blogfromgog / блогизгога: Nevsky and Such

“Keep your distance from the street-lamps, I implore you, and hurry past them quickly, as quickly as possible. Count yourself lucky if they only spill their malodorous oil on your fashionable frock-coat. But everything, not only the street-lamp, exudes deceit. Nevsky Prospect deceives at all hours of day, but the worst time of all is at night, when darkness descends upon it like a dense blanket and only the white and beige walls of the buildings can be discerned, when the entire city becomes a welter of noise and flashing lights, when myriads of carriages rattle down from the bridges, the postilions cry out and jig on their horses and when the devil himself is abroad, kindling the street-lamps with one purpose only: to show everything in a false light.”
-Gogol, “Nevsky Prospect”

It was surreal to be walking around Nevsky at night, thinking about the places we’d been from the decadent palaces of the tsars, to the intimidating Soviet red square, to the inhuman prospects of Moscow, to the ancient churches of Novgorod, and to feel the strangeness of Petersburg as this contradictory, fragmented and beautiful city. Even though Petersburg is no longer the capital, no longer holds so much clout or money or power as it used to, this strange and depressed, unnatural, unwanted, “unrussian” city has become so much the heart of a country that has been plagued by Revolutions, civil and world war, blockades, starvation, purges, upheaval, and the pains and contradictions of capitalism, corruption, and incompetent government when the lines between officials and mobsters bleed both ways.

Even if I won’t miss paying money to go to the bathroom, not having hot water for 22 days, being eaten by bedbugs, seeing black dirt under my nails when I scratch any part of my body after a day walking in the city, feeling my throat ache from breathing in exhaust, mullets (although they’re making their way here), being scared for my life everyday while walking through the park by both the wild and unneutered (all of them are unfixed) pet dogs that try to attack me, not even being asked if I want smetana on that, how everyone smokes, having to bring my dictionary with me to the grocery store, having the people at McDonald’s not understand me, waiting for the trolleybus for 30 minutes before I realize it’s probably never going to show up, mosquitoes, having my eyes and face burn from the fallout chemicals in the water, being molested on the subway, having people pretend they don’t understand English when I can tell that they do, hearing other people’s conversations and music on the hardline when trying to call home, waiting two hours to get the check for bad food when there are 5 waitresses standing around doing nothing, and many other random things, I will miss 6 ruble ice cream, the bustle of Sadovaya, sun gleaming off the white and blue Smolniy, the way the Neva smells, summer snow from the poplars, being entertained every time I rode the escalator in the subway from watching the unabashed PDA’s which involve heavy making out, or my personal favorite when the man stands on the lower step and plants his face against the girl’s boobs, I’ll miss random Soviet stars, I’ll miss my host mom’s borsh, the coffin like elevator in our building, I’ll miss walking everywhere, I’ll miss having to climb the spiked fence in a skirt when returning home late through the Tauride Garden, cold kvas, how much better the fruit is here, how much better the ICE CREAM is here (and being able to eat it twice a day while still losing 6 lbs), pimped out Soviet cars, the screams of the crows in the morning, going to the ballet for 20 bucks, my babushka’s surprised and suspicious gaze whenever I spoke Russian, talking to my host parents and drinking tea till 2am, Russian sugar in tea that is not as sweet as it is at home, the tablecloth that I always managed to spill something on, watching the woman in the apartment across the courtyard who always stayed up as late as I did, the way the water sounded while it boiled and how it always tasted like the silver spoon that was kept at the bottom of the pot, hearing the hum of the radio all night and all day (seeing as it’s mounted on the wall in two rooms, a remnant of the Soviet era), I’ll remember my host father’s voice when he told me about how his grandparents starved during the blockade and how his older brother died when he was 13, the way the key to my apartment looked, the sound of the man’s voice on the subway who always announced the next stop and that the doors were closing, seeing at least one wedding or as many as 5 on my walk home from the subway because one of the government offices is on that street, and I’ll miss the ticking of clocks in my room that went silent by the time I left, I’ll miss white nights and ashen porticoes.