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Then and Now

greatgrandma

Member
Joined
31 January 2025
Posts
105
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462
Name
Rosalie
When I was looking at my dad's photos of St. Petersburg, Russia on his trip in 1970 (It was Leningrad then), when I noticed that I had a photo of the same building in 2009.

large_7573396-Kazan_Cathedral_From_Forty_Years_Ago.jpg

Top 1964 - bottom 2009
In 2009 it was Kazan Cathedral aka (The Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan). My photos were similar to the ones that my father took in 1970 when it was the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism - it had been closed as a church in 1929, and was used for propaganda purposes.
 
When I was looking at my dad's photos of St. Petersburg, Russia on his trip in 1970 (It was Leningrad then), when I noticed that I had a photo of the same building in 2009.

View attachment 4184
Top 1964 - bottom 2009
In 2009 it was Kazan Cathedral aka (The Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan). My photos were similar to the ones that my father took in 1970 when it was the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism - it had been closed as a church in 1929, and was used for propaganda purposes.
Whoa! This is really really cool. It hasn't changed at all, has it?
 
When I was looking at my dad's photos of St. Petersburg, Russia on his trip in 1970 (It was Leningrad then), when I noticed that I had a photo of the same building in 2009.

View attachment 4184
Top 1964 - bottom 2009
In 2009 it was Kazan Cathedral aka (The Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan). My photos were similar to the ones that my father took in 1970 when it was the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism - it had been closed as a church in 1929, and was used for propaganda purposes.
This is marvellous. Did you set out to copy your father's image, Rosalie, or was that by chance? Probably not, because it's a near perfect match.
 
It was totally by chance. I had to crop and edit to get the images close.

Keep in mind that my dad started taking color slides in 1942, I have had many of his slides and mine digitized. We started numbering them and I got over 10K for him and I think I got up to 8K for me of ones I can find. Once I started on Then and Now I did quite a lot of them, but when I posted that one I realized that I had not finished looking for other matches in St Pete/Leningrad. I will get to that later because there are some more matches.

Sometimes I know that I will be going to a place where my dad has taken photos (or where I have taken photos) and in that case, I print the photos out so I can try to duplicate them, but in other cases I am not so lucky. I did a riverboat cruise in 2016 to see the tulips in the Netherlands and Belgium. I printed out some of Dad's photos from a trip we made in 1950 when I was 12. I was by this time using a mobility scooter.
April 24
For Antwerp I picked the Ruben's house tour because I had photos of Daddy's from there
Stained glass detail from 1950


Stained glass detail from 1950

and I wanted to see the zoo and the Central RR station, because I had photos from those to places also.

This was a walking tour from the river where the boat was docked. It was rainy, windy and cold. The guide said that I could take the scooter in to the studio part (which was very big - they had the big pictures there and could take them out with a crane) and into the garden but I could not take it into the house itself. This was not a surprise so I was not unbearably disappointed. So we went into the studio. There was a ramp into the studio and I went down faster than either of us would have thought was reasonable (it was steep and the scooter has no brakes, so I basically slid down almost into the wall at the end). By this time my back was painful and I felt a bit nauseated. We sat on benches while the guide explained Rubens paintings. Then we went into the garden and I was able to get a photo of the statues that Daddy had a photo of


Then and now

Then (1950) and Now (2016)
After the garden the guide continued the walking tour. I really wanted to go back to the ship. But we were apparently in a pedestrian area and even on the street the taxis have to be called or picked up in a taxi stand - you can't hail them in the street. They took us to a taxi stand and left us but there were no taxis there. So after five minutes or so, We went to a cafe (which was not really open but there was a fire there in the fireplace) and asked a lady to call us a cab, which she did.

When the cab came, he didn't speak much English, but as long as I had got to a warm place where I could sit comfortably, I decided to see if I could get a photo of the Central RR station. I showed him the photos and he was entranced and asked if he could take a photo of them with his phone. He took very seriously getting to the place where the photos were taken and he also tried to show me some of Antwerp

Central RR station

1950 on the left

1950 on the left

Closer and this time 1950 on the right

Closer and this time 1950 on the right

When we got back to the boat I gave him the prints so he didn't have to take a photo with his cell phone. I do have the originals after all.
 
Great photos, great comparisons between then and now, Rosalie. And the stories behind the photos are also wonderful. As to not being able to hail a cab on the street, yep, things work a bit differently here. I'm sorry you had to suffer there for a bit. But you did get the shots!

Giving the man the prints was kind of you. I know you have the originals but still, it was nice.
 
Interesting to see how things change over time or not! Great thread, Rosalie.
 
Yes - I was getting a lot of email and it is a PITA to log in from my phone. (Sorry)
Rosalie, you can turn email notifications off if you like. You do that in your user account which you can access where you see your name in the top menu. Just click on it and choose Preferences. In Preferences you can then uncheck boxes for notifications you don't want, for both here on the board as well as email notifications.

Here's my Account Menu in the menu bar with Preferences selected:

Schermafbeelding 2025-02-02 om 15.00.29.png


Clever though to reply as guest! :thumbsup:
 
This is marvellous. Did you set out to copy your father's image, Rosalie, or was that by chance? Probably not, because it's a near perfect match.
I happened to be posting my photos at the same time as I was getting my dad's photos digitized. These first two were my original photos (taken from a car) The next 3 are my dad's. I think it was the sunburst thing that caught my attention. You can see how I cropped my photo to match my dad/s
x100_4230 6-15-2009 1-45-30 AM.JPG

x100_4231.JPG

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R212-00830003.JPG


large_7573396-Kazan_Cathedral_From_Forty_Years_Ago.jpg
 
Rosalie, you can turn email notifications off if you like. You do that in your user account which you can access where you see your name in the top menu. Just click on it and choose Preferences. In Preferences you can then uncheck boxes for notifications you don't want, for both here on the board as well as email notifications.

Here's my Account Menu in the menu bar with Preferences selected:

View attachment 4286

Clever though to reply as guest! :thumbsup:
Yes I did that this morning. I didn't realize at first that I was replying as a guest - I was not really paying attention. I was just happy I could reply without firing up my laptop
 
The images are fascinating. The stories read like a blog almost. Really nice.
In 2002, I started with a website called Virtual Tourist, which was taken down by Trip Advisor about 15 years later. I wrote blogs and travel tips to go with my photos. (and some for my dad's photos). So the reason it reads like a blog is because it originally was a blog
 
Nice additions, Rosalie. I love that you caught a rainbow in the fountain!
 
In 2002, I started with a website called Virtual Tourist, which was taken down by Trip Advisor about 15 years later. I wrote blogs and travel tips to go with my photos. (and some for my dad's photos). So the reason it reads like a blog is because it originally was a blog
Ah, that explains it. A pity your site was taken down.
 
In 2002, I started with a website called Virtual Tourist, which was taken down by Trip Advisor about 15 years later. I wrote blogs and travel tips to go with my photos. (and some for my dad's photos). So the reason it reads like a blog is because it originally was a blog
Why did they take your website down? Was it hosted by them?
 
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