I sometimes wonder how people decide where to go next, now that every square inch of this planet seems accessible to those determined enough to get there. For me, a part of this problem does not exist anymore – long haul destinations are out on health grounds, unless, of course, an unexpected change in my circumstances enables me to travel in a style I have not been accustomed to so far!
But, as I get older, another dilemma keeps cropping up in its place: go somewhere new, or revisit places I first saw 25-30 years ago? There are still so many interesting places I have not been to. I’ve seen Roman ruins from Hadrian’s Wall and Trier to Palmyra, but not Rome itself. I read a lot about European history, particularly of the 20th century, but I have not been to Berlin.
But it would also be interesting to revisit some of the cities I saw two or three decades ago, and a recent newspaper article about Russia’s oldest theatre, The Alexandrinsky in St Petersburg, installing jamming equipment to stop incoming mobile phone calls disrupting performances, reminded me just how much I would like to go there again and see the changes since my two visits to Leningrad 35 and 20 years ago.
During our first visit numerous banners and signs along the road from the airport and across the city itself proclaimed popular support for this or that resolution of the Communist Party. I remember our Intourist guide providing a deliberately inaccurate translation and then being rather annoyed to discover that I could read and translate them myself. By the time I came to Leningrad again, there were hardly any of them around, but, by then, it was already the Gorbachev era and the start of perestroika, and people were actually supporting the changes, so the banners were no longer needed. One can safely assume that by now they have all been replaced by Coca-Cola adverts. But what else has changed, and what has remained as it was then?
Our first hotel was on the banks of a canal or a spur of the Neva, opposite the Aurora, the ship which allegedly fired the signal to storm the Winter Palace. Is she still there, and is she still such a revered monument? And in the hotel itself, is the water still as brown as it was then, when one half expected to come out of the shower with an artificial suntan? And are tourists still being advised to buy bottled water for cleaning their teeth? At the end of each corridor there was a desk with an elderly lady, ostensibly there to help visitors with any problems, but quietly noting times of all our departures and arrivals. I remember that our particular “guardian angel” looked very distinguished and spoke impeccable English and, as I was told, French and German – clearly from what the Russians used to refer to as “byvshy”, best translated as part of the “has-been” social class. Is this word still used? Fifteen years later, staying in a completely different part of the city, I don’t remember anyone keeping notes of our movements, but the water there was just as bad. Is it any better now? Everywhere in the city?
Our second hotel was right at the bottom of the Nevsky Prospekt, facing onto a huge muddy square with old lorries, trams and an occasional car rushing past, a bleak and depressing sight. But beyond it was something wonderful – the cemetery where the great and the good used to be buried. A steady trickle of tourists marched to see the graves of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and others. There one felt one was in Russia, and only beyond the cemetery wall was the Soviet Union. Does it all now feel as one place? We wanted to see the grave of the Swiss mathematician Euler who had lived and worked in St. Petersburg. In a little hut by the entrance to the less visited part of the cemetery the ubiquitous babushka seemed very pleased to have some foreign visitors. She was one of the examples of that great disparity between the numbers of elderly men and women, so striking everywhere, an inevitable result of the country’s terrible history in the first half of the last century. Can one still see it, or is that sad generation now all gone?
And in the city centre itself, along the Nevsky Prospekt and the banks of the numerous beautiful canals, do they still observe the old Tsarist rule that no building can be taller than the Winter Palace? The communists did, so it would be very sad to see the present authorities being less sensitive now! And is it still as difficult to buy maps as it used to be? Does one still have to struggle to persuade shop assistants to reveal what is hidden under their counters? Or are they all by now thoroughly Starbuck-ed and McDonald-ized?
Whilst on the subject of theatres, during our first visit we went to see a ballet at the Kirov, as the Marinsky Theatre was then called. Our tickets, bought in the hotel reception, said “Сеpединa” – the middle. The first official babushka directing people to their seats did not know where it was. She consulted two more babushkas, who at first seemed just as puzzled as she was until, after a brief discussion, one of them exclaimed “Цapcкaя Лoжa!” – the Imperial Box. So, more than half a century after the Revolution they still called it that! We sat there behind a delegation of party officials from one of the Central Asian republics, visibly bored but on their best behaviour. I wonder, could I still afford to buy tickets for the Imperial Box on my Stanfords salary?
For a good street plan, try the Insight St Petersburg Flexi Map.
Author: Malgorzata Ross
Date: 7 March 2007
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