"Snow is falling today, almost wet snow..."
St. Petersburg in December is dark, very dark. It can be hard to get out of bed in the morning. Setting the alarm for 9, I hit snooze -- once, twice, then drag myself into the kitchen. Tea and breakfast is followed by a trip to the cafe and one cappuccino, two cappuccinos...
This afternoon I am wandering around the city, and I picked a very Dostoevsky-like day for it. The above quote, of course, is from his Notes from Underground, and today the mood of the so-called "underground man," his frustrations, self-judgement, oppression, is perfectly understandable.
After a visit to the new galleries of the Hermitage in the General Headquarters Building -- lofty ceilings, gorgeous views from the fourth floor of Palace Square and the Alexander Column -- I began to walk the embankments. Moika -- home to the last apartment of Alexander Pushkin -- the Griboedov Canal, where I encircled the Cathedral on the Blood and followed the canal across Nevsky Prospekt and behind the Kazan Cathedral, looking to experience the street on which one of my literary protagonists, Yury Tynianov, lived at the end of his life.
I still don't know Tynianov's address, but understand why he was given the apartment. Viktor Shklovsky describes the street as "dark, quiet," and the apartment as dark too, "where in the evenings Tynianov sat up late, working on his novel about Pushkin and looking out the tall windows, watching the lights going on gradually in apartments along the street." Tynianov was ill with multiple sclerosis, and though he rarely left home, in this apartment he was only a few hundred meters away from his publisher, located in the House of Books. Convenient for friends and co-workers to stop by, the apartment also connected him to the very heart of St. Petersburg, the "literary cafe" where Pushkin once met his own friends and the streets where the poet took his walks.
The Singer Building, built in 1904 for the Singer sewing machine company, is a familiar landmark on Nevsky Prospekt, and its signature occupant, the largest -- and in some eras the only-- bookstore in the city, was a destination for me when I studied here almost 30 years ago. The House of Books is still there, and the building now also holds the Cafe Singer, which called to me as I walked along the canal. All day wet snow has been falling, and though my feet are dry, the rest of me is quite damp. But I was determined to reach Kazan Street, and once I did, I sought refuge in a cafe called Samadeva: "the centre of harmonious development."
"How are you?" asked the young man behind the counter.
"Cold," I replied, "and wet through. And hungry."
"Start with the ginger tea then," he suggested. "I'll order it while you think about your lunch: soup, salads, take a look."
A vegetarian and vegan cafe, just the thing to be located around the corner from the Herzen Pedagogical University, and just what I needed to dry off and rethink my plans.
I had hoped to go up to the area called Peski, "the sands," where Tynianov lived from 1919 until 1936. Somehow, though, a longer walk is not what the day calls for.
Instead I am enjoying the warm interior of the cafe, getting ready to order tea and some bliny. Luckily I am not overtaken by a Dostoevsky-like mood. The poor "underground man" is quite miserable, and he certainly lets the reader of his notes know it. "I need hardly say that I hated all my colleagues at the office, one and all, and that I despised them all, and yet at the same time I was also in a way afraid of them."
In contrast, I have always loved Petersburg in December -- in part I suppose because I used to come here to escape my office and colleagues at the end of the autumn term! But it was more than an escape for me. The quality of light even when true dusk falls can be magical, especially in the warm glow of the streetlights, and the buildings, painted yellow, green and blue, don't look as dirty in the twilight. People bustle along the streets, and even the traffic -- now much worse than it ever was, since many more people have cars -- adds to the cheerfulness with the headlights glimmering on the wet pavement and cobblestones.
This week has been a difficult one for Russians, with the ruble crashing midweek, but by today, Friday, the slide seems to have stopped, and people continue to live their lives -- the streets and shops and cafes are full, and in this particular harmonious spot -- Indian music and all -- I don't sense the despair of Dostoevsky's protagonist. For him, no ray of light could penetrate the haze: "My life even then was gloomy, disorderly, solitary to the point of savagery," he wrote.
