2008-07(July)-16 Apartment, Herbert’s Party

http://picasaweb.google.com/terricallaway/RussiaEmail71608#

I started this email the first days of July while still in the hotel and was planning to send it once we were in our apartment. But as far as I know, we still do not have internet in our apartment and I am back in Alabama today. TIR (This is Russia) - nothing is easy there.
So, here you go...

I believe you have asked that I keep up with you while John and I are in Russia. I hope to send an email occasionally (with pictures); if you know of someone else who might like to receive these notes, please let me know. If you are not interested, also let me know - I'll be happy to remove you (I certainly understand that you already have too much email traffic!)

St. Petersburg is an interesting place. When you consider that the city is only three hundred years old (Peter the Great was trying to make it as grand as Venice, Paris or Rome), it is amazing how big the city center is - several square miles of beautiful old buildings that are less than about 6 stories tall. The buildings are very ornate, often brightly colored. Each block has several such buildings with at least a couple courtyards. In the old days, the courtyards were the gardens; now they are typically parking spaces. These structures were mostly 'palaces' of the contemporaries/aristocracy of Peter or is descendants. The whims of the rich became summer homes, winter homes, churches, offices - all built by peasants or slaves for the enjoyment of the very rich. (no wonder there was a revolution) Now if the buildings are not churches, museums or special buildings, they are either offices, apartments or businesses - or a mix of all three. Some of the attached pictures show buildings from the street and the 'party' pictures attached shows them from the roof tops. John and I celebrated our 31st anniversary at a ship restaurant across the Neva River from the Hermitage museum - the largest art museum in the world, that started as a palace for one of the czars.

While my January trip was to visit, this trip was to get John settled. We have a fabulous furnished apartment by Russia standards, actually it is pretty fabulous period: the main floor is very traditional: gorgeous moldings, two old marble fireplaces, inlaid wood floors, a tiny typical European kitchen, sauna in the guest bathroom. Upstairs is a very modern European master bedroom suite with another marble fireplace and skylights.

Although the furniture is pretty nice, the kitchen was not well equipped so I have been shopping - there are several 'malls' I have visited that are similar to basic malls in the US but the grocery store and/or 'walmart' type stores are in the mall as well. There are two IKEAs here and a several locations of a store that looks alot like Home Depot - even down to the orange tops on the workers. We have to bring a translator with us to shop so we can read labels and find the items/food you want. By the time we get a driver, and go to the suburbs through tough traffic (not interstates) we can only go to one mall. Rarely can you find all you were looking for - typical Russians have only a fraction of the stuff' we consider necessities.

Our building has a guard 24/7 (security is an issue here - I have no intention of going out after dark alone). We have access to drivers to take us where we need to go - there is no way I would drive here - they make New York drivers look meek and polite. Plus there is no place to park.
Because it is summer, it basically never gets dark so at 11 pm it feels like 8. Also, it rains alot and the showers come up quickly. That coupled with the cold in winter take their toll on the buildings - so you see netting on at least one building on every block - they are renovating the exterior. Most are brick with an ornate stucco finish. Right now ours is being redone and should be complete by October. I'll send a picture later.

I am taking Russian lessons at John's office - many thanks Pat for the cds. The alphabet is Cyrillic so the sounds are different than ours, but many words are similar. - "cton" sounds like 'stoap' and means 'stop' ("c" is the 's' sound, "n" is the 'p' sound). I can read better than I can hear or speak - I know about 2 dozen words so far.

The food in the restaurants is good, very European as I understand it. Lots of cheese, fresh fruits and veggies. I ordered a shrimp salad that was very tasty - a bit scary to look at though. Jane, I thought of you as the presentation was something else!

Jill, show Joe the scaffolding picture attached - we saw this walking from the hotel to our apartment one evening - it looked like the guy was holding on for dear life three stories up!

I'm glad to be home for a few weeks - I am scheduled to go back Aug 6. Hugs to all