Piter Then and Now

In my childhood, I spent every school vacation in Leningrad. Our closest family members lived there. My Jewish grandmother came to the city in 1941, escaping sure death when she hopped on a truck to leave her home in Belorussia just as the Germans were about to enter the town. She  worked as an electrician during the blockade (in old black and white photos I see a smiling coquette, standing on the roof without a hat on, flirting with a tall soldier in a long overcoat), and has always been an example of optimism and toughness for my family. Grandmother adopted Leningrad completely, even taking part in all the city’s “walrus” outings.

My aunt, a programmer, worked in the Bus Terminal and I proudly imagined that she made all the buses and trolleys and trams in the city run on time.

Then there was my cousin. She was a year older than me, but I still found a dozen reasons I, a Muscovite, should be condescending to her. I found her taste in clothes and music corny. Even provincial. Yes, that was the word. I found my cousin desperately provincial, just like her seventh floor apartment in the Four Idiots district, comprised of the prospects Nastavnikov, Udarnikov, Peredovikov and Entuziastov (the streets of the Exhortators, Shock Workers, Vanguardists and Enthusiasts). Not that I lived more luxuriously, just that life in St. Petersburg always seemed grayer. People were dressed more modestly. Deficit foods and clothes were even more in deficit (I don’t not know why, but we always brought kilos of buckwheat for our northern relatives. And we brought back to Moscow books and art albums. Moscow was richer materially, but less educated).

But as we left the grey bedroom districts, the city started to reveal its miracles: things that made it different from my native Moscow. We invariably emerged from the metro on Nevsky. First stop: “Nord” Cakes with cream. Second stop: the art shop, for the prized “Neva” water-colors, not to be found in the capital. And then to the river to climb the Sphinxes—as mysterious as their city. Take a ride to Peterhof and try not to get soaked walking through the shutikhas—the trick fountains which suddenly spurted water out of nowhere. The city was full of wonders.

And then there were places only I was allowed to see. My dad led me on a tour of his Leningrad: a yard as deep as a well hidden behind an archway; a crazy statue high up on a building wall, a corner of the Hermitage no one ever cared to explore.

Last November, I made my first trip to the capital in several years, this time staying with friends (our northern relatives emigrated four years ago). My friend’s apartment on Nikolskaya Square was magical, facing the wonderfully lit cathedral. In the morning, I struggled out of bed early to take a walk, venturing along the canals toward Nevsky. After sipping cheap and delicious coffee at an Idealnaya Chashka (much better than Moscow, where coffee shops are for millionaires!), I had a tasty breakfast at a perestroika-style café—a salad, a pie and a tea. The service was sovkovy and the interior kitschy, but clean —what do you want for 40 rubles? I was charmed by this city, which lags years behind Moscow in economic prosperity, yet is decades ahead of my birthplace in culture and manners. And still, I could not live here. I am a Muscovite and could no sooner live in Petersburg than a Petersburger want to move to Moscow.

So, enough St. Petersburg reminiscences from a Muscovite. The rest of the issue we turn over to native Petersburgers.

Lina Rozovskaya