How I got here: an overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, just like a cruise but food not included. Gambling, live stage shows, duty-free shopping and karaoke (I sang the Beatles' "Back to the USSR" with gusto)! It was very reasonable, in fact I heard of a Swedish woman who takes the ferry to Estonia to get her hair done. My bunkmates were a cute Japanese girl studying in London, and an Indian woman doctor who practiced for years in Russia.
Disembarking in Helsinki, I found a tram to the bus station and boarded the bus for Saint Petersburg. A young Finnish guy let me use his mobile to let my hostess Anastasia know I made the bus, and taught me how to say "I'm sorry" (Izvinitje) and helped me negotiate the Metro, with its terrifying escalators that continue for two long minutes. (I face sideways, breathe, and look at my feet. I am now an expert on negotiating the St. Pete Metro!)
Anastasia (Nastya) was at the entrance waiting for me, eight months pregnant! A line of babushkas sells flowers and vegetables to exiting commuters outside many Metro stations. I bought blueberries.
We were in the outskirts full of Soviet era high-rise apartments with ingenious magnet locks on the doors and smelly hallways. We dragged my luggage three long blocks to building 10, apartment 111, a two room affair and my first true couch in the kitchen. Toilet and bathroom behind separate doors. Nastya made tea and borscht and told me about working at McDonald's near Mobile, Ala. and then being a cashier in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where everyone speaks Russian! Her husband Nikita supervises construction, and showed me a video of their boogie woogie wedding - they met in boogie woogie class! I met her English instructor Pavel and friend Irina when we drove to the center to see the midnight opening of the bridges for ships. It gets dark very late in Russia in the summer, the "white nights."
Pavel ("Pasha")and I visited the Hermitage museum, drank beer in the park and that night he proposed by telephone! Aged 35, he was once in Logan, Ohio with a church camp and considers Ohio the promised land, though he never got to Athens or my little town nearby. He has applied to emigrate to Canada but is now returning to the Urals to be with his arthritic mother. I am handicapped by not having a mobile phone; I don't think public phones exist! But people let me make calls on theirs and don't accept roubles (pronounced rubbles) for it.
Next I stayed with Olga, a former water lab worker, now English teacher to little ones, a glamorous beauty with a doctor for a son. She bought her Soviet era apartment so was able to register my visa at the post office, a serious concern. She has a fetish about bacteria, probably due to her chemistry work, and everywhere one doffs one's shoes at the entrance and wears slippers inside apartments. She made blini (blinzes) and pelmenki (pirogies) and watched my sister's movie The Other House and together we spent five hours at the Russian State Museum. I wanted a postcard of the huge painting of Russians standing in line, but they didn't have one. We shopped together at Okeu (OK) Russia's version of McDonald's and she helped color my hair and choose make-up. Her glamour is catching. She also helped me explore second hand stalls and cobblers to replace my disintegrating sandals; I bought new ones at Okeu no doubt made in China.
My third hostess was Galina, who works for the German coffee company Melitta, and lives in Pushkin, 20 km from St. Pete in a beautiful new apartment. But the builder went bankrupt so we had to drag my suitcase up six floors and the whiskey bottle I should have left in Sweden broke. She has a car and the short drive to St Pete is nerve-wracking.
Galina learned German before English 'zo ve hat ja speziale Probleme' but she too watched The Other House and shared videos of flamenco dancing (also studied Spanish) and Pina Bausch, the late German modern dancer choreographer. A great walker who looks 40, not 60, Galina had me walking in Pushkin's enormous parks every day. She has a 2-year visa to America so I hope to host her in Nelsonville in 2013!
We visited nearby Pavlovsk, enjoyed a classical guitar concert on an island, and I toured the last home of Nikolas and Alexandra, sad indeed. The lines for the big Pushkin palaces are impossible so I never saw the Amber Room, but went into St Pete to see the Upanofsky Palace, the Peter and Paul Fortress with the church of the czars' tombs, and St. Isaac's Cathedral, as well as the Church of the Spilled Blood, built where a czar was mortally wounded. Mosaics and icons abound. During the Soviet era the last church was used as a morgue, a vegetable warehouse, theatre scenery storage and had an unexploded bomb inside. The restoration work is impressive and the audiotours helpful.
One day while lost I saw a big hidden market and an illustration of a 150-ruble lunch (33 rubles/dollar)
so I climbed the stairs for a delicious meal of cabbage & carrot salad, chicken soup, bread, cutlet and potatoes and tea, watching a Queen concert on the TV ("We will, we will rock you!"). I wore my Obama 08 button and the waiter wanted to know my home and made me understand he was from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, here for work.
For 900 roubles I treated myself to the ballet Swan Lake. Up in the balcony the wooden seats made a continuous racket, but it was a joy. I can't get over the super high heels Russian girls wear. One cold morning Galina and I went to look at old airplanes on a military base. There is a scandal about a Russian pop group, Pussy Riot, that performed impromptu in a church with bags over their heads denouncing Putin and now face years in prison. Madonna has spoken up for them but the UTube video Olga showed me had no redeeming artistic value in my eyes.
Nowhere did I see any recycling, or care for conserving water. I believe the electricity is from nukes. Television shows are dubbed in Russian.
I finished reading Delva Murphy's Silverland, about this 80-year-old Irishwoman's fascination with BAM, the Baikal Amur Main train across Siberia so many lost their lives building. This babushka speaks no Russian but travels alone nonetheless too!
Nastya gave me a copy of Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood, which she found too hard to read. I wish her well on the coming of little Ivan! I was sorry to learn home buyers face 16% interest loans, but she bought her baby furniture used via the Internet.
