Izvinitye ya ne gavaryu pa Russki

Hello all. Over the course of the past four or so weeks I have been uncertain as to what information I should post on the blog. When I did find myself with some interesting or intriguing prose I somehow decided to postpone posting it. However, since we are now in the final days of our forays into the foremost artistic realms of the Baltic countries, I felt I should share a few things about one experience that has already forever changed the way I will view the art world. Yeah, I'm talking about Russia.

It is impossible to describe St. Petersburg in less words than it would take to write a small novel. The city is under a constant state of development and restoration, but it hardly seems to have lost it's luster. It was made apparent to us early on that the creation of St. Petersburg was to stand as a physical representation of Russian might. In my opinion, that intention was utterly successful. Honestly, this city scared the hell out of me at first. I have never been to such a place. Everyone powerwalks. If you're old an stove up, you powerstrut. No one smiles on the street. If you make eye-contact with a passerby they immediately look down at your shoes and look back at you and you know that they know you're an American. There is a constant threat of being pooed on by the millions and millions of pigeons. If you cross the street at the wrong time drivers accelerate faster toward you. Thousands of windows. Police carry two guns. All the qualities of St. Petersburg - the architecture, the art, the traffic, the people, etc - share an underlying intimidation factor and passionate intrigue that would literally fry a foreigners brain should they not stop to take a rest. The sites/sights we have seen thus far in St. Petersburg have been so unbelievable - it is my impression that they can only be described or catalogued fairly in a categorized list entitled, "Awesome."

Awesome

• The Russian Museum
• The Russian History Museum (celebrating 300 yrs.)
• Peter and Paul's Fortress
• 19th century prison
• Peter and Paul's Cathedral
• Russian Space and Rocket Museum
• St. Isaac's Cathedral
• The State Hermitage Museum (twice!)
• Hydrafoil Boat Rides
• Kunstkamera (archaeology, ethnology, oddities museum)
• Church of the Savior on the Spilt Blood
• St. Petersburg Art Academy
• Peterhoff

I would also like to make note of a truly remarkable celebration we partially witnessed last night. As I write this I am having a discussion with our hostel receptionist about the ceremony entitled The Holiday of the Crimson Sails (Alye Parusa). She tells me it is in recognition of the last day of school for St. Petersburg's high school graduating class and afterward St. Pete throws out all the stops as everyone is invited into the heart of the city for the party. The is an old story that this celebration stems from, written by Alexander (Grin?). To summarize, a fair maiden falls in love with a fair prince, but trouble ensues and they cannot be married, so she perseveres through a series of struggles and is eventually whisked away into Happily Ever After in the arms of the prince on a ship with red sails. Sound familiar? Of course - there are thousands of songs, poems, Danielle Steele novels, and movies utilizing this plot. However, this story stands as a symbol for the graduating class of St. Pete. It is a "follow your dreams" sort of scenario, but I find it interesting that they personified it into a Holiday. Clever and endearing, if not anything.

In the Neva River/Canal, right in the middle of St. Petersburg, they literally had 2-and-3 mast ships with red sails, which coasted through the Troitsky drawbridge under a firework lit sky, and probably out into the Baltic. There was also a free concert in front of the Hermitage Museum and around the Alexander Column (by the river) featuring pop groups which performed alongside acrobats from Cirque du Soleil. At this concert was a huge crane that dangled a massive strobe-lighting chandelier over the crowd. When I say massive I mean it was probably around 50 feet tall.

Unfortunately we only heard the fireworks, and could only see the chandelier from a distance; this all due to a fact I was just told by our hostel receptionist. There were over 3 million people there last night. Now that I think about it - I believe it. I have never seen so many people - all teenagers or people in their 20's or 30's, and every. single. one of them, was drunk. Imagine weaving through a literal sea of young drunk people, all screaming in Russian. Very tense, but entertaining. We took a hydrafoil boatride through the canals to both avoid and watch the runamok masses, and at the same time befriended some locals on the boat. We made our way home this morning at around 3:45 a.m. with the party partially still raging, and others leaving en masse. The city streets were completely trashed. Glass and garbage literally everywhere. However, here's a testament to the city of St. Petersburg; We walked to the harbor this morning to catch a boat to Peterhoff at around 10:15 a.m., and in order to get there we had to walk the same streets the party took place on. They were completely clean.