{"id":38,"date":"2006-10-14T07:02:52","date_gmt":"2006-10-14T11:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/2006\/10\/14\/leningrad\/"},"modified":"2006-10-14T07:17:27","modified_gmt":"2006-10-14T11:17:27","slug":"leningrad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/2006\/10\/14\/leningrad\/","title":{"rendered":"Leningrad"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I have been extraordinarily negligent in contributing to this great enterprise, and as I am assured that we have an audience waiting with bated breath for tales of our adventures in Leningrad, I offer this belated blog post from an Internet cafe in scenic Chang Mai, Thailand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We arrived in “Leningrad” (so called in this post\u00a0because many of the city’s\u00a0residents have yet to\u00a0take to Leningrad’s return to its historic name of St. Petersburg)\u00a0at the unholy hour of\u00a06:00 A.M. on\u00a0September 22.\u00a0 We had just completed an all-night journey on a comfortable sleeper train from Moscow.\u00a0 Our plan — for thanks to Anna we did\u00a0have a plan — was to stay with friends of Anna’s, but we did not want to show up on their doorstep at such an early hour so we had\u00a0some time to kill.\u00a0 We quickly resolved to find a coffee shop or Internet cafe near the place we would be staying, and we felt assured of success as there\u00a0is no shortage of such establishments in\u00a0Leningrad.\u00a0 We were initially turned away from a 24-hour coffee place because, though open 24 hours, from midnight until seven a.m., one had to take his coffee outside.\u00a0 At least this is what they claimed — maybe they just did not like the looks of us.\u00a0 And, though the weather was\u00a0temperate for a\u00a0September in Russia, we were not terribly excited by the prospect of huddling outside with our coffees until\u00a0given the green light to drink inside so\u00a0on we moved.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

A few doors down we encountered a coffee place that was just openning its doors and were please to find that we could\u00a0use the wireless Internet.\u00a0 Actually, I was most pleased to discover yet another coffee shop with\u00a0surprisingly good green tea.\u00a0 Overall, one of my favorite things about Russian culture is the deep appreciation the people have for green tea.\u00a0 I had not previously\u00a0found such enthusiasm outside of Asia (or, occasionally, in Los Angeles).\u00a0 In addition to my many cups of green tea, I managed to consume a couple of pancakes made complete with a helping scoop of ice cream and some chocolate sauce.\u00a0 I don’t know what the dish is called in Russian, but I called it breakfast, and it was delicious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When it seemed\u00a0reasonable, our merry band proceeded over to the home of Anna’s friend.\u00a0 I should take a moment to explain how incredible it was for Anna to have hooked us up with a free stay\u00a0with her friend.\u00a0 Leningrad has incredibly expensive hotels and there\u00a0are very few mid-range or budget-range options available.\u00a0 I had resigned myself to paying up to $300 per night\u00a0for accommodation.\u00a0 Somehow, however, Anna managed to convince her friend Olga to allow these two strangers into her house.\u00a0\u00a0Anna, of course, was staying at home with her uncle and aunt so the plan was for Ben and I to stay with the family without\u00a0Anna for the full four nights of our visit.\u00a0 And not only\u00a0did the family not seem put out by our presence, by the end of\u00a0our stay, Ben and I were being treated as\u00a0if we were\u00a0old friends.\u00a0\u00a0Olga is a translator who speaks\u00a0perfect English.\u00a0 Her husband, Emmanuel, is\u00a0French and works as a press attache for the\u00a0French government.\u00a0\u00a0The couple also have a five-year son, Vasily, who was initially, rightfully, wary of our intrusive presence.\u00a0 Fortunately, Olga\u00a0quickly informed us that the\u00a0key to his heart\u00a0are sweets, and we were soon honored guests\u00a0in his eyes so long as we produced a chocolate bar every now and then.\u00a0 Our welcome was made all the more amazing by the fact that we came to stay with\u00a0Olga’s family at the worst possible moment — she was scheduled to give birth any day.\u00a0 Indeed, she had a baby boy very soon after we left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Introductions made, I did what I usually do when\u00a0I arrive in a new city — I\u00a0took a long nap.\u00a0 Anna and Ben,\u00a0both with an unhealthy aversion to napping, went off to explore the city.\u00a0 We met back up in a few hours so as to\u00a0join Olga for lunch.\u00a0\u00a0The lunch was excellent, but the restaurant was more notable for\u00a0its appearance.\u00a0 I was convinced\u00a0we were in the wrong place when we arrived because the shop’s main source of income clearly came not from food but from the sale of clothing and plants.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking of food,\u00a0and I believe Ben alluded\u00a0to it, but I want to emphasize how good the\u00a0food in Russia is — even for a finicky meatatarian like myself.\u00a0 Many of the staple dishes\u00a0are\u00a0happily basic and\u00a0primarily consist of a well-seasoned meat and a starch.\u00a0 My favorite had to be the meat skewers and meat pies that are available in restaurants and street corners everywhere.\u00a0 Anna’s heart seemed to lie with the ice cream, which, incredibly, is a year-round Russian obsession.