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Published: November 15th 2010
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More on the title of this entry in a moment.
But first I should tell you that, after a 2 week absence, my good friend the sun made a brief appearance here in St. Pete yesterday. Just a couple of hours but it was good to see him again! Today was, of course, dreary, rainy, and ever so gray.
Anyways, the Americans all went on a trip to Helsinki and Tallinn this weekend but I stayed here because I had already bought tickets to see the Brit-rock group The Kooks on Friday. It was quite good although I think I understood more of what the Russian people around me were saying than what the band said (in English) between songs! Some English accents are impossible! But it was a really great show and afterward I met up with Djib and his brothers (his family was in town visiting him for 4 days, tickets from Belgium aren't too expensive) and we did our best to help control the St. Petersburg beer and vodka populations. Needless to say, after getting home at 11 the next morning I wasn't very mobile, or conscious, the rest of the day. Belgians are surprisingly good
Staircase in Marble Palace
One of the 2 restored rooms in the palace. drinkers!
After these "mental health days" I usually find myself much more refreshed and ready to venture out into the world again and Sunday was no exception. I had planned on going to the Hermitage to see an exhibit on French modern art but by the time I got there the line was long and it was exceptionally cold and windy so I didn't really feel like waiting outside. I knew Djib was downtown somewhere so I called him and we ended up going to the Marble Palace. This is made entirely of marble, hence the name, and was presented to Count Orlov as a gift from his lover, Catherine the Great. Really beautiful exterior (pic on Facebook), but not much of the inside has been restored so there are really only 2 rooms in which you can see how it used to look before Communist neglect. There's also a small modern and Russian art museum inside which was actually quite interesting. They had a Warhol (meh) and a Picasso, but I preferred some of the seascape paintings by Aivazovsky (if you don't know him you should become acquainted) and a few other landscapes by less well known Russian
Kazan Cathedral
A rather peaceful picture taken before the party began artists.
This adventure in high culture worked up our appetites so we headed to a restaurant/brewery called "Tinkoff". It's a chain here in Russia started by one of the Oligarchs which reminds me very much of Rock Bottom Brewery (really good beer combined with decent, but overpriced food). When we arrived there were only a few people there and we were able to catch the last 10 minutes of the soccer match. The St. Pete team, Zenit, utterly routed their opponents from Rostov and succeeded in winning the Russian championship for only the 3rd time in their history (like most other aspects of Russian national life, Moscow dominates). From the more or less subdued atmosphere in the restaurant we had no idea what we were in for on our walk back to the metro.
We walked back to Nevsky Prospekt and headed toward Gostiny Dvor (a really beautiful old shopping mall) where the closest metro station is located. As we got closer we began to notice that there was a general buzz about the city not typical for 9 PM on a Sunday night. There were a lot of soccer fans roaming the street and singing their cheers
Gostiny Dvor
The crowd is starting to gather in front of the Christmas Tree...I don't mind, and actually rather like that the rest of the world imitates our culture, but one aspect I could do without is the early beginning to the Christmas season. (the title of this blog entry (phonetically "Seenee, bellee, golybee") can be translated as "Blue, white, blue!", admittedly not as catchy in English) and there was a heavier police presence than usual. When we finally got to Gostiny Dvor the sidewalk was impassable due to the people standing on either side of the street and yelling to each other ("Вперёд за Питер!", "fperyod za piter", meaning "Forward Piter!"; Piter is the nickname for St. Petersburg), one side yelling and then the other side returning the chant. Everything was so festive and exciting so, despite our over indulgence on Friday night, we decided to stay out for a while and were heading to another bar when we ran into the main body of Zenit supporters marching down Nevsky Prospekt. I got some video of them as they came by and then, being the intrepid travelers that we are, we ducked into a small store to replenish our beer supply and then joined them in the celebration (I'm currently uploading them to Facebook, but it is REALLY slow so I'm not sure if I'll be able to upload them here or not).
The crowd made its way for a few blocks
and then, near Dom Knigi and Kazan Cathedral where we had come from about 20 minutes earlier, it ran into a barricade of riot police wanting to clear the street for traffic. There was a rather brief, but violent, encounter and Djib and I had a front row seat (luckily behind the second line of police sweeping up from the rear) although I didn't get too much footage of that. A couple young men were carted past us by police and one was bleeding profusely from the head. I also saw a cop smash another guy over the head with his baton, but that was the extent of our excitement and everyone resumed the march to Palace Square although this time on the sidewalks. We eventually made it there and got deep into the crowd as they were celebrating...it was fantastic! I finally know (sort of) how it feels to have a championship team! We began talking to some Russians and they invited us to go have a few more drinks with them at an Asian restaurant called "2 Sticks" (another chain). Being guests in this country we certainly did not want to offend our hosts by turning down this
invitation so we resigned ourselves to continuing the night although we had class in the morning. Hanging out with Russians drunk on victory and vodka/beer is really, really cool. The restaurant staff tried to keep things calm but couldn't hold back the natural exuberance which comes with success...and alcohol. Before long the restaurant was filled with fellow celebrants and everyone was singing and chanting and (of course) drinking while proclaiming their reverence and love for each other and the team. Coincidentally, one of the players on Zenit is from Belgium which only increased Djib's standing in the eyes of our friends. We ended up staying there past the operating hours of the metro (midnight) and had to take a gypsy cab back home which our hosts graciously paid for, along with our beer and food. I love Russian hospitality!
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