?

It was the worst concert of the whole tour.

The audience slept most of the time, they couldn't sing to 

" Just can't get enough", if you know what I mean.

No one at the seating places stood up, a little applause after every song, that's all.

And the band, I have no words for that.

I got the impression that they had a massive conflict, they kept a straight face.

I thought on " Precious" Dave wanted to beat Martin.

Cruel.

On " Enjoy the silence" it became a little bit better, but no jokes, no smiles,

it was no fun!

After the concert we spent the night with talking, drinking, racking,speculating,

but with enjoying to be together, too.

                                         

                   

On the third day we left St. Petersburg in the early morning by train

in the direction of Moscow!!!

Depeche Mode in Riga or " Happy Birthday, Kerry!"

After a few days home I started for my last part of the Delta Machine Tour on Saturday in the early afternoon.

I left home with mixed feelings. From October 2012 I organized the Delta Machine Tour. In March 2013 was the launch event in Vienna. The tour started in May in Nice and I saw 53 concerts before I went to Riga. I don't want that the tour is ending  because I hate it to say " Goodbye" to Mr. Gahan.
But I'm so exhausted from being on the road and being away from my kids, it needs to stop now!!!
I wanted to make party a last time and so we started the journey in Dusseldorf with a view beers at the airport and drank some more in the aircraft, a small aircraft with propeller, I hated this.
But we had a good flight without turbulences and took in a very good temper a taxi to our hotel which was located in the heart of the old town of Riga.

The day ended in a pub near our hotel where we had a good diner and some local beers. A guy played guitar and sang to it and later he sang" Personal Jesus". Great prelude to this journey!!!

We slept very well in our hotel, called "St. Peter's Boutique Hotel".

Small, but very clean and good breakfast, friendly crew.

The name is given from the near by "Petri church", where we started our sightseeing tour through Riga.

The tower looked great, baroque style, and we went by an escalator to the viewing balcony from where we had a wonderful view over Riga.

Behind the church we found for every German a well known sculpture:

The Bremen town musicians.

It was a present of the City Bremen to Riga.

The sculpture based on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.

Riga is an old Hanseatic City like Bremen, Hamburg or Lübeck.

Indeed I was reminded of Lübeck, because there was many old warehouses and guild houses like in Lübeck.

Pictorially!!

After this interesting walking tour we had a good meal in a typical latvian restaurant, where I ate a good vegetable plate.

The latvians like restaurants in the basement with old arches. Great!!

Than we visited a new opened bar, a Depeche Mode bar.

In 2006 I was in a Depeche Mode bar in Tallin with typical Depeche Mode interior.

The bar in Riga is smaller and not so great but great enough for a concert day.

We had some beers there and watched to the video player.

Just in this moment we saw a You tube clip from the concert in Bremen 2013, " Just can't get enough", where Dave saw me and danced with me. 

Strange!!!!

After the beers we stopped for a bite to eat in the same restaurant like a few hours ago

and got another fantastic meal.

And then concert time:

I was in 2006 the first time in the Arena Riga and I reminded me, that we had seating places.

Back then it wasn't allowed to stand up in the concert.

But I stood up and made party and the people around us came to us and thanked us for hotted up a party.

This time I was clever and bought standing places and that was a good idea, because nobody stood up at the whole concert and in the standing area it was very quiet.

However I had my own party, enjoyed every song.

After Martins third song Dave came back on stage and asked a member of the crew, a guy called Kerry (?), for coming on stage.

And than he sang " Happy Birthday" to him. Wow, wonderful.

And he announced the upcoming birthday of Christian Eigner.

I was sure he did that because twice Martin Gore and Peter Gordeno

suspended him from "Birthday" singing.

At " Just can't get enough" and " Never let me down" I got very emotional, I won't believe

that the end is so concrete.

We met some friends from Germany and danced the whole night on a fantastic aftershow party

in a very stylish bar with unbelievable nice latvian people.

We came back at the dawn to our hotel.

So we slept only a few hours until we had to leave our hotel and Riga.

We made a last walk through the city.

We saw the chocolate watch, a popular meeting point in Riga.

Near by is the monument of liberty which is crowned by a statue of a women of bronze, called Milda.

After a good lunch we took a taxi to the airport for flying to St. Petersburg.

I was very excited to go to Russia, first time in my life.