Riots, Revels and Rasputin - The Final Week

Unsurprisingly, my final week in Russia was a week of lasts. The last Тесто Место Monday (in which we were deprived of our usual sugar-eating contests by the lack of fruit tea), the last few lessons, the last shopping spree in Gostiny Dvor, the last meal in Cafe Zoom (predictably delicious!) and the last meal with Vera (predictably not!). But there were also a few firsts:

The first time that a teacher other than Natasha gave us presents.
Natasha also gave us presents of course, homemade cabbage pies which we were urged to eat there and then (maybe she knew that we wouldn't eat them otherwise!) but Irina and Roman went all out, throwing us a tea party on our last day of lessons. It was not quite an old-fashioned English tea party, consisting of little more than tea (in plastic cups), a box of cream cakes, and presents, but we also got to talk to Irina and Roman properly for the first time, which was really interesting. They told us that it's very difficult for young people like them to leave Russia, even for a year as a guest teacher in Durham, as the British authorities won't grant them a visa until they can prove that they've got something to come back for (i.e. a husband/wife and kids) - and I thought that getting my visa was hard! They also told us (and this is something I've been hearing a lot recently) that they don't feel that Russia can be a proper democracy, at least not in the foreseeable future. Naturally, Tom and Alex turned this into a joke, as a reference to Georgia sacking their police force prompted a remark that Alan Sugar would surely be up to the job if Russia decided to do the same...

The first time that I saw Rasputin's penis.
And no, I'm not joking. Although the actual provenance of the penis is uncertain (the display claims that it came back to Russia via a complicated route involving several European countries) the Museum of Erotica claims that its main exhibit really did once belong to Rasputin. And well they might, no-one would visit their museum if all they advertised was 'A Large Hairy Penis'. Other than the obvious 'attraction', the museum, housed in a venereal disease clinic, featured a range of sex-related exhibits. Perhaps not the first museum I'd recommend to a visitor to St. Petersburg, but it was certainly a talking point!

The first time that the Пик Centre was closed.
This last first was rather annoying, especially as we'd already purchased tickets to 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' at the cinema there. But, if we were going to waste 300 roubles, at least it was for an interesting reason. As we stood by the doors to the centre, trying to work out why no-one was being allowed in (and giggling at the Russians who insisted on pushing past the large crowd who had been refused entry to the centre...to be refused entry to the centre!) there was a commotion behind us and we saw a large crowd running away from the metro station. That was when we noticed the riot police. And the journalists. And the television cameras. After we had spent a good half hour hanging around trying to get on the Russian news (and trying not to speak English too conspicuously in front of the police) we went home to see what all the fuss was about. As it turned out, we'd got caught up in the St. Petersburg version of the Moscow race riots (for more information see http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/1-000-detained-in-Russia-to-prevent-ethnic-clashes-900342.php ) and the police had had to commandeer what looked like a normal bus to hold the 60 prisoners taken. Most of them weren't even rioting, it seemed that they were just arresting everyone of non-Russian origin who got off the metro. So, an interesting last first for my time in Russia!

Museums, Musicians and Minus Temperatures - The Beginning of the End

Firstly, an apology. My last couple of weeks in St. Petersburg were fairly manic, as were my first couple of weeks back in England, and so I've only just got round to updating. But I do have at least three entries to come, starting with this account of the second-to-last week.

The museums featured mainly in our celebration of Helen's 21st birthday on 11th December. As we wanted to make a day of it, we decided to visit the Oceanarium and the Arctic and Antarctic Museum before moving on to our favourite Wetherspoons-substitute, SPB. The Oceanarium was home to all manner of crazy fish but my personal favourites were the rays, who we were lucky anough to happen upon at feeding time. But, this being Russia, feeding time couldn't possibly be normal. Instead the rays, who were kept in a very low-walled tank, were goaded by the keepers until they flapped against the walls, causing a veritable tidal wave of water to slosh over onto the floor. As they became more and more aggravated, they began to flap without any prompting, and one of them just flopped down on the wall, looking like it might have died, until one of the keepers pushed it back into the water with a big stick. Dying during the show is clearly frowned upon. Mind you, the cleaners would probably have preferred it if they had died, judging by the grumpy expressions they wore as they mopped several gallons of water off the floor...

The Arctic and Antarctic Museum was marginally less exciting but contained some beautiful photos and some paintings which would have been beautiful were it not for the somewhat unneccessary addition of Soviet warships. It was also home to the few stuffed animals which hadn't made it into the Zoological Museum - including arctic foxes, polar bears and lemmings. However, before too long we began to develop the little-known condition 'museum knee' (name copyright Rachel Kitchen 2010) - those familiar with this painful condition will know that it can only be cured by the consumption of some kind of beverage - which in this case turned out to be strawberry beer. Six hours later we stumbled onto the metro, having sampled a large number of SPB's finest (or cheapest) beers, played numerous games of Cheat (and thus learnt that Tom knows how to swear as he got more than a little competitive), and compiled a list of quotes from the trip on Helen's phone. All the best nights finish before 11pm here....

The previous Thursday, Tom and I had attempted to visit another museum, the Museum of Railway Communications (ie. our university's museum) only to discover that when the cash desk closes at 5, turning up at 5 on the dot isn't a good plan. Instead we headed to the Yusupov Gardens to fulfil a lifelong dream. Like all the best lifelong dreams, it had actually only been a lifelong dream since we arrived in Russia, but it was a good one - to walk on a frozen lake! To begin with we were slightly terrified and would only put one foot on at a time, but after walking to the island in the centre and back we relaxed a little (those who think that this is an impressive achievement should Google the size of the Yusupov Gardens - it was about 12 strides) and decided to have a bit more fun. A small crowd of children had gathered to go sledging and after debating for a few minutes over whether we could ask them for a go (as the best Russian we could come up with was "Can I for five minutes have that?" we thought that the answer would probably be "No.") and then decided simply to join in their game of 'Let's slide on the frozen lake'. I failed spectacularly at this, falling over almost as soon as I'd stepped onto their 'sliding patch' (a 100m run of incredibly slippery and no doubt hazardous ice), but Tom managed to get about halfway along it, albeit with rather comical arm-movements. By this time, I had regretted leaving the house without a hat or gloves, but it was worth it, even if I couldn't walk properly for the next three days!

For my final 'm' I chose musicians due to the amazing concert which I saw on 13th December - Elton John (and Ray Cooper)! For this I was mocked mercilessly by Tom, who seems to be labouring under the delusion that Elton John's greatest hit is entitled 'I'm Elton John' and runs to the tune of nothing in particular. Or at least that's what you'd have thought if you'd listened to him in the days leading up to the concert... However, the morning after it I was forced to disappoint him, as it may surprise you to learn that Elton John has never recorded a song with that particular title. He has, however, recorded numerous other songs, many of which he played, accompanied with crazy light shows and some rather interesting back-up from Ray Cooper. I knew nothing about Ray Cooper before the concert, but apparently he is one of the world's greatest percussionists. He certainly made the night interesting when he suddenly appeared behind Elton John banging drums and cymbals with huge amounts of enthusiasm. This enthusiasm soon spread to the audience, who gathered around the stage proffering bouquets of flowers and begging for autographs. Not bad for £20 tickets....