IN PETERSBURG TO-DAY

St Petersburg

The fillies are off and strutting their stuff in the Nevsky Prospekt stakes. Stud stallions sip their Baltica beers, draw deep on their life reducing cigs,( average male life expectancy 59-women 77!!) speculating what might be, whilst older geldings wonder what once was possible. Neither petticoats nor Spencers for these gals, the bodies and lingerie are made for display.

Tanned muscles rippling beneath their tight black gear, squads of shaven headed “security men” keep watch on capitalisms automotive bounty and drivers stand ready, as on the grand prix grid, to race their all black limos into the morass of deadlocked traffic.

Gogol describes the mingling of the 19th century destitute, cripples, depraved and desperate with the cream of merchant and military grandees and their dames, intent on spending at Faberge and the chocolateria, what they had had mortgaged their land and surfs for. Now those who have “acquired” mineral and energy enterprises on favourable terms, with dachas and the odd football team in Londongrad, are the successors of that former aristocracy and confront legless beggars in(spurious?) army uniforms, Babushkas who sing, very much off key, in the metro subway to supplement pensions which don’t keep up with inflation .

A line of old veterans sell specialist socialist literature and carry banners extolling the virtues of Stalin and calling for a return to guaranteed state pensions. A well dressed woman displays three handsome poodles with a suggestion that a cash donation might be in order. Going one better another dapper character shows a white mouse sitting contentedly between two docile kittens.

Divers of new European and Japanese cars challenge the nerve of pedestrians on crossings, to the very limit of their bumpers, whilst traffic cops top up their meager salaries by inspecting the papers of drivers of decrepit Ladas and trucks( never the black, tinted windowed Porsches, Lexus, Mercedes and Land Rover 4x4s)

TOURISTS THRONG OUTSIDE THE HERMITAGE

Tourists throng outside the Hermitage and drool at the Mariinsky, but they don’t see;- the crumbling homes and footpaths of the people’s suburbs; my landlady taking her handicapped son to hospital with presents for the doctors and food for his stay in the (vain) hope that he might be admitted to enjoy “free’ treatment for all. Perhaps Gordon brown might learn from this. Neither do they taste the drinking water tainted with giardia and heavy metals.



But St Petersburg lives, as ever it has, gay and colourful-a Vienna on water-against skies of pale blue or pewter gray-always hinting that, despite the vigil of the Bronze Horseman, the Nordic gods might send the mighty Neva a little off- course to wash away this 300 year intrusion on unforgiving nature

THE SMOLNY INSTITUTE-WHERE I STUDIED RUSSIAN

For three weeks I tried to build on my feeble memory of Melbourne CAE Russian night school classes from 2004, at St Petersburg University's Russian Culture and Language faculty's summer school. The classes were held at the impressive Smolny Institue which attracts its daily quota of tourist buses whose occupants snap away at it'a almost wedding cake Baroque sumptuousness.
The experience of returning to classes comprising much younger people from many countries ( my classes were made up of Americans, Finns, Germans, Poles,an Italian, Spaniard, Mexican and a young Turkish Hotelier, who has to deal with hordes of Russian sun chasing guests in the summer) was a challenge and I did not react well to the strictly didactic style of the mostly female professors, accompanied by lots of tests and homework every night. Clearly they knew nothing of differing learning styles and were not accustomed to the sensitivities of this mature and otherwise well educated Russian language dunce. Some of them had no English as a second language and so it was hilarious when they spoke in German or Italian to students of those nationalities who then explained to the rest of us in English what was required of us in Russian.
It's position at the far end of the Nevsky Prospekt gave me the opportunity to ride there in crowded mini buses, knee to knee with secretaries, clerks and young budding executives and, every afternoon, to walk its full length back to town for both much needed pedestrian exercise and also to drink in the sights sounds and smells of daily life in this glorious icon of a city.
Cars being stopped by poorly paid traffic cops seeking income supplementation and surly gun toting militia stopping a man just in front of me, for no apparent reason, but to check his papers and show him who is boss. But then the real joy, those fabulous, imperturbable, high stepping beauties-the young women of the Nevsky parade

