Petersburg

I realized yesterday that I've never spent as much time in a big city as I have the past few weeks, if you add Moscow and Petersburg together. Actually just the week in Moscow would be the most time I've ever spent in a big city, I think. Which explains why I'm in such a constant state of... well, I don't know - sensory overstimulation? There's just too much stuff. I have, I think, finally stopped thinking constantly and accusingly "this would never happen in Irkutsk," but I'm still sort of overwhelmed. There are, of course, benefits to large cities. For instance, though shopping malls and department stores seem very odd to me at the moment, there's something to be said for always being able to find high-quality goods when you want them. And I guess it's more interesting and perhaps more culturally healthy for there to be variety in the areas of fashion and culture and food and such. And there are things like the Russian Museum, which was awesome. It's the St. Petersburg museum that houses only Russian art, as opposed to the Hermitage, which has non-Russian art. It's in an old and very pretty palace, and it feels more like strolling through someone's beautiful house than like walking through a museum. The experience was much more pleasant than that of the Tretokovskaya in Moscow, I thought, except that the icon collection isn't as good and there's not as much Vrubel, with whom I am still obsessed. Now I want to take a Russian art history class. I would write more about the museum but I don't think my uninformed impressions of Russian art will be very interesting to the reading public.

St. Petersburg is pretty, with icy canals and iron bridges and lots of old palaces. Saw the Peter the Great statue, the square where the Decembrists assembled, the church built on the spot where Alexander II was shot, huge crowds of people doing New Year's shopping on Nevsky Prospect, probably other things as well. Today Abby and I went with some very nice Ukrainians from our hostel to the village of Pushkin and saw a huge palace of some kind. The palace was closed, but we walked around the grounds for a long time, and it was a nice day, and very nice to be away from the noise of the city. I love how the Ukrainians speak Russian- they say 'h' for all the normally 'g' sounds. Like when some police officers walked by and they joked that they were the 'KXB.' It was, however, quite exhausting answering the endless questions of the Ukrainians about America. I apparently don't really know anything about America, especially about how much things costs, which Russians are always asking about too. I answered more cheerfully, however, after we stopped in this odd Pagoda thing and drank some hot, very spicy homemade Ukrainian wine (or something) that they had brought in a thermos. It was very good. We were given numerous explanations of this beverage and its production, but I still don't really understand it.

There are a lot of bookstores here. And people. And ridiculous mechanical toys being sold at metro stations. I can't think of anything else to report. Going to boil some pilmyeni for dinner soon. Happy New Year to everyone!