July 2nd, 2007 || Curtis Comes to Town!

July 2, 2007

It’s been a long time since I’ve just been able to sit down and write. Even now, I’m squeezing time in during my lunch break (a hearty meal of bread, cheese, and pepperoni—y thinking is that if I don’t eat out at the café every day during the week, I’ll have more money to spend on the weekends; so it’s a simple sandwich and occasionally a banana for me) to try and record at least some of my impressions from over the last few days. I have to make myself write this—or else one day, I’ll forget it all.

It’s been over a week since Алые Паруса, and I’ve done a lot. At the top of my memory is Curtis’s visit, which ended less than 24 hours ago. All Friday I was a little bit nervous and a lot excited, waiting for him—is train didn’t get in until 11, and Trisha and Liza and I walked around Apraskin Dvor after classes—well, after Happy Hour at the local Evrasia, where you get double of everything you ordered—it was great, most of the group was there, and everybody was trading drinks and food, and it was just good to be able to speak English together (especially on a Friday afternoon), and to have our sushi and whatnot for next to nothing. Apraskin Dvor houses tons of shops and Money Honey, this relaxed-looking bar that apparently has live rockabilly music (I so wanna go!). It was in one of these gaudy squares where cheap stores selling plastic earrings and fake belt buckles backed up to both semi-high-end boutiques and second-hand shops. Here, a lot of the outdoor stalls seemed to be owned by foreigners, but they were mostly empty—I’m not sure if it was because of recent government crack-downs or the light rain. Either way, I got home late, took a twenty minute nap, and went to meet Curtis at the platform (just like in any good Russian romance, though nobody dies at the end of the trip). It was so good to see him! We walked (all of 2 blocks) to his hostel, got him all checked in, and walked to this nice nearby café, slipping into Russian when other people got too close. The café had great live music (the guitarist strummed “Stairway to Heaven” before closing his set) and had beer and wine with French fries (had to pay extra for the ketchup, but it’s amazing what you’ll do for a taste of home). Words just spilled out under the – cover of music; it’s strange, how you can feel safe in a place here and still try to keep your English as quiet as possible. We talked about classes, people in our classes, our excursions, our families, Russia, etc., basically catching up on a month of really different lifestyles… we just went on and on. We finally called it a night around 2? 3? both of us exhausted. Curtis walked me home (all of 1 block further, he really scored on that hostel) and I was glad—even though it was starting to get light again, I’m still wary of running around at night by myself.

The next day we agreed to wake up early—I wanted to show Curtis some important parts of town, those I liked best, and we planned on dinner at a nice restaurant—I just wanted everything to be perfect, for him to love St. Petersburg like I love it, to really enjoy his trip. Marina decided to hold an impromptu grammar/vocab lesson that morning, which really frustrated me—Curtis was going to be here for a day, and obviously I would want to spend as much time with him as possible, right? But I left home late, opting for low heels instead of flip-flops, to keep my feet cleaner. Big mistake. We turned onto Nevsky around Ploshad Vosstaniya. We walked past the colorful, beautiful (not to mention expensive) storefronts, Anichkov Most, part of Gostiniy Dvor, and turned up Sadovaya, to Art Square. We said “hi” to the state there of Pushkin, walked in front of the Russian Museum, and entered the Mikhailovsky Garden after passing Paul’s former palace. We stopped on a bench to savor the day and talk, when Curtis pointed at my feet, asking, “What’s that from?” A bright band of scarlet, as wide as the strap on my sandals, spread from my second toe down to the little one. It was all blood. My feet had been hurting, since they were new shoes, but I could have never imagined them being quite so bad. My other foot looked the same—so we got up, cutting things short at Spas-na-Krovi, and started on a mad quest to find bandaids (add that to my list of things I’d wished I’d packed, along with nail clippers! My nails are so long!). After going through one big store, and then a supermarket (which had about 40 kinds of chocolate and tea, but no bandaids) I asked a Babyshka for help and she pointed us to a drugstore. On the first floor, all we saw were glass cases filled with anti-depressants and Claritin and that sort of thing—prescription drugs. No one was there, so we went through a low door to another room, knocking as we went. We heard a rustle, and out from behind a wall came this younger looking guy—long brown beard, kind of glazed eyes, Hawaiian t-shirt—and then a lab coat over all of it. I couldn’t get him to understand me until I showed him my feet—then he said the Russian word for bandaid and pointed up. A second floor! And it had all sorts of drugstore paraphernalia—the useful kind like a million different brands of cough syrup and not rows of cheap toys or magazines, like in Rite Aid. Next to the register was a glass case full of condoms with interesting names—and at the bottom, in the same case, were 2 shelves of pregnancy tests. I wonder if you’ll find that as funny as I did (would’ve been better if there was a “buy a pack of condoms, get a pregnancy test free!” sign to just reassure you even more about their effectiveness).