HOW THE REAL RUSSIANS LIVE

Crappy crumbling workers apartment block alongside refurbished apartments belonging to entrepreneurial developers and the winners of the new enterprise society.The approaches to these reminded me of the derelict post war bombed sites in the working class suburbs of my childhood in Manchester. Cracked and pot-holed pavements and roads threaten ones ankles. Puddles of undrained storm water are omni-present, and pre-stressed steel wires protrude from crumbling concrete pavers threatening nasty surprises for the unwary.Amongst all this, Stall holders sell everything fom kitchenware,through greengroceries and fruit, to gigantic floral bras.Estate must be full of former Soviet Olympic lady shot putters and hammer throwers ( or is it their inebriated men they toss around.) Outside bottle shops, people loiter at all hours of the day and night to drink, smoke and chat.In the badly neglected scraps of park, packs of mangy cross bred dogs hang about looking for divertion and perhaps non Russian speaking prey.
At the road crossing to the metro station ( only two stops to city centre) every one plays Russsian roulette with the traffic as seemingly clapped out sluggish old heaps come on like Feraris when they have pedestrians in their sights and there are always the black sinister limousines of the mafiosi who are a law unto themselves and not to be trifled with.

PRIMORSKAYA VASILEVSKIY ISLAND-WHERE/HOW I LIVED.

Gateway to the fortress-first sight of my new Russian home.I had to negotiate three steel doors, including this one and an extremely foul smelling lift to gain the comparative security and homeliness of my hostess' apartment on the 6th floor.

At least I had a room to myself whilst my landlady shared a room with her grown up crippled son and seemed to spend most of most days in her kitchen, with windows that never semed to open, following the soaps on TV and reading her bible.Shower water was plentiful and hot until communal boiler repairs-a summer ritual-turned all hot water off and one always had to remember not to clean ones teeth in tap water containing giardia and heavy metals ( average male life expectancy under 60??)

Eventually I learned not to whistle indoors as Rennetta ( after screeches of horror) assured me that this would destroy her wealth. But hugs were plentiful and she even held my hand ( like a little boy)when crossing the road on my first evening in town. Strange-I think I am older than her.She was always fiercely protective of my welfare, horrified that I should be travelling across Siberia by train on my own. Did I get hugged when I returned in one piece and there were heart rending tears on the night I left to return to London.She spoke regularly at night to a friend who had gone to live with her daughter in Sydney-so she knew all too well what sort of more pampered world I was returning to.I felt very privileged to have shared her home and to enjoy an Anglo/Australian lifestyle and freedoms

NEW RUSSIANS RETREATS

How the other "half" or is it even 5%, live on Kamenny and Yelagin islands several metro stops north of central St Petersburg. These photographs show both beautiful mansions, previously owned by the Tsarist aristocracy and brand new, as yet unoccupied, contemporary "palaces" for the new Nomenklatura, complete with warnings about savage dogs and the requisite armed security patrol. One of the delapidated beauties was once the home of the builder of the Trans Siberian Railway. On the one hand one can critise these oligarchs for acquiring (looting) state assets on the cheap and many for secreting this wealth abroad in the shape of villas in Spain and Greece,English mansions, London townhouses and owners seats at Chelsea and Arsenal football grounds. But on the other hand, like the profligate 18th century English Aristocracy, 19th century nouveau riche and petro dollar toting Arabs, who built,restored and preserved many of England's finest country houses and estates,considerable wealth is being committed to renovating these wonderful examples of Russia's architectural heritage-even if, at this stage in the historical cycle,they are only enjoyed by the few who can afford to escape to such lavish Dachas (weekenders)

BRING BACK COMRADE STALIN

Die hard socialists protest, outside the top department store on the Nevsky Prospekt, against the New Russia, hoping for a return to the "stability" of Stalinist times and the restoration of the lost spending power of their inflation ravaged pensions.Poverty for all!!