“The curious fact about St Petersburg is that it ought not to exist. The same can be said for Petersburgers. Strictly speaking, they too ought not to exist. Not here. Not in the middle of this bog. Not against the backdrop of these buildings, this stage-set of classical facades improbably transplanted from a different clime, a different culture. This is no place for Russians, nor, for that matter, for any other human race. “
“People in other countries have problems. People in other parts of Russia have more complicated problems. Petersburgers have zamorochki.A zamorochka is a neat way of turning an ordinary garden-variety problem into something more durable: a major headache, a five-day talking point, or, at the very least, a very extravagant muddle.”
The other St Petersburg is an alternative guide.
No, no, no: let’s start again.
The other St Petersburg is not a guide. The purpose of a guide is to orient the reader and show him or her the way – to the Hermitage, for instance – whereas my purpose is to disorient, to get you thoroughly lost and confused before leaving you to find your own way out again.
This small book is a detour into the intimate, cramped spaces of the physical city and the cramped, but suddenly expansive spaces of the Petersburger’s mind. Our crooked path is strewn with exasperating zamorochki, gracious podarki (unexpected gifts from providence or fate), encounters with the city’s history and literature… and is shaped by the perpetual quest for the perfect hangover. There are digressions on the beauty of the city’s architecture (just a trick of the light?), the superiority of Soviet portwine to Portuguese port, and on how Malevich painted his Black Square. Last but not least, I have included a translation of Daniil Kharms’ fascinating 1939 novella The Old Woman, a work which cuts straight to the quick of St Petersburg’s most distinctive characteristic – this city’s troubled, but fascinating relation with reality.
“People in other countries have problems. People in other parts of Russia have more complicated problems. Petersburgers have zamorochki.A zamorochka is a neat way of turning an ordinary garden-variety problem into something more durable: a major headache, a five-day talking point, or, at the very least, a very extravagant muddle.”
The other St Petersburg is an alternative guide.
No, no, no: let’s start again.
The other St Petersburg is not a guide. The purpose of a guide is to orient the reader and show him or her the way – to the Hermitage, for instance – whereas my purpose is to disorient, to get you thoroughly lost and confused before leaving you to find your own way out again.
This small book is a detour into the intimate, cramped spaces of the physical city and the cramped, but suddenly expansive spaces of the Petersburger’s mind. Our crooked path is strewn with exasperating zamorochki, gracious podarki (unexpected gifts from providence or fate), encounters with the city’s history and literature… and is shaped by the perpetual quest for the perfect hangover. There are digressions on the beauty of the city’s architecture (just a trick of the light?), the superiority of Soviet portwine to Portuguese port, and on how Malevich painted his Black Square. Last but not least, I have included a translation of Daniil Kharms’ fascinating 1939 novella The Old Woman, a work which cuts straight to the quick of St Petersburg’s most distinctive characteristic – this city’s troubled, but fascinating relation with reality.
