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St. Petersburg the Great1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Itinerary | Home
Today’s Russians are putting on a triumphant, materialist face to the world. In St. Petersburg, I watched young couples from the garish new rich roar along the city’s narrow canals on jet skis and perform loud, engine-coughing U-turns beneath the bridges. That same night, on the other side of the Prospekt, a herd of black SUVs and their thuggish attendants (Ford is now selling hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year to Russia) blocked off the top of Kazanskaya Ulitsa, between the austere Russian Orthodox cathedral and a small park where men and women of all ages drink openly because they can’t afford the bars. Music was booming from the loudspeakers of the rooftop restaurant of a new glass-fronted designer shopping centre, its banners proclaiming the availability of fashions by Gucci, Ferragamo, Dolce & Gabbana and Yves Saint Laurent. Society here favours a rich and powerful few, and the country’s new middle class tags along. Russians do ostentation well, and in St. Petersburg, consumption was ever the means but high art the point. Historically, culture has always mattered here, though for how much longer is uncertain. But for now, the bookstore in the marvellous old Singer building on the Nevsky Prospekt is always crowded, and Russians of all walks of life visit the theatres, galleries, museums, ballet, opera and concert halls regularly. (It helps that they are able to avail themselves of tickets for nationals at discounted prices, meaning you, dear tourist, will pay more for your tickets than the locals.) At a Brahms concert, held at the Great Hall of the Philharmonia, my wife recognized the lady in front of us as the postmistress who sold us stamps and applied them with exquisite care to our postcards each morning. And after our third evening at the Mariinsky (formerly the Kirov), my wife and I dined at Sadko, a designer restaurant with walls of grey slate and massive Murano-style red glass chandeliers that also houses a daycare at the back, where a young woman tends to the children. The waitress, who had decided against being a ballerina, was a sprightly young girl, with short dark hair and great big eyes and a charming way with English. “I’ll have the veal shank,” I said. She looked alarmed. “But it is a specific dish made from cow brains,” she said. “I think you mean bones,” I said when the aromatic dish arrived, and she did a quick plié in apology. Whereas in New York or L.A. every server merely fancies himself an actor, your waiter in St. Petersburg likely was once a dancer, an opera singer or a classically trained pianist. |
