I could finally start sorting my perception of St. Petersburg into words at the opera performance of Prince Igor. As the red curtain withdrew, a second curtain, a transparent screen painted with the young, indistinct and expressionless face of Prince Igor, remained between the audience and the performers. Cast light allowed the audience an almost unhampered view of the actors, making one forget the divider. This screen was raised after the first act but used again during transitions. The actors, their lines, and the meat of the play was still exposed to the audience-outsiders, despite there being a giant face façade between them and the native thespians. Audience members were even given playbooks in English to guide them through the Russian opera. All aspects of the opera were accessible to the viewer, yet mysteriously guarded by this screen. I realized this is exactly how I felt St. Petersburg is presented to visitors. St. Petersburg is a city beyond good and evil. The evil of the city is laughed at, while the good and light is scoffed at and dirtied with grim humor.
The city hands out playbills left and right: walking down the street one encounters tourist souvenir shops on both sides of the street on most blocks. Even the local markets have permanent souvenir stands surrounding them offering nesting dolls, painted eggs, scarves, and tin cans of “St. Petersburg Air”. Hosting millions of tourists a year, St. Petersburg is rich with informative tours and accessible history. As an observer, one is not lost in St. Petersburg, but carefully guided through each act, given biographies of the actors, and notified of the credited set-builders. The tours can also cast light through the screen.
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| There are no rules on these roads. Just kidding...not really. |
Our first guide, Natalia, met us at the airport and gave a short introduction to St. Petersburg on the bus ride to the hotel. Natalia was our first encounter with Russian humor and conduct. She gave us basic advice for survival during our week stay in St. Petersburg. Much of the advice consisted of her making a statement, slightly retracting it while claiming to be “just kidding,” and then reaffirming her original statement with a very somber, “but really.” Her stories and warnings were grim. She advised us against using water from the tap and drinking bootleg life-water. We were also warned of pickpockets, kidnappers, dark streets, and the police. She was being humorous, and very serious. Natalia exposed us to the workings, telling us everything we would need to know to survive the opera of St. Petersburg, but then put up a screen, making sure we were still in the audience and not taking part in the show.
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| Endless Time in Endless Hallways |
Russian culture views time as an endless resource at the disposal of the user. The culture treats actions as processes, not results. The common Russian view is that the environment controls the person; the person does not control the environment. A person attends an opera to see the song and dance, to experience an entire story, not find out if Prince Igor gets the girl. After all, the result is already written in the playbook. Similarly, the result is already obviously written in Russian humor: death. The actors in the city of St. Petersburg carry on their opera in endless acts, each as critical as the one before, taking intermissions when needed.
A sign declaring a “20 minute break” hanging on the door of a café or shop is common in St. Petersburg. The beginning and end of the break are undeclared and the break will most likely not be twenty minutes. This is common Russian knowledge, yet again places a curtain in front of outsiders. It informs the solicitor that the breaker will return shortly, but creates a chasm by leaving “shortly” undefined. Time, like much of Russian communication, is largely left open to interpretation. Russian language is a high content form of communication, largely relying on context, signs, and metaphors. Much is implied and left to be deciphered by the interpreter. The responsibility to understand is that of the receiver. It is the observer’s responsibility to peer through the curtain and interpret the actors’ portrayals. The communication itself is a screen.
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| Scaffolding Facades |
There also exist physical screens in the city of St. Petersburg. Large scaffolding systems surround a shocking number of buildings, seeming to line the streets with metal ladders and wooden planks. It was explained that this is because of the cultural outlook on time, being that it is an endless resource, that it is the process to value, not the result. Projects are worked on over a casual timeline, with deadlines never seeming to approach or exist. Though the scaffolding may seem to hinder the aesthetic view of the city by hiding the facades of the buildings, it in fact reveals the essential cultural view of the Russian concept of time. The screen of scaffolding is telling of the culture that thrives within the buildings.
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| Camp Out |
The baroque style of many of the buildings in St. Petersburg also creates a screened effect. The St. Petersburg Cathedral of the Resurrection embodies this clownish exaggeration of embellishment. On the tour, our guide introduced the church as being gaudy and over the top. She went so far as to say that Russians are embarrassed of the cathedral. She then quickly defended the cathedral, saying that they also love it, because it is so Russian. “We hate it. I’m just kidding, but really.”
The intricate ornaments, statues, and gold detail give one the sense of being in a city of gingerbread houses. Many of the most elaborate buildings are gifts. One cannot help but wonder about the intentions behind the gift: whether it was the act of giving, of the giver being so well-established to be able to give such an impressive structure, or if it was the giver truly wanting the recipient to be comfortable in a grand, highly decorated and visibly expensive palace.
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| "Prospek.." |
On a course through the city of St. Petersburg, I found myself being struck by the view from each street corner. The buildings are placed along the wide streets in a perspective style, allowing the observer a clean view of the stretch. Our guide informed us that Russians often forgo the endings of words, calling the style “prospekt.” The layout of the street this way exposes the city to those within, making navigating the web much more manageable. The wide streets and expansive views also mask the potential claustrophobia of the tightly packed buildings of relatively small living and working spaces.
St. Petersburg is a naked city. It exposes itself whole-heartedly, leaving no secrets. Enigmatically, after exposing itself, the city seems to blanket itself in a screen of fur, much like the denizens marching down the streets, proceeding with a darkly secretive and seductive character. As our tour bus passed the KGB headquarters our tour guide instructed us to look over, smile, and wave: they were watching us. All of the secrets are known and all are joked about in a loud hush. Nothing is taken at face value. Every joke is serious and every fact should be laughed at.
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