St. Petersburg, Russia

My St. Petersburg

I live in New York now, it is huge and great and buzzing with all kinds of interesting things but my home town is somewhere far away.

I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, back in 1977. Back then everything was different, that with an iron curtain and the Communists building Communism on the horizons of near future. The country was struggling for power, looking for ways to make others respect it while it spent millions on building the Communist block and making its own people starve. But none of that mattered to me. I was happy because I was growing up in the most beautiful city in the world with no concerns and no worries. How happy that time was for me! Ignorance is truly a bliss and I am glad now that I was ignorant then because those childhood memories are going to come through my whole life with me, untainted and untouched by filth of every day life. That was true happiness.

It has been 12 years since I left St. Petersburg but that place is always going to have a very special place in my heart. It does not belong to any country in my mind, does not constitute a birth place of Russian Revolution, it is a place separated from time and space, a special spot in my heart. The old part of the city is my favorite. It was built in 1703 as a window to the West, representing the growing power, as an entrances to the seas, a chance to build a then non existent navy. In it is a blend of finest cities of Europe. Look at its rivers and canals, carefully laid out throughout the city to create an intricate waterway network and you will see Venice. Look at its Cathedrals and churches and you will see Europe originated Gothic styles with a touch of Russian spirit to them. Look at the streets exhibiting buildings as old as the city itself and you will feel as if you walk down Paris streets. I felt that in Paris a few years back, walking along narrow Paris sidewalks and I almost felt as if I was transported back in space to my town, filled with small buildings and narrow streets just the same. Each building in St. Petersburg is very different, holding its own history with stories to tell about the past and the people who lived in there a long, long time ago. Most of them were once houses of the Russian nobility, filled with royal elegance, children’s laughs, busy servants. They hold witness to the glory that was once Russia, abandoned now, misused, silently preserving all those distant memories. Walking past them you could almost hear them whispering those long gone stories. As a kid as I often walked past those once impossible to come near buildings I wondered what kind of people lived there and what were they really like. I used to get very intimidated by some of those buildings that looked like fortresses, tall and foreboding.

I used to love to spend time in the Hermitage with my father. I understood very little back then, hated walking past endless walls filled with boring paintings, there is Van Gogh and here is DaVinci. Those names meant little for me then. But it was there, in galleries of Hermitage that I drank in, like a thirty flower, the finer culture of Art. It was then that engrafted onto my soul forever was the love of Renaissance paintings and art of Ancient Rome and Greece. It was there that, even without understanding it, I learned to appreciate the magic of paintings. Many years and a couple of dozen various world museums later I remember that time with appreciation and gratitude for I don’t just stare at the paintings I drink them in, learn their messages.
Another thing that will always draw me back to my memories and make me long for my old St. Petersburg are theatres. The theatres that ran a repertoire ranging from shows for the youngest children, like Little Red Riding Hood and the Nutcracker, to beautiful Ballets and Operas for the older public, including the world-famous Swan Lake and Aida. I must have seen the children’s entire repertoire and a good chunk of shows for grown-ups. I liked the children’s shows but appreciation for serious stuff, once again, did not come until much later and I wish that I had the chance to go back to that time and see it all over again, through new eyes and understand it better. Only theatres in London, which years later took my breath away, can rival those old St. Petersburg theatres.

But the most favorite things of mine about St. Petersburg are magnificent, incomparable to anything else in the world, White Nights. White Nights are an experience, which would take your breath away. It’s impossible to imagine and understand without experiencing this phenomenon first hand. Its like the day never really ends and late into the night the sky remains lit, as if you are suspended in a cloudy day where sunlight is abstracted. Taking a walk along the river in such a night is amazing. You could see the pale light reflected off of the calm, glassy, surface of the water and the calmness of the moment descends onto you. You are surrounded by people just like you wrapped into the magic of the moment, keeping quiet as if afraid to break the spell, each reflecting on their thoughts and experience of it. You find yourself in a fairy tale that transcends the real world because nowhere else can you find a moment just like that, a beauty so serene and unique only to that place. You have not seen St. Petersburg, learned nothing of it, if you have not, at least once in your life, experienced the White Nights.

This is my hometown, far away now, unreachable and maybe lost to me forever and yet always dear to my heart as only home could be. It has changed as have I and we will never be the same but in my heart exists a blend of memories and common experiences we shared that no one will ever take away from me. I hold on to those memories, cherish them as they should be, memories of love and happiness, filled with the best and worst moments of my life. Looking back at them I can hear laughter and tears and I cherish both because without either one life is not complete and my life would not be complete without my St. Petersburg.

Anna K

Submitted: Sunday 4th April 2004, 10:08 AM

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