Yes, I do feel very familiar, almost “at home” here (whatever the heck that means). Like, at a certain place in the vast subway system, I’d get this “I can’t stand to see this speck of dust for the 10000th time” feeling. The changes that people advertised to me while saying, You won’t recognize the city, – well, most of it is just a thin layer. Yeah, well, you’re not supposed to be drinking beer in public any more – big deal, everybody still does. You know, it’s the same place as it was 20 and 200 years ago, with or without Yandex Taxi or food delivery. Some people see it as a cultural capital, some – as a pit of filth, all depends on the angle, same as 200 years ago.

Would I start looking for a way out of here now? Don’t know, also – doesn’t matter, I think. Let’s see. A 43 year old me with a family of 5 probably wouldn’t have existed, to be honest. A 43 year old me with a smaller family – might have kept dreaming about moving, but you know – who can start a new life at 43? A 20 year old me with a young wife and a kid on the way? (Which is where I was last time)? Man… I do hope I’d’ve been able to see beyond my mobile screen, honestly. Now when half one’s life consists of ordering virtual shit online, it’s easier to be clueless, so I don’t really know what I would have done as a 20 year old in 2019. I guess, the interesting question is what a 43 year old me today would have said to a 20 year old me today. “Run for your life, get out of the building”? Not impossible, to tell you the truth.

I spoke with a 25-ish taxi driver (I think most of them are angels or prophets in disguise). He said, Yeah, the West… you have to decide if you like to live by the rules or not. Holy cow, how can you hit the nail on the head like this as a young person in 2019? Yes, it’s exactly true – again, still, 20 years haven’t changed this! Still, 20 years later, new generation, Google Pay and Yandex Weather – still people think they can break “small rules” and complain about “big rules” not being respected. You happily drive 80 on a 60 street (because they can’t punish you) but you want the system to work and be just. Well…

Yeah, I’d still move. I hope so, anyway.

It was 1896. Grandmother of all European royalty queen Victoria made a present to her Russian godson, Velikiy Knyaz Boris Vladimirovitch (who was the Tzar Nikolai II’s cousin) for his 20th birthday. She sent an estate. I’m sure if you or me would have been royalty, we’d also spoil our numerous regal relatives like that. A whole mansion was sent complete with stables and a park, all in half-timber English style and built by an English firm on the outskirts of Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin), a nice bicycle ride away from Catherine’s palace. The dude used the place as his Dacha as long as he could, in other words until the commies kicked him out while very nearly having him executed. (He managed to move to Italy in 1919).

Nikolai Vavilov a great and tragic figure himself moved his research of genetics into this estate during the soviet times. Honestly, look him up – great scientist, broken and murdered by mediocrity. Starved to death in a gulag, courtesy of our old friends, the commies. Interestingly, him and Boris Vladimirovitch Romanov died during the same 1943.

The genetics is the true deal, though, and the research institute survived. My mother who is a student of Vavilov’s students, worked there through almost all of her career, made her doctor degree there and retired from there. As a teenager I spent (I now realized) some significant chunk of time there. They had a photo lab with superb equipment in it which I could use when noone else did, my mom was there and a ton of other interesting stuff was there, which nice scientific ladies loved to talk about. Honestly, the nicest people ever.

The place was adored by the Soviet filmmakers because, well, English mansions were scarce in the Soviet Russia. Like, half of the Soviet Sherlock Holmes was filmed there as well as some other classics.

So, yeah, I love the place. I took my now wife on our first date there, ummm.. 20+ years ago. I haven’t visited my home town of St.Pete in almost 20 years, and now, well, this house managed to give me the biggest deja vu yet. When I pulled on the door handle, I knew exactly what the door would feel like, what sound it would make and what smell would hit my nose. It was utterly unbelievable.

But there is also this. You know, decay doesn’t only concern aging software developers, but also neglected property. And I can’t say “neglected” with enough regret in this case. Neglect, disrepair. Once booming scientific campus with adjacent fields for the experimental crops now looks deserted and post-apocalyptic in its rusted ruin.

