Water in Saint Petersburg

First things first -- do not drink the water in Saint Petersburg if it came from a tap and hasn't been boiled.

And just in case I was wondering why, yesterday I had the fun experience of returning home, changing into my home clothes, going to wash my hands, turning on the tap in the bathroom, and seeing dark brown water come out of the tap -- roughly the color of coffee.

Strangely enough, the water in the bathtub was fine -- for handwashing, not for drinking.

On September 2, 2007, Metra put on more clothes than she had in years. And later in the day she wished that she had put on more.

I was wearing jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a turtle neck wool sweater, and my coat (sans lining). Oh, and a scarf. I wish I had worn tights under my jeans. I heard my host grandmother commenting that the weather today was like October. I suspect that buying some more sweaters might be necessary.

(poor Eve, she must be quite cold)

Peterhoff is quite pretty in a somewhat frightening, overly manicured way. It was an interesting little excursion. We were there in the morning when they turned on the fountains. This involves a voice over, fireworks, smoke rings, and dancers. It’s a very strange affair.


The most interesting event of the day was being yelled at by the old ladies in charge of one of the little out building surrounding Peterhoff. You see, there are two pricing systems for museums in Russia, one for Russians – which is very inexpensive – and one for foreigners – which is more, but still inexpensive in comparison with American museums. We all have Russian Student ID cards, so we can actually get the Russian student price. Provided that no one decides to raise Cain. Cause you know, the group of kids speaking in English or accented Russian, many wearing gear from American universities, are totally Russian.

(the bridge is where the yelling took place)

So Elena (one of our babysitters) had purchased the tickets to one of the little museums in the Peterhoff complex using our studentcheskii billeti and had gotten the Russian price. We’re queuing up to head into the museum, when the lady taking our tickets starts screaming that the one of the first guys isn’t Russia and needs a different ticket. Elena yells back “On russki! On russki!” (He’s Russian!) Finally, the lady lets him through, lets a few girls through and then stops another boy with “On ne russki!” Elena yelled her down again. I was hoping that someone would concoct some solution, because it’s quite obvious from our documents that we aren’t Russian (with one or two exceptions). The name Demetria just confuses Russians, I have found, and there’s also the glaring lack of a patronymic. I think the lady just gave up and they glared at us the entire time we were in the little museum. Interestingly enough, the first guy she yelled out is the most Russian in the group. His family immigrated when he was eight.

Adventures in lying your way into Russian museums for discounted prices will continue. (Although, I’m not going to press the issue too much on my own. Two dollars versus six dollars isn’t worth an argument with an angry Babushka.)

(P.S. I think the psychotic little dog is trying to kill me.)

Would You Strip on Nevsky Prospect for New Clothes?

Nevsky Prospect, by the way, is the main commercial street of Saint Petersburg. Everything and everybody is there.

Yes, there is a story behind that question. FYI, this post is probably rated PG-13.

The group was supposed to be meeting at a restaurant on a side street just off of Nevsky for dinner on Friday night. I took a long stroll through a decaying corner of Petersburg (basically, I was wandering through the setting of Crime and Punishment) managed to only temporarily become lost. (My sense of direction is a little screwy here. I blame the northern location and the lack of compass roses on our atlas. For instance, from the sun this sun it seems that Nevsky runs east to west. I thought it was more of a north-south street! And then, there are all the streets that run catty-corner – or catterwompus, if you’re from Oberlin – how confusing!) Eventually, I found Cennaya Ploshad’ and made it safely down Cadovaya to Nevsky, where I stumbled into two guys from my group.

We found the side street that the restaurant was on. At the front of the street, right on the edge of Nevsky – there was a crowd of people gathered around a stage and an announcer. Of course, we stopped. I had a bit of trouble seeing around all of the tall people, but in front of the stage there’s a young woman, with a shopping bag over her head, whose clothes are being cut off by a couple of assistants. They had her down to her underwear before we pressed on to the restaurant. Apparently, it was a promotion for a department store. If you were willing to strip down on Nevsky Prospect – they’d give you new clothes. Oh, the things to be seen in Russia!

After dinner, I went out to a bar with a decent percentage of the students in my groups. There’s this faux dive bar on the other side of Nevsky that for some reason unknown to me is very popular among American students – Dacha. It’s also apparently a good place for males to get to experience the Russian tradition of bribing the police to leave one alone (girls don’t get hassled as much, apparently). Rum and coke is very expensive, but beer is possibly more disgusting in Russia than it is in the United States. And, I’m not about to start having male Russians buying me drinks, so – for the most part – I watched several of the other students get quite drunk and quite silly. Had one shot of vodka. (Why do people make faces when they take vodka shots? It’s not that bad.) Continued watching the very drunk group of girls get drunker and had a couple fun conversations with the very drunk girls and perhaps just as drunk but more stoic boys. Decided that the two young Russians of the male variety who the very drunk girls had gotten drinks from were quite creepy. (Surprised? I wasn’t.) One of the other girls (not one of the very drunk ones) tried to explain the purpose of a bar to me. Apparently it’s simple. Everyone wants to be drunk, and get laid. I still don’t understand it. Left around 10:30 because the music was getting too loud, drunk people are only amusing for a certain amount of time, and I really didn’t want to be walking home from the metro station by my little lonesome self at 3am.

I’m kinda sad that I didn’t actually stop and watch the dude playing guitar and singing outside of my metro station.