St. Petersburg, Russia: Day Four, Part Two

Now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say: Dostoyevsky’s apartment.  How the other half lives.  A world different from that of Fabergé and its clientele.
       On the way, I stop at Our Lady of Vladimir Church, chock-a-block with icons.  And people.
       Around the corner is the Vladimir subway stop.  For some reason just outside the exit peasant-looking people stand with bouquets of onions, or bags of apples or potatoes.  Is this how they round out their salaries?  Is it regulated?  Or a bit of free enterprise?  (I find out later, back in Paris, that these people are retirees who live in the near suburbs and have garden plots.  They take the subway line in to this terminus every Saturday, and yes, it’s to round out their insufficient retirement pensions.) 

       The Dostoyevsky “museum” is on a corner and I spot it almost by accident.  My Cyrillic is getting better.  As with many places (the Hermitage included), you enter into a half-basement level.  As I’m not a Dostoyevsky fiend, I forego the audioguide and just settle for any signs written in English.  There is even one in French in his study.  It’s as much information as I need, and a somber antidote to the frivolity of Fabergé.
       Then it’s back to Nevskiprospekt and quite a walk back the way I came, but on the opposite side of the avenue.  A collection of street scenes - and so many people.  There was a sketch artist drawing a portrait, and someone inside a pig costume handing out flyers, and a women with two children looking at carved Hallowe’en pumpkins in a store window...
       Then another navigation problem:  finding Nabokov’s house/museum.  I go inside what I think might be a tourist information agency, but it’s not.  I see a young man at a counter, with a computer.  We don’t understand each other but he hits Google and turns the keyboard to me.  I type in Nabokov Museum, he sees what it is, and ultimately prints out a map for me.  Then gives me directions with his hands - outside, left, left again, straight on.  Spaseeba!
       But after due consideration, and given the time of day, it’s too far and in the opposite direction from my next stop, a must:  Pushkin’s apartment.  What’s more, my feet are very tired.  After yesterday’s miles of Hermitage halls, I’ve covered an additional three or four miles today already.  So Pushkin it is.  Besides, the young man will never know.

Pushkin's Houseb

The museum is in a large courtyard, with no indication of where to buy tickets.  I opt for the side with people hanging around.  A door with a sign in several languages says cryptically  “tickets further”.  Finally I find it... a long way from the entrance, which is again in a basement.  I get an audioguide and here again “scuffies” to go over your shoes and protect the wooden floors.  Each room has all doors closed and no indication where to go.  Luckily a woman guard opens one for me, and I learn each room has a guardian angel to see you don’t take photos (but I sneak a few just the same).  One offers me her chair - I must look very tired! - and makes me wait a few minutes until she hears the previous group is done in the next room.  She’s the warmest of all the guards I see on the entire trip. And I’m getting used to exchanges without words.
       This is so much better than Dostoyevsky.  I’m glad I didn’t miss it by seeing Nabokov’s.  It couldn’t have been any better.

Fontanka River

       I trudge back to the hotel, mercifully nearby, for my cup of chai and a rest.  Then it’s time for a meal.  For my last meal in St. Petersburg - and the only real one, actually - I go to Aprikosov - Apricot.  A friend, a physician/jazz percussionist with a Russian wife, tipped me off to this one.  I’d walked past it several times, never suspecting this three-steps-down place was the fantastic restaurant he’d told me about.  But I checked it with the front desk and then ventured forth.
       I order the roasted filet of venison with potatoes and morels, accompanied by a glass of red wine.  When the venison comes and I taste it, I call over the waitress.  At first she looks concerned, but then I give her a message for the chef.  “Tell him I live in Paris and even in France I’ve had no better venison than this.”  And it’s true. She walks off to the kitchen, looking very pleased.   After that I have their crème brûlée, which is also very good, and a glass of champagne.  Total: 3750 rubles.  Translation: just short of 58€.  Perhaps a lot for Russia, but not for such a great meal in Paris.

As it’s early yet (meals eaten alone go quickly), I stop off at the Grand Hotel Europa’s Lobby Bar, which the jazz friend has recommended because... well, jazz.  They advertise live entertainment every night, although for the moment it’s just a piano player.  I order a drink and settle into a plush chair to wait.  After about half an hour, Vilena shows up to sing.  After her first set, she takes a break and I call over the waiter.  I ask him to ask her if she knows “For All We Know”, and she opens her next set with it, looking over at me.  The waiter has done his due diligence.  She and the pianist do an excellent rendition of the ballad, after which, with a smile and a nod to her, I take off back to my hotel.
       Tomorrow will be a short day before my departure.