\u00a0 Ben, meanwhile, was largely preoccupied with the various fish dishes.\u00a0\u00a0In addition to the food, many restaurants also had these fantastic fresh-pressed juices that complimented everything.\u00a0 I was particularly fond of the apple juices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After lunch, Anna left us to visit with her family until the following day.\u00a0\u00a0She did\u00a0so with some apprehension that we would not be able to get around without her, but the subway system was excellent and most of the\u00a0key signs were in English, which was not the case in Moscow.\u00a0 We did not have any problems.\u00a0\u00a0Anna suggested that we go to the ballet and so\u00a0that is what we did.\u00a0 We saw a love story of some type.\u00a0 I was not particularly moved but the theater was incredible, and I am told the dancers were exceptionally\u00a0good.\u00a0\u00a0Olga was a little distressed that we were not going out in formal attire as theater in Russia is a rather stuffy\u00a0affair, but unfortunately\u00a0neither Ben or I had packed anything even coming close to respectable.\u00a0 For better or worse, there were a number of\u00a0similarly\u00a0shabbily dressed\u00a0foreigners in the audience so we did not stand out too much.\u00a0 After the ballet, we went to a dinner highlighted by my guide book,\u00a0and apparently we were not alone in taking the guidebook’s recommendation as Ben and I noted the same guidebook on the tables of a number of\u00a0the other diners.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next morning Ben and I did a little walking tour of Leningrad.\u00a0\u00a0The highlight was one of the world’s great museums,\u00a0the Hermitage.\u00a0 Housed in a former palace, the Hermitage contains\u00a0an incredible array of works.\u00a0 So many that it is said that one could\u00a0in a lifespan only devote one minute to each work\u00a0of art.\u00a0 As I\u00a0so often find with mammoth museums, I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the works on display\u00a0and would have tuned out completely were it not for the helpful audio guide we purchased\u00a0in an effort to focus our exploration of the museum.\u00a0 And even more than the individual works, the building itself is one of the most impressive I have ever seen.\u00a0 Much like the works housed at the\u00a0Getty in Los Angeles, I felt\u00a0that the works of art were done something of\u00a0a disservice by the immense beauty of the building in which they were contained as it was hard to concentrate on anything other than the architecture.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0walk around Leningrad also took us past some of the other\u00a0stunning architecture\u00a0the city has to offer, which includes\u00a0a number of very colorful churches.\u00a0 Our tour ended at the Pushkin cafe, so\u00a0named in honor of Russia’s great poet, the Afro-Russian author Alexander Pushkin.\u00a0\u00a0Long one of my favorite writers, it was a great pleasure to learn a little more about his life.\u00a0 Another\u00a0one of my favorite authors, Fyodor Dostoevsky, also\u00a0made Leningrad his home, and we were also able to see some\u00a0landmarks associated with him.\u00a0 Happy and exhausted we made our way home\u00a0via the city’s impressive subvway system.\u00a0 In my opinion, only\u00a0the D.C. Metro rivals the Moscow and Lenningrad underground transit system in terms of\u00a0the grandeur of the stations, its efficiency, and the impeccable cleanliness of the trains.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That night, Anna met back up with us, and we went out to meet up with another friend of Anna’s.\u00a0\u00a0Olga and family had retreated for the weekend to their dacha, which is\u00a0a weekend house of sorts.\u00a0 All Russians were\u00a0assigned a city apartment and a dacha during the communist days, and\u00a0ownership of both\u00a0went to the current tenants\u00a0after\u00a0the most recent\u00a0capitalist revolution.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We went to a communist-flavored bar for dinner, which was recommended by\u00a0Anna’s friend, also named Anna.\u00a0\u00a0Anna 2 was very spirited, and we had a great time drinking vodka and speaking\u00a0with\u00a0our Anna mostly serving as translator.\u00a0\u00a0Once we decided to part, Anna and I headed out for a nightclub and Ben went back to the apartment to call it the night.\u00a0 The nightclub, one of the best I have been to,\u00a0exceeded all of my meager expectations.\u00a0 Decked out in the typical European style (lots of lights, mirrors), our entrance fee included a number of things I had never seen before.\u00a0\u00a0First, we were treated to something closely resembling a variety show, which\u00a0involved singing (incredible singing — this woman would have won American idol were she, you know, American), dancing, and very lively audience participation.\u00a0 After the\u00a0hour-long show was over,\u00a0and when\u00a0I thought it could not get any better, we we were treated to a dance experience like no other.\u00a0\u00a0Much to our surprise, the dance floor began to spin, rain\/snow began to fall from the ceiling, and — at exactly the right moment — the dance floor would bounce up and down to the beat of the song.\u00a0 Unbelievable.\u00a0 Awesome.\u00a0\u00a0That experience has surely ruined for me all future nightclub outings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next morning we\u00a0set out\u00a0by boat for an area\u00a0not far from Leningrad to see another magnificent palace.\u00a0\u00a0This one was\u00a0a “summer” palace commissioned by\u00a0Catherine the Great.\u00a0 It was fantastic to just walk around the grounds and bask in yet another ridiculously beautiful, sunny day.\u00a0 We ate\u00a0meat pies,\u00a0drank beer, and were just generally thrilled to be in such a fantastic setting.<\/p>\n

