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A Swiss in Petersburg: Looking for a hidden bookshop

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Златоуст – Slatoust: A governmental institute for the Russian language

Every day I take lessons with Tatjana. She works me through Russian grammar: Gerundium, participle, difficulties of Russian verbs etc.

Today I decided to buy more grammar books, some of them Tatjana has written herself. I take the metro to Gorskaja, and I stroll down Kammennoostroveskij prospekt to find the address 24/24. It is easy to locate the house 24.

Through the подъезд (passage) I enter a messy courtyard surrounded by several buildings, some under reconstruction. There is only one office with a business sign to the right. I go in and ask the direction to Slatoust. “We do not know,” a lady tells me angrily, not looking at me.

What now? There is another door to a building wrapped up in blue metal. Obviously a serious ремонт (reconstruction) going on here. Eventually I notice a very small piece of paper in a plastic bag hanging on the blue metal wall, with Slatoust on it. I follow the arrow, find a hidden door and behind it there is an office with book shelves. Here it is. Why did the neighbor just across in the same courtyard not know?

Slatoust has a wonderful selection of books that support learning Russian. With a heavy plastic bag I leave this friendly place to return to the Graschdanskaja and continue with my studies.

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A Swiss speaking Russian in Petersburg – Швейцарка говорящая по-русски в Питере

Дом Расколника or the House of Raskolnikow

As I leave the house that is my home for 4 weeks, I see a large group of tourists around the small monument of Dostojewsky at the edge of Graschdanskaja Uliza. Raskolnikow, one of the heroes of Dostojewsky, lived under the roof in “my” house, and a guide explains the story standing in front of a plate with the number “4”. As she waits for the next group, I ask her in Russian, what this is about. She is confused, aswers in English, hands out a flyer to me that shows all the posts that tourist groups are looking for today and turns to the next group. There seems to be a special Dostojewsky day,  but neither his birthday nor his day of death. I also heard that the code to enter “my” house had been published in tourists’ guidebooks and the house switched to an electronic contact system later.

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Они все читают карты, я зто делать не умею – they all read maps, I cannot do that

Now at Sennaja Ploschtschadj, I am looking for the metro line that would take me to Ploschtschadj Alexandrogo Newskogo. I intend to visit the convent that Peter the Great built for this hero of the 13th century who conquered Karelia for the Republic of Novgorod (which in the 15th century became part of Russia).  I hear a voice say in Russian that they all read maps here and that she cannot do that. It is the woman selling ice cream. I answer that reading maps is not so difficult She opens her eyes wide: Do you speak Russian? Oh, I am sorry… where are you from?…

Вы Русская? Вы проваславная? Ну, входите! – Are you Russian? Are you Orthodox? Well, enter!

At the gate to the Newskij Monastyr or Convent, tourists now have to pay an entrance fee. I approach the cashier and ask: Сколько стоит (how much does it cost)? He looks at me and asks, whether I am Russian. No,  I answer, я просто  Швейцарка говорящая по-русски (I am just a Swiss speaking Russian). He asks me: Вы праваславная (are you orthodox)? No, I am not, I answer to him. He looks at me… and says: Ну, входите (well, enter). So I enter this convent without paying, as the Russians do, and, in the church, I light a candle, before visiting the cemetaries.

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Tam – вам – фото or there –  you – foto

My next stop is the Kusnetschij Rynok, a nice fruit, vegetable, meat and fish market. Between cherries and abricots, there is a young chap selling his fruit. He approaches me in some sort of pigeon Russian: “There – you – foto”. I do not understand him. He repeats his words. “You can speak normally”, I respond in Russian.  Now he explains clearly that he wants to take a foto of me with his cherries… and for the foto, I also buy some cherries from him.

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Дом Быта – Dom Beat

To round off the afternoon, I try the Dom Beat. The waitor serves a tasty Cappuccino with cinnamon. I look for Anna that I had met in the plane. She has her free day and is not there. The charming manager already knows and Anna. We arrange to meet next week.

Летучий Голландец or the Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner

Larrissa has acquired tickets for the Flying Dutchman in the Michailovskij Teatr. A great setting for this tragic opera. The actors sing in German, and I follow the Russian subtitles to better understand the German words. Young artists, a young stage director and a young conductor have set up this opera with a lot of creativity, placing it into our times with rolling suit cases and mobile phones. The singers were excellent, especially the flying Dutchman and Senta, his angel who saved him.

Why do they call the Flying Dutchman “летучий”and not “летающий”? Tatjana explains to me that it is a characteristic of the Dutchman that he flies – he permanently flies (letutschij) and he does not just happen to fly right now (letajuschij). Well, Russian has a lot of nuances, and I know, I still have to learn a lot.

На дачу or to the Datscha

After the opera, Larissa takes me to her Datscha north of Petersburg. Another Russian experience ahead of me.

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A Swiss in Petersburg: Дождемся or do we wait to get anything?

A loft in the south of Petersburg

Рарк в небе or a park in the sky, this is what этажи лофтрроект (etaji loftprojekt) promises. There are also galleries and an exhibition of Dutch artists. Larissa and her friend Marina want to meet there and take me with them.

