Swamp Gas

I know, I know its been some time since the last post. I make no excuses. Time moves strangely here, and Im working/studying alot. There were a number of days when I was commuting nearly four hours between my home in the northern suburbs (if they can be called that) and the southern village of Pushkin, home of one of the outlying summer palaces...also home of the small school where the young poet Pushkin honed his craft before claiming fame in the great northern capitol. Those days of heavy commuting are over for the time being, and I am settling in quite well. However, the ice and snow that once blanketed the city and its many footpaths is melting. Melting into cesspools of long, winter-buried dogshit and swampy mosquito wombs that threaten to unleash swarms of the tiny predators upon us all come the warmer days of spring. I've also been warned of excesses of swamp gas that escape from the warming earth (plaguing asthma sufferers to no end) as the cold leaves us. We must remember that St. Petersburg was built on a swamp. The many canals that crosscut the city weren't constructed for their aesthetic value, but rather they are the one-time sites of the excavations that provided earth enough to solidify Petrogradskaya, Vasilevsky Ostroff, and the other islands. Peter was admirably mad in his ambition to make this city what it is.

Some picutres then?

This television apparently fell from the sky. That, or it was kicked, hard, from a speeding van. No one paid it any attention on the street, but its shining, snowy, vacuum-tubed innards drew my eye. Where did this come from???? One of Russia's many mysteries that will remain unsolved.

This small onion-domed orthodox church lies a few hundred meters from my flat. I went there one Sunday morning hoping to hear a sermon in Russian and smell the incense and perfume of the babushkas I knew must be in attendance. No one was there. I'm not sure if this church is much more than decorative.

Walking down this alley one night, I was anticipating Ol' Raskolnikov himself to turn a corner nervously and dart away at the sight of me. Him or some other nimble foopad or cutpurse. It may not come across in this photo as I felt it that night, but the antiquity of this city often renders it beautiful in the manner of an old, poisonous, reptile, beaded and decorated to the hilt, but armed with fangs. There is often an undercurrent of malice in streets of aging splendor.

The merchant stands built up around the Pionerskaya Metro Stop on a snow Friday night. I was so happy to be done with the workweek on this night, I took a moment to document the joyful bustle that sometimes envelops this (often dreary) place of commute. Across the street, drunks stumbled into the Aladdin casino and sports bar. Immediately in front of me and to the right, thoughtful husbands and young paramours bought (odd numered) bouquets of flowers from the Oranj greenhouse for their sweethearts. This was a nice moment.

A taste of the glory of fabled Nevsky Prospekt. Here we see the dome and spire one of "Piter's" many churches. Gostiny Dvor, where oligarchs buy fine aged scotches and their wives carry chihuahas in handbags and debate Prada vs. Dior, lies a few steps away.