We took the boat back to\u00a0Leningrad and then made for another boat tour of the many rivers running through the city.\u00a0 Lenningrad — a relatively young European city — \u00a0was initially conceived to resemble the canal-laced Netherlands capitol city of Amsterdam because Lenningrad was so water-logged, a swamp really.\u00a0 They did a great job of it; going along the various canals was a great time as the city looked incredible when lit up at night and you would have little idea that it was nothing more than swampland only a few hundred years earlier.\u00a0 We ended the evening with a Georgian dinner with\u00a0our newly-returned hosts.\u00a0 The Georgians are not favored\u00a0by most Russians, and\u00a0I was\u00a0amazed\u00a0that a people with such great food could be viewed with so much contempt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our last full day in Leningrad — and\u00a0Russia generally — was Monday, and I had been looking forward to this day more than any other for we were going\u00a0our to Anna’s grandparents’ house for a dinner.\u00a0 Anna is, without equivocation, the greatest cook I have ever had the great pleasure to encounter (sorry mom).\u00a0 Much of her talent she laid at the\u00a0feet of her grandfather so I was awed by the prospect of meeting this magical man.\u00a0 Unfortunately, before we could make it out for our visit, Ben and I had a little bit of unpleasantness to deal with it.\u00a0\u00a0To be a tourist in Russia, one must make efforts to register at every place one stays lest\u00a0they be subject to harassment, fines,\u00a0and possible detention when attempting to leave the country.\u00a0 Because Ben and I were not staying in a hotel, this was going to be no easy task and after\u00a0a great deal of effort expended and no luck, we decided to just hope that\u00a0all went well as we left the country.\u00a0\u00a0We hoped, at worst,\u00a0we would be subject only to a fine.\u00a0\u00a0And, moreover, it was time to go\u00a0off\u00a0to dinner at\u00a0the Makanju household, and we were not going to let anything get in the way of that.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The dinner did not disappoint.\u00a0 Anna had designed a menu (can you believe it) with her grandparents meant to comport to the rather challenging dietary restrictions posed by Ben and I.\u00a0 Anna’s grandfather was expansive and funny.\u00a0 Anna’s grandmother was, well, grandmotherly.\u00a0\u00a0Warm and kind and inviting, she made us feel right at home and then disappeared so as to better facilitate our drinking great vodka with Anna’s grandfather.\u00a0 We ate too many things to try to list here but\u00a0all of my new Russian favorites were on the menu — i.e. skewers of meet, meat pies, deliciously prepared starches, and homemade juice.\u00a0 We sat around for hours and traded stories and learned a little more about our friend Anna.\u00a0 It was definitely the highlight of the trip for me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having to be at the airport in a few hours, Ben and I parted\u00a0with heavy regret that our trip would be soon coming to an end.\u00a0\u00a0We were also bummed because we\u00a0knew\u00a0we\u00a0would not see Anna again until the flight over to Thailand.\u00a0\u00a0Incredibly, we returned to the apartment and found\u00a0ourselves in the midst of an\u00a0international dinner party being hosted with ease by the now-really-ready-to-pop Olga.\u00a0 That woman amazes me.\u00a0 Once the party broke up\u00a0around one a.m., we prepared to head for the airport and again expressed our\u00a0significant gratitude\u00a0to our new friends for allowing us to take up so much of their time and apartment space.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is about it.\u00a0 We went to the airport.\u00a0 We waited.\u00a0\u00a0We\u00a0were anxious about what our immigration experience would entail.\u00a0 We\u00a0sailed through immigration (stamp, stamp, next).\u00a0 Our plane arrived in London on time, and\u00a0everything was easy.\u00a0 I would not have done it without Anna serving as guide, but I definitely saw enough of Russia, and especially Lenningrad,\u00a0to make me\u00a0want to return for more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That’s all for now.\u00a0 Apologies to all of you who have sent messages to me while I have been traveling.\u00a0 I will be writing back (promise!).\u00a0 And, hopefully, in the next few days I will find time to post both about the fantastic time had at the wedding of my two law school classmates, Jeff Goldman and Abby Greene, as well as\u00a0the great time I had drinking scotch with J-File and Amy G. on the small, luxurious island of Islay.\u00a0 I will also try to post some of the fruits of my foray into the world of digital SLR cameras.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I have been extraordinarily negligent in contributing to this great enterprise, and as I am assured that we have an audience waiting with bated breath for tales of our adventures in Leningrad, I offer this belated blog post from an Internet cafe in scenic Chang Mai, Thailand.\u00a0 We arrived in “Leningrad” (so called in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/berkowitz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}