#sennaya

[find-me-when-you-wake-up]

St. Petersburg is stronger than violence

[starkinsun]

#sennaya #spb #saintpetersburg #saintp4life (at Sennaya Square)

[n00bofblogs]

Shawarma, beer, and complimentary song

On my first morning in St. Petersburg, Nadia offered to make me breakfast and show me the nearest bank machine, where I could withdraw rubles. She brought me down the street and into the small, busy lobby of a medical clinic. I inserted my card into the machine, which prompted a series of error messages - in English - and the appearance of a common Windows desktop. A countdown appeared warning shutdown. I informed Nadia, who responded with anxious outrage, and told me to hit cancel, or anything, to get the card to come back. A line began to form behind us. People were getting frustrated. A debate began. The ATM restarted, only to show "НЕ РАБОТАЕТ" - not working. Nadia sarcastically invited the others to try for themselves, defending us from judgement by the mob. I stood by, silent and hapless. I could do nothing but accept the card's permanent disappearance.

Anyway, the consumed debit card was only one of two I had brought to Russia, but it would still take me another day to find cash. I borrowed 36 rubles from Nadia to take a bus downtown to the university. All guests to Russia are required to register with their host or inviting agency within a working week of their arrival. This registration is approved by the local authorities and must be renewed in any place a foreigner stays overnight. In addition, the original visa application is supposed to include all planned destinations and accommodations. The punishment for violations is, invariably, a fine of around 1000 USD and/or deportation. One unusual twist is that attempting to leave the country with an expired visa may lead to detainment pending application for a special exit visa.

I haven't found legal rationales for these restrictions in English, but one wonders if the consequence - Russia seems like a forebodingly complex place to visit - is intended. I heard it suggested that the policies are relics of Soviet laws restricting the movement of both citizens and foreigners. In that light, I came to wonder whether the Russian government seeks in some part to shield its citizens from foreign "exposure," as in Soviet times, and thus maintain an alternate, state-directed reality. Russian state propaganda would certainly support this theory.

With Nadia's bus fare in hand, the time had come to confront the available modes of transport: the metro, a 20-minute walk from the apartment; the city buses, around the corner; or the marshrutkas, commercially operated minibuses lined up just across the Fontanka River. I would soon learn that marshrutkas carry several disadvantages. First, they are slightly more expensive than the city buses. Second, they are remarkably uncomfortable, with thickly stained seats and a constant, teeth-rattling tremble. Third, their abundance does not compensate for their slow speed and constant stopping, as they can be flagged down seemingly anywhere and will likewise stop to unload passengers on demand.

For the first few days, I opted to walk, first along Sadovaya Street, somewhat drab but scrappy and active, and then along the frozen, white Fontanka, longer and more picturesque. 

The high point of Sadovaya is bustling Sennaya Square, crowded by food kiosks and semipermanent storefronts as well as constant foot traffic from the metro on the square. Sennaya has a high concentration of fast food shawarma shops, as does Petersburg in general. I would visit one of these after a late night working and a few drinks. None of the shawarmas I ate in Petersburg qualified as particularly tasty or satisfying, only conveniently available. But this restaurant also offered karaoke. At least, the set-up resembled karaoke. But the singer, in his late 60s, proved to be the only performer, apparently the restaurant's official entertainment. He sat in one of the dining booths, reading lyrics from a screen at his table with little visible excitement but plenty of emotion in his voice. The songs seemed distinctly Russian to me, sounding like 1980s renditions of old gypsy ballads - slow, mournful, and masculine. Meanwhile televisions near the ceiling played a Russian reality show, all hot tubs and catfights. The overload of trashy stimuli resulted in an environment somehow improbably wholesome, lively, and special. I left the place thinking that such self-assured cultural amalgamation could conquer at will, that Russia had little doubt of steamrolling Europe under cheap shawarma, beer, and complimentary song.

[ilovesaintpetersburg]