Dutch art in the dark

In the loft we find the exhibition “Shadow Boxing”. It turns out be not “shadow” boxing, but boxing in the dark. We get small flash lights and dive into a totally dark room. We set out with our flash lights to uncover what might be there. We find large pictures, one showing Adam (he is black and strong) and Eva (she is white and fragile). what might this mean? The white race dying out? The pictures look threatening and are hard to decipher. There are also sculptures, one of them a wooden roof and a dead body hanging over it, with his brush still in his hands. Hm… Larissa and Marina mumble about Dutch humor and that Petersburg has a special relationship with the Netherlands. Right, since Peter the Great.


Дождемся

Now we are hungry. There is a terrasse with tables made from cable reels. We order some drinks, spaghetti, salad and okroschka. We wait for half an hour, then we receive our drinks. We wait for another hour, and then receive spaghetti… there is no okroschka left. in Russian дождемся means to wait until the very end and then get something. Well, I waited and did not get anything. This is less than “дождемся”. Larissa and Marina shared their Spaghetti with me, how kind.

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The park in the sky – парк в небе

But, where is the park in the sky? We see people on the roof of this loft building.  We find a cashier, who makes us pay and sign a document. We find a balcony, and from there plain iron ladders dauntingly poiniting to the roof, here on the fourth or fifth floor, with the streets below us. This is why we had to sign! We carefully climb up those ladders, and find an extension of the restaurant on the roof (the food travels in a lift). Young people around us, stretching on matrasses. Cables on this roof – good that I am small enough to fit underneath. We are by far the oldest guests, particularly me, the baby boomer – being frowned at by the younger folks around us. The view of Petersburg is spectactular, sure – but… this experience seems very Russian to me.

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Thank you, Larissa and Marina, for this very Russian experience.

Later I read that the Lonely Planet recommends the Loft Project Etagi as “one of the city’s coolest galleries”. Oh yes, it is surely cool and unconventional. And it does not come without adrenalin.

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A Swiss in Petersburg: Getting Settled

Дом быта or Dom Beat, a trendy bar

In the plane Anna joins me, young and fresh, on her way back from the US. We chat all the way, we both leave aside our Spanish lessons, she points me to the Dom Beat, which, as I later find out, is one of the main picks by Lonely Planet. A charming introduction to Piteri.

A great welcome at the Airport

I love finding a good friend meeting me at the airport. Larissa took me to town in her car.  Carefully telling me, in Petersburg, I should not just cross the street as I do in Basel. There is no law giving precedence to pedestrians. Oh yes, I will be in a bigger city now.

Living in a nice private apartment

Elena has just renovated her apartment and I will share it with her. It is in a small and quiet street close to the city center. She welcomes me with steamed vegetables.

White nights

My host looks after apartments and one of them is close to the blue mosque overlooking the Neva with all the gems of the city, the Ermitage in the forefront. At 9pm, and we decide to have dinner and we enjoy the view to the Neva on the first floor of  a nice restaurant, leaving the. place around 11 pm, and it is still bright.

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Retired?

Yes, retired.

Since three weeks. No early retirement – normal retirement. I am one of those baby boomers. After having worked with full enthusiasm until 7 PM on my last day. Feeling happy to leave at a good moment, handing over my tasks to a wonderful young team of millenials. I miss them now, but I know I have to leave their chance to them to bring a fresh wind to what I have done before, together with a friend who  now also has retired. I leave good feelings behind me.

And, I am full of plans.

I now first started to clean up my house and renovate it

I hope that my star watching over me appreciates my enthusiasm to renovate his house. We would have loved to do so together, but I am now alone here. This also means to give away memories that we have shared and to discover some corners of his life that I had not known before, while browsing through his material to check out what I still need. This is painful, but at the same time gives me the opportunity to look back to the long years we shared. It is good to look back to wonderful years, though I miss my love. Especially now, when having retired.

Then, there is traveling ahead of me

I enjoy discovering the world and mixing into non Swiss cultures. Though I am perfectly Swiss from Basel. In the past I loved to travel with my star, to Asia, to Africa, To the Middle East, to South America, to Spain, to Russia… and also to my mother town Berlin. Then I was a Swiss working in Poland  or in the US for a few weeks overall… all good memories.

And now, I want to dive into Sankt Petersburg – Piteri – for a few weeks, meeting a wonderful friend and brushing up my command of the Russian language. Later it will be Mongolia – I will try to learn some of their words as well, and I particularly look forward to spending some days on the Khösvol Lake, and then the Gobi desert is also an old dream of mine. And, what about the leadership skills of Dschingis Khan? He understood how to leverage a new battle strategy, a private guard of 10000 people and relying on his most capable son to hand on his achievements to the next generation – can we learn from him today?

And , after these sabbaticals, I dream of sharing my baby boomer experience

Yes, I do not feel like Kaffikränzli only (people sitting on a round table drinking coffee), but I would like to come back, feel the contagious innovation of millenials and share my experience with them. I love to share and to receive… and to achieve results.

WordPress is a new experience for me

When still working before retirement I loved to participate in our social platform. WordPress is different. I have just started discovering it, after the excellent support of a millenial who patiently accompanied me through the application forms. What I now love to see is all these suggestions that appear about related content: Gobi desert, early retirement, Dschingis Khan… If only WordPress would stop to try to squeeze me into a German version… my exposure to all this has always been in English and I never understand the German menus.