EUROPE - RUSSIA - ST PETERSBURG : CAPS, MEDALS, BOOKS AND STAMPS
by Kevin Retief



There was a stream of Russian, persistent entreaties to buy his trinkets, as he poked his handsome Slavic head through the open tour-bus door and presented his wares: KGB caps studded with imitation medals, cellophane wrapped guide books and phony stamp collections.

"Only $5!" he exclaimed, grinning at us, a brilliant white smile that seemed at odds with his dirt-encrusted fingernails.

In America a face as perfect as his could earn thousands of dollars on the covers of glossy fashion magazines. In St Petersburg he earns his living rushing from churches to cathedrals tracking the same tour-buses in the hope of finding just one more tourist – passengers like us off the last cruise ship – guilty enough to part with a few dollars. Small change for us: enough for him to buy groceries for a couple of weeks.

But this is Russia – and startling contrasts are the norm: white teeth and dirty fingernails, scrubbed clean bodies in shabby clothes, snow-stained boots and designer jeans.

Palaces and elaborately restored monuments line crumbling streets, occasional BMWs weave between mud streaked trams and dispirited commuters, and cranky old crones with brightly coloured headscarves and fidgeting hands guard the silent galleries of priceless masterpieces.

But contrasts like these are not as astonishing as they first appear. In Russia there is an explanation for everything.

The handsome young peddler with his armful of trinkets speaks perfect English. While my fellow cruise passengers were snapping their souvenir photographs, Vladimir told me he was a geology student – but he survives selling KGB caps, guide books and stamp collections. One day, he is certain, he will travel to the United States where his uncle already lives. His parents are no longer alive. They died when St Petersburg was still called Leningrad, and his brother – well – he drives a BMW but that wasn’t something he was willing to discuss.

But there was an explanation eventually for even that, as our tour-bus crossed another bridge over the Bolshaya Neva into a rare pocket of sunshine highlighting the colours of the palaces lining the embankments – a glimpse of an elegant and privileged past before the clouds blocked out the light.

Our guide, Olga, confessed that some of the people now, some of the time, live well. They drive BMWs, eat in fancy restaurants and wear expensive jewellery. "But," she added with a sad smile mourning foolish choices, "These people – they do not expect to live long lives." They are a part of the criminal elite, and life even for them, is tough.

But this was not something to dwell on. With a shrug Olga went on to explain that there is a brighter future ahead for the city of St Petersburg. The government has promised millions of dollars to restore the proud city. One day everything will look as splendid as the magnificent Hermitage looks now – the world’s most comprehensive and almost incomprehensible collection of fine art.

A maze of palace rooms and inter-leading, inlaid double doors, marble staircases and finely-groomed and statued courtyards. Hundreds of dimly lit rooms with masterpieces so abundant they are stacked over each other on 40-foot walls. Forget to look up and you might miss a Rembrandt or a Michelangelo, a Reubens or a da Vinci.

Door handles encrusted with jewels, thrones swathed in ruby coloured velvets and silks, gilded peacock clocks and carriages – and in the middle of it all, a lonely old woman wearing three worn cardigans, an odd sort of gallery guard, screaming at me for straying from the group. She carries the weight of a peculiar authority.

"They earn very little here," whispers Olga, leading me away by the arm. "but they have no choice if they want to live. They are unhappy. Please be patient."

But it wasn’t patience that kept me quiet. Nor was it just sadness, or that I was in awe of the splendour around me. It was a mix of it all - perhaps touched with a new understanding that things around you aren’t always as they seem – especially when you’re travelling in a city like St Petersburg.

Founded by Peter the Great in the early 18th century, St Petersburg offers a magnificent assortment of ornate cathedrals and sumptuous palaces – all of them reverberating with a passionate and sometimes violent history.

And again, it is always the contrasts that punctuate the experience of the landscape.

There is the irony of the graves of the last Tzar of Russia, Nicholas II and his slaughtered family, finally resting in peace in the centre of the Peter and Paul Fortress, one of the most terrifying political prisons of tzarist Russia.

Elaborate, recently-restored, onion-domed cathedrals still stink (a local claim) of the rotting surplus of vegetables that were once stored there at the height of the Bolshevik revolution.

The battered Nevsky Prospekt, once one of the most fashionable avenues in the world, now sits patiently in the dust of sand-blasters and scaffolding, and waits for its rebirth.

Renewal is in the air, but it is a faint scent.

The poverty is too obvious; as is the feeling of being constantly watched, even when we strolled though open-air markets to the strains of old Russian ballads played on tuneful balalaikas by performers in traditional costume. It was a feeling that became even more ominous when Olga explained that the "watchers" were hired by the tour company to protect us.

There were times when Vladimir, our faithful pursuer throughout the city, with his constant supply of KGB caps, books and stamps, kept his distance - when our friendly greeting, for he was surely one of our group by now, was met with a stony reluctance.

St Petersburg is a city you are thrilled to experience, but one you are guiltily grateful to be able to leave behind.

The sun came out as our cruise ship sailed out of St Petersburg through the long channel from the City of Islands to the Gulf of Finland. I leaned on the polished rails and watched the broken-down tenement buildings with shattered windows slip by. Deserted shipyards, beached fishing vessels and cargo ships, abandoned cranes and empty warehouses. A bleak sight.

But then, in a pocket of greenery – tall birch trees and unruly grasses – we spotted a family sharing a picnic. Men casting lines over the dirty channel waters, children chasing a duck down an over-grown tow path, their mothers unloading plastic bags from a battered car standing in the debris of a cluttered lane. A young woman on a purple rug sat breast-feeding her baby in the middle of all this sudden harmony. Peace in the early evening. The end of another day.

Somewhere in the maze of islands, palaces, cathedrals, dust and mayhem in the distance perhaps, Vladimir was counting his dollars, counting his day’s success.

Proof of it was lying on the dresser in our cabin. Proud souvenirs – a KGB cap studded with imitation medals, a couple of cellophane wrapped guide books, and a whole stack of phony stamp collections.

Photos: courtesy Clara Natoli
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