There is nothing lonely about sitting in this little cafe, although in this weather the first thing I need to do when I leave here is buy an umbrella!
St. Petersburg in December is dark, very dark. It can be hard to get out of bed in the morning. Setting the alarm for 9, I hit snooze -- once, twice, then drag myself into the kitchen. Tea and breakfast is followed by a trip to the cafe and one cappuccino, two cappuccinos...
This afternoon I am wandering around the city, and I picked a very Dostoevsky-like day for it. The above quote, of course, is from his Notes from Underground, and today the mood of the so-called "underground man," his frustrations, self-judgement, oppression, is perfectly understandable.
 |
| Moika canal, with #12 in the center of the photo |
I still don't know Tynianov's address, but understand why he was given the apartment. Viktor Shklovsky describes the street as "dark, quiet," and the apartment as dark too, "where in the evenings Tynianov sat up late, working on his novel about Pushkin and looking out the tall windows, watching the lights going on gradually in apartments along the street." Tynianov was ill with multiple sclerosis, and though he rarely left home, in this apartment he was only a few hundred meters away from his publisher, located in the House of Books. Convenient for friends and co-workers to stop by, the apartment also connected him to the very heart of St. Petersburg, the "literary cafe" where Pushkin once met his own friends and the streets where the poet took his walks.
The Singer Building, built in 1904 for the Singer sewing machine company, is a familiar landmark on Nevsky Prospekt, and its signature occupant, the largest -- and in some eras the only-- bookstore in the city, was a destination for me when I studied here almost 30 years ago. The House of Books is still there, and the building now also holds the Cafe Singer, which called to me as I walked along the canal. All day wet snow has been falling, and though my feet are dry, the rest of me is quite damp. But I was determined to reach Kazan Street, and once I did, I sought refuge in a cafe called Samadeva: "the centre of harmonious development."
"How are you?" asked the young man behind the counter.
"Cold," I replied, "and wet through. And hungry."
"Start with the ginger tea then," he suggested. "I'll order it while you think about your lunch: soup, salads, take a look."
A vegetarian and vegan cafe, just the thing to be located around the corner from the Herzen Pedagogical University, and just what I needed to dry off and rethink my plans.
I had hoped to go up to the area called Peski, "the sands," where Tynianov lived from 1919 until 1936. Somehow, though, a longer walk is not what the day calls for.
Instead I am enjoying the warm interior of the cafe, getting ready to order tea and some bliny. Luckily I am not overtaken by a Dostoevsky-like mood. The poor "underground man" is quite miserable, and he certainly lets the reader of his notes know it. "I need hardly say that I hated all my colleagues at the office, one and all, and that I despised them all, and yet at the same time I was also in a way afraid of them."
In contrast, I have always loved Petersburg in December -- in part I suppose because I used to come here to escape my office and colleagues at the end of the autumn term! But it was more than an escape for me. The quality of light even when true dusk falls can be magical, especially in the warm glow of the streetlights, and the buildings, painted yellow, green and blue, don't look as dirty in the twilight. People bustle along the streets, and even the traffic -- now much worse than it ever was, since many more people have cars -- adds to the cheerfulness with the headlights glimmering on the wet pavement and cobblestones.
This week has been a difficult one for Russians, with the ruble crashing midweek, but by today, Friday, the slide seems to have stopped, and people continue to live their lives -- the streets and shops and cafes are full, and in this particular harmonious spot -- Indian music and all -- I don't sense the despair of Dostoevsky's protagonist. For him, no ray of light could penetrate the haze: "My life even then was gloomy, disorderly, solitary to the point of savagery," he wrote.
There is nothing lonely about sitting in this little cafe, although in this weather the first thing I need to do when I leave here is buy an umbrella!
 |
| "Shuba" salad and ginger tea at Samadeva |
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