St. Petersburg, Russia: Take-aways

In St. Petersburg, nothing could be built higher than the Winter Palace.  That reminds me of Philadelphia, where nothing could be built higher than William Penn’s hat, on the statue atop City Hall.  (Anecdote, although skyscrapers finally broke that rule in March 1987, a small version of William Penn was ultimately mounted on the final and highest beam of the Comcast Center, currently the tallest building in the city.  So even today, nothing is higher than William Penn’s hat.)

The Neva

As far as the layout of St. Petersburg is concerned, it was evidently the work of a Frenchman:  Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond (in 1716).  Just as Washington, D.C. was laid out by another Frenchman:  Pierre Charles L’Enfant (in 1791).  It seems that, even back then, or maybe especially back then, France had a recognized flair for knowing how to make a city beautiful.

One question remains unanswered: where are the blacks, the  Arabs, the Asians?  I was told afterwards that the era of subsidies for students from developing countries is over.  And aside from that, there was no great influx of immigrants either during the tsars or the Soviet days.  That would explain it.  The only non-Caucasians I saw during the entire trip were those tourists in the Korean exhibit at the Hermitage.

Out of 22 channels on the hotel’s TV set, one was encoded, one was in Chinese and the remaining 20 were in Russian.  Of all the places I’ve been, including the motel along the Volga, that is the only time that ever happened.

A word to the wise:  Russian showers work the opposite of American or French showers. Toward the left is cold; to the right is hot.  I remembered that from last year, after the puzzlement but before the cursing started.

The Winter Palace

I spotted only a few dogs over the five days - I could count them on the fingers of one hand.  But then again, I was downtown and not in a residential area, so perhaps that’s normal and not a sign of a dislike of pets.  Of the four or five dogs I saw, two were wearing raincoats!

From the House of Fabergé

I found that Pushkin had a decidedly mulatto look to him, something that surprised me because I’d actually never seen his face.  The mystery was solved when I found this on the British Library’s On-line Gallery, written by Mike Phillips, who started by describing Pushkin’s great-grandfather:

Pushkin Café

       “According to his son-in-law and first biographer, Abram (or Ibrahim) was the son of a ruler in Africa: possibly Chad, possibly Abyssinia.  At an early age he was either abducted or sent to the court of the Turkish Sultan in Constantinople.  Bought from the Sultan, Abram arrived in Russia and was baptised with Tsar Peter standing as his godfather.  Peter visited France in 1717, and at the same time Abram was sent to study there.  He returned with the conventional skills of an officer of artillery, but he had also acquired a new surname, Hannibal (in Russian, Gannibal), and the name had significant echoes of republican defiance.  A respected military engineer, he was promoted under successive rulers and lived on into the reign of Catherine the Great.  There is no reliable likeness of Gannibal.  Hugh Barnes, in his book Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg (2005), has shown that this portrait, long thought to be of Gannibal, cannot be of him.
        "Gannibal's third son (of 11) by his second marriage, Osip Abramovich, married Marya Alexeevna Pushkin, and their daughter was Pushkin’s mother Nadezhda.  Pushkin’s father Sergei Lvovich Pushkin came from a family of boyars (nobles) whose fortunes had declined under Peter the Great.  Sergei Lvovich inherited the family estates, and had the reputation of being idle, frivolous and miserly.  He was also a fluent French speaker and had a large library of French literature and philosophy, both of which offered Pushkin a solid grounding for his later education.  Pushkin’s mother inherited the family estates from her father Osip, but he had left it so heavily encumbered with debt that, during her lifetime, the income went into paying it off.  She was beautiful and elegant, but Pushkin was no closer to her than he was to his father.”

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

St. Petersburg, Russia: Day Five

The Admiralty

My return flight to Paris is at 3:35.  I thought that would give me ample time for a bit more St. Petersburg rambling.  But my ride has called and decreed that he will pick me up at noon!  Rats!  That doesn’t leave me very much time.  I had hoped to make it back to the St. Peter and Paul Fortress, but I guess that’s not to be.  So I pack up my bag and head out the door for some last minute memories.

St. Isaac's Cathedral

First on my list, St. Isaac’s Cathedral over by the Admiralty. St. Isaac was the patron saint of Peter the Great, who built this city.  And the cathedral is huge, the largest in the city and evidently number four in the world.  Designed by a French architect, which is fitting, given that Peter wanted Russia to be part of Europe, not Asia, and did everything he could to make St. Petersburg as striking architecturally as any European capital.  Like all the other churches in Russia, it was turned into a museum during the Soviet period.  But now it holds services for feast days, and on Sunday mornings has Russian Orthodox services.
       It’s pretty cold this morning, and the walk over is chilling, but at least nothing “like snow”.  When I get there, the ticket office is closed, so I decide to wait a while.  After about a quarter of an hour, I notice a tourist bus pull up on another side of the cathedral.  I walk over and see the tourists all just waiting outside the fence while their guide explains something in Russian, so I decide to wait with them.  Then I see a family, in their Sunday finery, walk up and thread their way through the crowd.  Aha!  I follow their lead and find that the service is about to start.  There’s incense and a lot of chanting and bells and it’s all very beautiful, but after a while I feel the clock ticking, so I head back.
       Outside there’s a man setting up some souvenirs on a stand he’s just unfolded.  When he catches me looking, he says something to me in Russian and motions to his tchotchkes.  I smile at him and say “Nyet Russki”.  He laughs and says “Dasvidania” - good-bye - to which I give him a heartfelt “spaseeba” and, having run the gamut of my Russian, keep on walking.
       Almost back to the hotel, I pass something I’d love to have more time to delve into:  the Soviet Café.  But it’s just opening, and the clock is still ticking.

 I still have an hour, theoretically, so I decide to check out what a luxury department store in Russia looks like inside.  I’m looking for something amber, a specialty of the region, for my daughter’s birthday.  And right across from the hotel is the DLT Department Store which has been selling luxury goods since 2005 in a five-story building that was totally restored in 2012.  Wikipedia later informs me that it was originally built as a garrison store in 1908:  “ At the time, officers were paid a high salary and were expected to live a lavish lifestyle. Along these lines, the officers' cooperative felt it appropriate that their store should be no less luxurious than the most fashionable Parisian department stores.”  Which explains why it resembles Le Printemps or Galeries Lafayette or even Le Bon Marché in Paris.  Same architecture, same décor.
       Once through the doors, the similarity extends to the product lines.  Sisley, Dior and Chanel for cosmetics.  For women’s fashion: Chloé, Gucci, Prada, and Dolce & Gabbana. But nothing “amber” within my price range in jewelry.
       A nice touch is a whole colorful corner, with cartoon characters, set aside for children. Books, games, child-size tables and cushions strewn on the floor to sit on while Mom shops (hopefully with attendants to ride herd on the kids, although it’s too early on a Sunday morning for many shoppers, so I’ll never know).
       But now it’s time to get back to the hotel.  When I get there, my driver is already waiting, even though it’s just 11:30.  Probably not speaking English, he drives me in silence one last time down Nevskiprospekt and out to the airport.  I have plenty of time to check in, and even find a necklace of multicolored amber for my daughter in one of the duty-free shops, the one run by the Russian Museum.
       St. Petersburg has been cold and grey but beautiful.  People have been very helpful, in spite of the language problem, and the museums and churches are wondrous.  So many good memories.  Thank you, Vladimir, for helping me know your country, first in the Volga Valley and now here, in the still-beautiful former capital.

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.