Adventures in the Apartment

Perhaps I should describe the curious little apartment I have been calling home. There isn’t what we would consider a proper bed anywhere; like Anna, I sleep on a divan, under a pretty red coverlet, which made me feel right at home. We both love red things, and even her plates are pretty porcelain, with beautiful poppies rampant across them. But I don’t know how engineers like Anna live here, since nothing is on the level; the doors, while a snug fit, all are on a slight slant... I know it would drive my dad crazy since it even bothers me, but when I offered to fill in one of the tiles that is missing, Anna looked at me and said, “But it work now.” Function over form, I suppose.

I have already mentioned there is only one sink, for the kitchen--you must wash your hands in the shower--but the other unique feature is a gas hot water heater, which threatens to go ‘blast’ if unattended, according to Anna. (However, I feel if it is going to go ‘blast’ , my attendance will be of little to no use, and I would rather it go ‘blast’ without me here ...) Despite the flame, which is particularly finicky to start and keep running, and the open grate, I honestly worry more about the stove, which lacks a working internal lighter, and must be started with matches. But it is quirky, and unusual, a bit like the coffee and milk scented air freshener in the toilet room (it isn’t a bathroom as we think of it). 

The locks are an adventure. In Russian, the word for lock and castle is both zamok; the two are differentiated only by stress on the last syllable. However, I think Anna’s apartment would need a moat like a castle to be any more secure than her simple lock system of quantity over quality! I actually had to have a lesson in locking the doors--yes, doors. There are two, with three locks between them, as well as a secured door opening into the courtyard. For a nation without a good word describing privacy, Russians seem to take their locks seriously. As sturdy as they are, the locks are even finickier than the heater. However, now I am so proficient in locking them, I can no longer get back in the apartment consistently...

Gorokhovaya street at Sunset!

My favorite feature is a window which overlooks the back courtyard; I love hearing the Russians below chattering at all hours as they pass through the gate into the wide world of St. Petersburg. I love people-watching, and I had thought at first it would be better to overlook the street--but here, through a strange trick of the courtyard, I can hear everyone as clearly as if I were standing beside them. From the struggles of little schoolchildren in the morning (Mama! Vasya took my toy again!!) to the drunken confusion of two men at two A.M. (You lost the key?!?), nothing in the courtyard happens without me hearing it. It’s not good for my jet lag, and I am used to the country quiet, but I love hearing Russian all around. I am quiet, so I think I have gone unnoticed by the denizens; I have actually never seen anyone coming or going so far. These people could just be like the shadows in Plato’s cave, except with voices, and I wouldn’t even know.

By now, I find it even sadder that this is the same, infamous courtyard in which I managed to get lost. (I still feel some shame over that, especially since the kitchen window overlooks the courtyard from which I enter the apartment.)

It’s remarkable to me what this courtyard has seen--since this building is right by the Fontanka canal and very old, I imagine the yellow walls, cracked through with stone, have overheard approximately 200 years of very real dramas, with the same lack of passion as our Rocky Mountains. I can’t imagine they care about my small troubles, being stone. But I do not think the life of courtyard is completely ruled by these monoliths, for when it rains, the water trickles down the cigarette-stained cracks like tears on cheeks. This is a city for memories, not for the present and people. But I like to think the walls weep for the thousands of sorrows this city holds, and the bits of humanity they overhear but cannot understand. It’s worth remembering sometimes that Petersburg was dragged from the swamps surrounding the Neva by the will of a mortal emperor, and it is said that someday the Neva will reclaim what is hers. She has tried in the past; floods in the poet Pushkin’s day carried off thousands of lives, epidemics of disease from her waters more. Add to their total the million or so who died in the siege of Leningrad, and the 50,000 who sacrificed themselves to build her, and St. Petersburg remains a city of ghosts inhabited by the living. Anyone living here walks in the shadows of imperial doom and communism; conversely, many here seem to appreciate love and beauty more strongly. Perhaps they cannot touch the feet of the astral giants, from Peter the Great and the tsars to the communists, but the overwhelming will of the city is to continue on, without superficiality, but also not without love. To see only beauty in the buildings is to ignore that their shadows fall upon unmarked graves; to see beauty only in the people is to ignore the sense of majesty and dignity of a grand lady like the city. The White Nights and spring and summer are a bit of romantic hope for the city. For me, they are encapsulated by a single lock I saw on a bridge. That single lock is reassuring--on a small scale, it is hope. On a larger scale, it is symbolic of a love and a people who can endure beyond tragedies of stone.

Sorry for indulging my poeticism. For those of you wondering if all I do is sit by the river, mope, and read the 4 books of Pushkin my host has lent me, I have actually been to the museum at which I will intern. In an exciting development, I am in the most advanced class, and my rather one-sided talk with the director was entirely in Russian! Admittedly, it was about music and theater...so lots of French terms that I knew...and besides, interns are to be talked at, not with right?

But it's a very nice river...

It is all very exciting, but it is very late as I write this, so more to come on... the nature of strolling--I am becoming a professional at this very Russian art--my mastery of the Petersburg face when walking--I believe I have this down too well, as 4 people have asked me for directions, however they were all boys--and whatever other adventures come to pass!
Love!