Finally, I got bandaged up and we continued our tour—down to Dvorstsaya Ploshad, where this strange hodge-podge group of dancers who looked like the offspring of the Komsomol—they danced to a song whose refrain basically went, “My Russia, my country… my Russia, my friends.” New age propaganda, if you ask me—but at least it looked like they were having fun (which I guess is the whole point). We turned through the Admiralty and Alexander garden, marveled at St. Isaac’s and flirted with the idea of touring the cupola (I’ve never been and would really like to go, but I was in pain and we were both beat), but we walked back to Kazan Cathedral before we caught a bus home. I popped into a movie store, too—I can’t tell you how many movies I want to buy, Russian ones in English and English ones with Russian subtitles—and nabbed Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Since it’s pirated, it’s not the best quality, but what a fun way to study for $5! They’re really big on pirated DVDs here—Shrek 3, Evan Almighty, Surf’s Up!—all are already out in stores. So we got home, and Curtis and I went our separate ways. He napped, I changed into nicer clothes for the night and met him at his room, lugging an extra paket loaded with a different pair of heels—Marina had scorned my flip-flops, saying that they might not let me into a nicer club or restaurant in my dirty shoes. I’m sure she was just trying to help, but I felt like she was picking on me and I was so tired and hurting and overwhelmed that I had to sit down and have a short cry for myself before we headed out to the Petrograd side for dinner. We ate well at Tblisi, then walked down the embankment (around the park and zoo) towards Vasilevsky Island. We stopped in this beautiful park right on the Neva’s edge, crowded next to the Peter and Paul Fortress, and talked and watched the 10 o’clock sun play on the water (and the guys driving spanking-new wave runners that carved it up—rather jealous, I was). After a while, we continued onto the island, passing the Rostral Columns and the Kunstkammer, walking almost all the way down Vasilevsky looking for this club that we’d read about—apparently the dance floor rises and revolves, they shower dancers with fake snow and rain, and there’s a chillout room fitted with hammocks… but the cover was $10 and drinks would’ve been pricey, and we wanted to relax after still at a café, maybe grab a hookah to smoke. So we headed back up to this great restaurant that we had passed, “Russian Kitsch.” There was a bear rug lying next to a motorcycle in the entrance, and a few steps in and you could see the football game on a big screen, rows of mirrors and booths padded with extra large luxe pillows, some partitioned off by long sheer curtains, and bright splashes of color everywhere! At the end of the main dining area was a dance floor with a mirrored ceiling (prompting a mom-like moment; Look Curtis, they bolted a chair to the ceiling!) and they had 2 glassed-in patio areas on either side to cater to the sushi- and hookah-minded crowd. We asked for menus and our wonderful greeter, replete with a Western-style sense of customer service, laid down three books in front of us—2 by Lenin, 1 by Stalin. When we gave him the “quizzical look” (the same look you give teachers when you don’t understand a word and then they explain it to you) and he said “Open, open!” INSIDE were our menus and wine list, bound between the illuminating writings of Russia’s foremost Soviet authors. Hookah ended up being really quite expensive, so we got some drinks, various deserts (we chose the ones whose ingredients we could MOSTLY figure out) and chocolate fondue. I ended up with something delicious resembling cream puffs—Curtis’s was equally delicious and reminded us of apple pie. The fondue was not—it was essentially a big cup of Russian hot chocolate (which is actually melted chocolate—if you want what WE call hot chocolate, be sure to ask for “cocoa”). It still tasted good, and we thought, you know, at least they’re trying—on the dance floor there were mostly old people, but they were the worst and yet most fun people I’ve ever seen dance! They just got so wild and into it. Again, the music was phenomenal—mixes ranging from Shakira to The Ketchup Song (!!!) and old American music. There was only one group of young people there that night, celebrating a friend’s birthday. Curtis and I argued over the color of her dress while the DJ played the weirdest birthday song ever (in English)—it sounded as if someone was torturing the Chipmunks and making them do techno.

