St Petersburg dresses up in its finest for summit

THE chemicals sprayed on the clouds didn’t stop the rain; the naval college under its glittering golden spire is crumbling; the fence hiding the ugly dump fooled nobody; and the facade of at least one building was just timber and paint.

Nevertheless, St Petersburg is looking great and it must have looked even better to the 45 world leaders speeding at 130km an hour down Nevsky Prospekt in powerful Mercedes’. The Russian government spent €1.2 billion of its merger €58 billion budget on beautifying the home city of President Vladimir Putin for its 300th anniversary.

Even if the overwhelming memory of the summit will be the smell of fresh paint, everything was completed in time, including palatial residences for each of the EU leaders.