…The courage of midnight girls
and crazy stars jumping wild,
and then a tramp hangs on you,
begging inn money.

Tell me: Who will dull my mind
With wine
If Peter in fact created reality,
The Bronze Horseman, and hard granite?

Signals from the fort: I hear them,
I notice how warm it is.
The cannon ball carried,
I guess, into the cellars.

And deeper than the delirium
Of an inflamed skull
Are stars, and sober talk,
And a west wind off the Neva.
-Mandelstam 1913


Thursday was a long, long day, and long, long night.
Much of the day was taken up with 4 hours of language class followed by an afternoon lecture half given by Professor Golstein and half by a Professor from Princeton (who actually got his PhD at Brown). It was intersting to talk to the Princeton guy afterwards about his experiences at the two schools. He pretty much validated everything I had thought about Princeton, and seeing all the Princeton students around (who are also studying at Nevsky), I'm very glad I didn't apply there (if I could even get in, haha). But he had some useful tips on graduate school and studying abroad programs in general.

After classes I went home for a few hours to do homework and nap before our boat trip through the canals and the Neva. A lot of the boat trips actually start much later, but since we needed to get home before the metro closed (supposedly) and we had classes the next day, ours started earlier, around 9:30. We met up with Prof Golstein at Chernishevskaya and walked to the boat. We got to see some intersting things along the way that Golstein pointed out to us, including a building that used to be a military officer's hang out and then KGB interrogation quarters. It's bizarre to see remanants of Soviet times everywhere, monuments to Lenin and Marx still. There's a picture of a plaque (notice the flowers beneath it) where Lenin used to gives talks.



There's this nice little church too (the red one pictured), I think it's the St. Panteleymon church, which is Golstein's son's favorite.



There are not many Protestant churches in Petersburg, but we did see one, well…sort of. It was completely delapidated, broken into, burned out, grafitti bedecked. It was sad to see it in such a state of ruin. After a church it had become a movie theater (check out the pic), then club, and finally a fire destroyed whatever use it had. The government tried to get money from Germany to rebuild it, but there were no takers…hence it's current state.





So eventually we got to the boat, 20 minutes late in typical Russian fasion. The boat was right near the Church of Spilled Blood (pictured somewhere in this post), where Teema met us. The weather was not ideal for white nights canal trips—churning clouds, imminent rain, and chilly wind—but we had already postponed it once for weather reasons. The boat was pretty cold, so some people had brought along vodka (honey pepper and this nasty cranberry flavored one—both were disgusting and not for me). That's David and Teema with the vodka.





The vodka seemed to produce a more jolly and warm atmosphere, I opted for the wool blanket. It was still nice to see the city from the boat—to see where Gogol's «The Nose» is supposed to take place, the bridge from which characters in Bely's «Petersburg» keep almost jumping (it's actually not very tall, so I'm not sure how they thought they'd committ suicide), one of Peter's small houses, the Hermitage, Peter and Paul's fortress, etc. Fun.



The boat trip ended around 11:30, followed by a toast along the canal. 4 people decided to go home, but Golstein wanted us to stay to meet his architect friend who was supposed to come on the boat with us but had to work. Eventually he turned up in his fancy car at about quarter till 12, when it was already too late for us to get home by metro. He's this 25 year old super successful architect in Petersburg. He certainly looked that way and acted that way, arty and aloof. Sonya, Tania, Alisa and I went with him and the rest went with Golstein in Teema's car to this club where they celebrate New Year's every night of week. The drive there was frightening, since the architect drove like a madman, probably trying to show off his car and driving abilities in this city where people completely ignore whatever traffic signals exist (fyi it's a nightmare for pedestrians, they will speed up if they see you). It kind of felt like a roller coaster, or that may have just been the one shot of vodka I was easily capable of getting drunk on.

The club was crowded but architect boy got us in. The music was decent as was the crowd. Golstein came with us to the club, probably to keep an eye on us and make sure we got home ok. It was funny to be at a club with one of your Professors and seeing him (try to) dance… Let's just say Russians cannot dance, and it wasn't just Golstein (who «hadn't been to a club in 25 years when he was at Columbia»), but everyone. The women are a little better, but the men are in trouble here. It's very amusing to watch. One nice difference here, however, is that there's not the kind of dirty dancing there is in the states, which basically resembles verticle (and sometimes not so verticle) copulation on the dance floor.

So more toasts, celebrating the «new year,» more dancing, goofy random Russian songs everyone knew but us. Alisa and I both never drink, and thus have no tolerance. It was pretty hilarious to see her dancing and tipsy, since she's a little prudish (not the type you'd expect to go to a club or anything). So eventually we went home, taking a gypsy cab with Golstein, because we all live sort of near each other. Unfortunately Alisa got sick in the car, she had had much more to drink in comparison to my two shots. Poor girl. We got home around 2:30. Let's just say having a lecture on Dostoevsky the next morning with Golstein was a little strange.