We left around 1, hurrying back up the island in order to beat the bridges’ raisings at 1:55. We stopped here and there to marvel at the people thronging the embankment, grab a quick kiss under the darkening sky, or take pictures of the bridge and the Neva crowded with boats. We weren’t 200 ft. from the bridge when a cheer went up, and then fireworks, and then the bridge… and it didn’t go down again for 3 hours…which was kind of fun and romantic for the first few hours, but got old around 3:30 in the morning. The weirdest thing was that our guidebook, and handbook, and our Russian bartender and the Russians we waited around for the bridge with all said that the bridges should go down around 3:00, 3:15. People were afraid to ask the militsia, and those that did didn’t get a straight answer, so we all sat outside (no one wanted to miss it if they DID go down, since they only close for about 20 minutes at a time). We watched the sun set… and it got colder… and I was very grateful to have Curtis to sit on and to keep warm and safe with. Then the sun came up…and people started accepting the fact that we’d just have to wait, and we constantly vacillated between trying to make the best of things and being angry at how inefficient and unacceptable this all was. Cars were parked at the mouth of the bridge, people just waiting to get home. One group of guys started up their radio, so at least we had music to dance and sing along to (sidenote: I would be so much happier if we could only export good music to foreign countries, and not whatever crappy rap song has lyrics that go “I’m hot because I’m fly, you ain't because you're not; This is why, this is why, this is why I’m hot”). Finally, the bridges went back up (well after sunrise) and we hoofed it all the way home (public transport stops running at midnight in St. Pete’s, so you have to party accordingly). It was pretty to see all the buildings starting to glow with early morning light, but we were tired. I’d reached that point where, like Jessica says, “You just have to laugh.” If you don’t, you’ll just go crazy stressing about how wrong and different and worse everything is—you can’t change it anyway, so why worry about it? We both got home around 5, 5:30am… Curtis had to check out at 11am, so we didn’t get much sleep. I walked him to a place for breakfast, then to the train station, where we waited for his train. We were both still wiped out and didn’t spend a whole lot of time talking—I actually fell asleep on his shoulder at one point.

We said goodbye and it wasn’t until then that I’d realized how much I’d missed him, and how much I will miss him. He was like the best gift I could’ve had from home—he knows my friends and family and school, and he can reminisce about the same memories, but he’s going through the same problems and adjustments that I am right now, which made him a perfect person to relate to. Well, I hate to say it, but I really really want to read. Aunt Chris loaned my Reading Lolita in Tehran (talk about fitting right? Girl in Russia reading about a woman in Tehran teaching Nabokov to her students), and it’s kind of been consuming my life. Between that and Gulliver’s Travels (first time for me! amazin’ book) I feel like I’ve been spending those 10 minutes before I pass out in bed well.

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World War II: I probably should've explained about this back when we visited Piskarov Cemetery, but I can't articulate to you vividly Russians still remember WWII. For example, when Jessica told her hostess that she was alright with eating left-overs, she rejoiced (quite a few Russians have been surprised that their American students are okay with left-overs; we Americans don't do that? I know my family does). Apparently, in her family, they never let food go to waste. "We still remember during the war, during the siege, when there was no food." Keep in mind that Jessica's hostess is a university student about our age.

Also, it's not called World War II. In Russia, it's called the Great War of the Fatherland. And every year, they hold a celebration to remember it, and those that died (fireworks, parades; it's like the soldiers return home every year). They wear orange and black ribbons on this day to commemorate the dead, although I've seen them everywhere (and the holiday was months ago). To put things in perspective, over 60% of all Allied casualties were Soviets. Breaking that down into hard numbers, look at it this way: Americans lost roughly 420,000 people in the war (.3% of the wartime population). The Soviet Union lost 23,600,000 people (that's 23 MILLION now, a whole extra set of 3 zeros, or almost 15% of their population); that's more than any other country, even Germany and China, by at least 4 million people. Almost no one was untouched by the war (and by touched I mean affected negatively).