On Turning 21 in Russia

So it’s marginally pointless to turn 21 in Russia. But these types of occasions need to be marked anyway. So here’s the dirt.

Decided to pretend that my birthday is Saturday instead of Sunday. Consulted the Lonely Planet guide to Saint Petersburg which is from 2001, because I am what can be termed a cheapskate. Thought I had found a Korean restaurant where food would involve spice; however, being an idiot, I did not call the restaurant to see if it were still open in 2007. Set off with the girls to go to said restaurant – which, we found to be no longer in operation. But we had passed two Chinese restaurants, so the decision was made to try the Russian version of Chinese -- not the Russian version of Mexican at a restaurant called "Tequila Boom."

The place we went to had a group of Chinese businessmen in the back VIP room and a menu that had been babelfished into English with hilarious results. “Laminated Rice” and “Pork in Sweet-Acid Sauce” being two outstanding examples. I thought about asking to see if I could have a copy of the menu. Ordered spicy pork and noodles – both of which were very good. The vegetarians were all pleased with their dishes. The one bad dish was the spicy beef which probably wasn't good meat to begin with, and then was overcooked.

Then we walked to Dacha. There were vodka shots. There was one shot of Jager, because I felt like I should try something new on my 21st birthday. The D.J. was playing soul music the entire time we were there. I felt sentimental about my Memphis. I kinda wanted to get up and dance, but I never got the chance because Dacha is overcrowded. Then, we left and went home before the Metros closed. And I’m twenty one. Woohoo!

And then, I tried to sleep because I needed to get up at 7:30 the next morning to go to Orthodox Liturgy. And my brain said, no – I’m hyper. And I said back, but brain you have had alcohol, you should go to sleep, operate slowly, isn’t this what alcohol is supposed to do to brains? And my brain decided that it wanted to skip around and make daisy chains for a couple hours before slipping into a weird lucid dream that, I believe, reveals the desire of my subconscious to write vivid His Dark Materials fanfic. (Perchance, someone reading this is familiar with that lovely trilogy and understands the tension between dreaming in those universes and then waking up and going to any church service – yes, no, maybe...)

But I successfully woke at 7:30, took a cold shower (hot water is complicated in Russia), made instant coffee (you’ll be pleased to know I can boil water, it took me a while to convince my host mom of this), and was on the other side of the city by 9:30 to go to liturgy with Sasha, who is from Atlanta. And understands that the weather here is currently like the weather around Christmas in the South. And the longing for some Southern food.

I feel that this particular location was well suited to my first Orthodox service in Russia. The building was quite old, and in the process of being restored, but the scars from the Soviet Era were still apparent. The dome was very high. I’m a bad judge of distance, but Rhodents: it would be like walking into Barrett and being able to look all the way up to the top of the tower. But from ten feet on up, the walls were bare cement. I suspect that they were originally covered with frescos of some sort. The majority of the icons within the building were prints. There were a few old icons and a few new, hand-painted icons. The iconostasis was quite beautiful in it’s own way. It was simply and elegantly constructed from wood. In a different setting it would have been lovely. The amount of space in the nave swallowed it up without a backwards glance.

Hearing a full choir sing the liturgy was quite an experience. (They also had a priest with a wonderful bass voice.) I also got a better sense of the amount of movement during an Orthodox service. St. Seraphim is so small that it’s hard to get a feel, and at St. John’s the pews get in the way.

And now I’m 21. Hooray! (Yes, Uncle R, I'm watching out for that Russian vodka. Btw, who is my second favorite uncle, because I'm not certain?)