Russia - C'est La Vie Sankt Peterburg

I've about 48 hours left in this town. I'm thinking this will be my last post from here and if I stumble across an internet cafe in Moscow, I'll write from there. My worst fears were confirmed in regard to where my relatives there live. Moscow is huge. Unlike the clausterphobic long facades and massive buildings with their courtyards here in St. Petersburg, Moscow is spread out, distance and a concentric ring pattern connote the construction of the buildings and city grid. The 1 that starts my relative's phone number means they live somewhere outside the city center. I've been spoiled living right down town here in St. Petersburg.

Did you ever hear of Administrative Ecstacy? No? Dostoyevsky wrote about it in the Idiot. We've been having many conversations regarding the rudeness or lack of western hospitality where service (lack there of) is concerned. Seems like its due to a sudden and uncontrollable power vaccum. Those that ran food stores that were owned by the soviety state were in positions of extreme power. They could choose to make those they didn't like go hungry and extolled favors in order to give more to those that wanted to pay for it. This power, connected with food, vanished with the collapse of the soviet state and the privitization of critical industries like grocery sales and food distribution. They were no longer workers for the party but just clerks behind a counter flacid and unable to lead the lives they were accustomed to because of their position. Choice allowed people to go and seek not only a western like courtesy but also variety. When I called them left over remnants of soviet era rudeness, I wasn't far off the mark.

As for Dostoyevsky and his administrative ecstacy, when you consider the kind of city that St. Pete's was, filled with clerks, 20,000 at some point, that were all engaged in running the incredible bureaucracy that Peter The Great had started, then you get an idea about how those little peons rejoiced and gloated when they were able to exert some fraction of control over their little fiefdoms. This mentality, although discussed over 150 years ago, is still alive and well here today.

How do you make a spited hostel owner mad or feel wrong for being mad and acting like a "sukah?" you ask... well simple... don't fight fire with fire, be nice to her. Sveta, the woman that runs the mini hotel/hostel, has been in an uproar, we've had to move people around, switch rooms, shift things here and there, lots of housing problems because of the Gherzen's inability to keep rooms that were promised open and available. She has been trying to make life miserable, playing a little game of sabotage and protest in not taking out laundry and so forth and so on. Instead of doing the same in return, you can melt her by playing the helpless man, just tell her yuo don't know how to sow this button on, or how to operate the washer and the mentality in her, its probably biochemical at this point, will switch from hell on wheels to motherly instinct as quickly as the storms move in from the arctic. Its a bizarre way to combat the forces of evil that well inside a woman scorned, but what the hell... eh?

Well lets see, a brief synopsis... went to Banya yesterday taking along a couple novices. They were instant fans. From there it was to the black market for a little haggling and walking around. From there it was to the reading to hear Jim Shepheard and Stephanie Bolster. Shepheard was hillarious! He read a story from the perspective of Brian Entwistle, former THE WHO basist, the quiet one if you will. The story was written in the form of a recollection and I'm assuming the book and story were written and published before Entwistle's death. It read like historical fiction, recounting the death of 11 people at the Cincinatti show and the statement that Townsend read, the parties, drugs, their humble beginnings, the violence of Keith Moon on the drums and his inability to play rhythm or backup, but rather stuck on perma-solo. It was a wonderful story and is in a book of such stories, historio-fiction, or the libel book as him and his agent have come to call it.

After the reading Tom and I waited to let the crowd pass. We decided it was time for Uzbeki food and headed off to meet two friends, a former SLS assistant from last year, and Olya for dinner. We spent about three hours eating and drinking, lots of laughs and recounting last year's shenanigans. Lets see... I had a chicken broth which lamb dumplings and dill to start with. From there I went for the Samsa again, too good to pass up, and then finished off with a shish-kebob of liver and lamb bacon... mmmm... liver... yeah I can see you all twisting your faces over there... you don't know what you're missing. But fine, it means more for me.

Couldn't stay up much past that... back to the hotel after one final beer at The Office, I hate that place, and they keep going there, and then sleep. So I'm going to cut this off here, today heading to the Dostoyevsky museum if I can make it and Nevsky's Lavra, as I'm dressed for it... do this all by Taxi. Tomorrow, skipping the reading to go and hear Osteshevsky and Galinko do another reading, hit Gez21, maybe dinner at the Uzbeki joint on the way home and then possibly dancing at Club Rossi... this is a fine way to keep one's thoughts from the fact that its time to pack it in and pack it up... the bus is heading out.

So I hope everyone is well and that you're all enjoying the remainder of the week and looking forward to the weekend. This is Captain's log, stardate whatever yuo want it to be saying... Shislivo... for now...