We had a little reunion party at her place with Olga and Pasha when all the museums were closed.
It's been astonishing how eager and friendly my Russian hosts are. I'm sorry my visa is half over. It has been a great thrill to be here. Da da da!
Disembarking in Helsinki, I found a tram to the bus station and boarded the bus for Saint Petersburg. A young Finnish guy let me use his mobile to let my hostess Anastasia know I made the bus, and taught me how to say "I'm sorry" (Izvinitje) and helped me negotiate the Metro, with its terrifying escalators that continue for two long minutes. (I face sideways, breathe, and look at my feet. I am now an expert on negotiating the St. Pete Metro!)
Anastasia (Nastya) was at the entrance waiting for me, eight months pregnant! A line of babushkas sells flowers and vegetables to exiting commuters outside many Metro stations. I bought blueberries.
We were in the outskirts full of Soviet era high-rise apartments with ingenious magnet locks on the doors and smelly hallways. We dragged my luggage three long blocks to building 10, apartment 111, a two room affair and my first true couch in the kitchen. Toilet and bathroom behind separate doors. Nastya made tea and borscht and told me about working at McDonald's near Mobile, Ala. and then being a cashier in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where everyone speaks Russian! Her husband Nikita supervises construction, and showed me a video of their boogie woogie wedding - they met in boogie woogie class! I met her English instructor Pavel and friend Irina when we drove to the center to see the midnight opening of the bridges for ships. It gets dark very late in Russia in the summer, the "white nights."
Pavel ("Pasha")and I visited the Hermitage museum, drank beer in the park and that night he proposed by telephone! Aged 35, he was once in Logan, Ohio with a church camp and considers Ohio the promised land, though he never got to Athens or my little town nearby. He has applied to emigrate to Canada but is now returning to the Urals to be with his arthritic mother. I am handicapped by not having a mobile phone; I don't think public phones exist! But people let me make calls on theirs and don't accept roubles (pronounced rubbles) for it.
Next I stayed with Olga, a former water lab worker, now English teacher to little ones, a glamorous beauty with a doctor for a son. She bought her Soviet era apartment so was able to register my visa at the post office, a serious concern. She has a fetish about bacteria, probably due to her chemistry work, and everywhere one doffs one's shoes at the entrance and wears slippers inside apartments. She made blini (blinzes) and pelmenki (pirogies) and watched my sister's movie The Other House and together we spent five hours at the Russian State Museum. I wanted a postcard of the huge painting of Russians standing in line, but they didn't have one. We shopped together at Okeu (OK) Russia's version of McDonald's and she helped color my hair and choose make-up. Her glamour is catching. She also helped me explore second hand stalls and cobblers to replace my disintegrating sandals; I bought new ones at Okeu no doubt made in China.
My third hostess was Galina, who works for the German coffee company Melitta, and lives in Pushkin, 20 km from St. Pete in a beautiful new apartment. But the builder went bankrupt so we had to drag my suitcase up six floors and the whiskey bottle I should have left in Sweden broke. She has a car and the short drive to St Pete is nerve-wracking.
Galina learned German before English 'zo ve hat ja speziale Probleme' but she too watched The Other House and shared videos of flamenco dancing (also studied Spanish) and Pina Bausch, the late German modern dancer choreographer. A great walker who looks 40, not 60, Galina had me walking in Pushkin's enormous parks every day. She has a 2-year visa to America so I hope to host her in Nelsonville in 2013!
We visited nearby Pavlovsk, enjoyed a classical guitar concert on an island, and I toured the last home of Nikolas and Alexandra, sad indeed. The lines for the big Pushkin palaces are impossible so I never saw the Amber Room, but went into St Pete to see the Upanofsky Palace, the Peter and Paul Fortress with the church of the czars' tombs, and St. Isaac's Cathedral, as well as the Church of the Spilled Blood, built where a czar was mortally wounded. Mosaics and icons abound. During the Soviet era the last church was used as a morgue, a vegetable warehouse, theatre scenery storage and had an unexploded bomb inside. The restoration work is impressive and the audiotours helpful.
One day while lost I saw a big hidden market and an illustration of a 150-ruble lunch (33 rubles/dollar)
so I climbed the stairs for a delicious meal of cabbage & carrot salad, chicken soup, bread, cutlet and potatoes and tea, watching a Queen concert on the TV ("We will, we will rock you!"). I wore my Obama 08 button and the waiter wanted to know my home and made me understand he was from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, here for work.
For 900 roubles I treated myself to the ballet Swan Lake. Up in the balcony the wooden seats made a continuous racket, but it was a joy. I can't get over the super high heels Russian girls wear. One cold morning Galina and I went to look at old airplanes on a military base. There is a scandal about a Russian pop group, Pussy Riot, that performed impromptu in a church with bags over their heads denouncing Putin and now face years in prison. Madonna has spoken up for them but the UTube video Olga showed me had no redeeming artistic value in my eyes.
Nowhere did I see any recycling, or care for conserving water. I believe the electricity is from nukes. Television shows are dubbed in Russian.
I finished reading Delva Murphy's Silverland, about this 80-year-old Irishwoman's fascination with BAM, the Baikal Amur Main train across Siberia so many lost their lives building. This babushka speaks no Russian but travels alone nonetheless too!
Nastya gave me a copy of Dickens' Mystery of Edwin Drood, which she found too hard to read. I wish her well on the coming of little Ivan! I was sorry to learn home buyers face 16% interest loans, but she bought her baby furniture used via the Internet.
We had a little reunion party at her place with Olga and Pasha when all the museums were closed.
It's been astonishing how eager and friendly my Russian hosts are. I'm sorry my visa is half over. It has been a great thrill to be here. Da da da!
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