Look at these once magnificent stables now boarded off with roof partially missing. They put a fence around because it’s falling apart and could kill you. The main house looks slightly better, interior rather intact, but it looks like it’s being vacated. Who knows what its future is, I hope at least it’s not to be just left to rot.

What is even sadder is that the state of the modern Russian science is often times just like this house there, you know? It has definitely seen much better times than today. This is important stuff, guys. No later effort will make it good again, it needs to be maintained and nourished, otherwise, well, look at the pictures again.

The AirBnB we are at includes a guided tour. The owner Danila is a historian and man, does this dude know things! I bet that given either a geographic location or a period of time or just about anything else, he’d have something interesting to talk about. Seriously impressive. We had a walk from where we’re staying and through half the center while enjoying inspired stories about the history sometimes half-known and sometimes completely unknown to us.

The lunch at a Mama Roma (Mediterranian/Italian oriented bistro) was delicious and efficient. There are two major types of places to eat around these parts: one is run by the nicest service-oriented young people who are genuinely pleasant to be around. The other one draws heavily on the Soviet traditions which boil down to the proprietors rather seeing you dead and gone than fed and satisfied.

Boat trip! Yay, that’s fun. Here it is a rather annoying street industry, with people almost literally trying to pull kicking and resisting you onto their boats. Do haggle, even if they tell you that you’re already getting a special discount as their personal friends. The trip is nice, with a guided tour on tape (in Russian, although given the number of different companies I’d guess you would find one in English if you tried).

We top it all up with a trip along Nevsky prospekt on a trolleybus which stirs up a good deal of nostalgia, because Nevsky is the place that probably changed the least during the last years. Sure there’s hundreds of places that changed hands and names, but there are also dosens that did not.

Full day, my feet are complaining loudly, let us hope I’ll be able to sleep.

Zzzz… oh, look, yes I would! Good night.

Also, a long forgotten emotion hit me like a truckload of bricks all of a sudden, in the evening when anybody would suddenly feel like a little child. There’s something here that makes my heart go cold and feel like I’m desperately alone when just walking down a street. It’s never really been the case for me, thankfully. I honestly don’t know if it’s how the yellow street lights reflect in the gray wet asphalt or the cold air or the dark skies.

This is definitely the place to go mad should you ever be alone and vulnerable. We’re in the heart of the “Dostoevsky” district, after all.

I’m in the flat’s kitchen drinking beer from a can. But I’m also being called to come to bed, so off I go.

Then we get to the new highway which I haven’t seen yet. It’s a toll road, it’s rather modern in terms of equipment (holy cow, it has lanes marked!) but it is also shit as far as the tarmac goes and even worse craziness continues with the super aggressive driving.

In the city… oooh… Yes, it is also worse, people still drive like they don’t want to live and now there’s TONS of them compared to 20 years ago (well, duh).

I made it in one piece to where we’re staying and then on the next day to where the car will get a new clutch and what not (not related to the last days’ driving) but yeah… kinda proud I didn’t just stop and started weeping.

Today (day 2), the very Swedish Sweden rushed back past our car and stuffed us inside this luxurious beauty, the star of the Baltic sea, a Viking Line ferry.

I love this boat, they have Lapin Kulta beer on tap in the buffet hall. They also have pretty women leaning on railings here and there:

Aaand they have some major dorks:

Let’s go, let’s go already. Let’s go to bed, they are throwing us out and onto Finnish soil at the unmerciful 6am.

I mean, look, I don’t even have a recent picture from St.Pete, that’s Amsterdam up there for chrissakes… Come on! Also, who do I think I am and what have I been thinking all these years?!

In all honesty… Actually, no, not even then I think it’s weird that I haven’t been back in almost 20 years, I just don’t. I do think it’s annoying to discuss it with somebody every time I fail to run away from the conversation, so, you know, what the heck, let’s go already!

With me I’m taking some means to keep writing this funny little journal which I bet no-one will read, like, ever, not even me. This time let’s minimize and economize, it doesn’t have a proper keyboard and how to put pictures on it from the proper camera ?? It does let me sprinkle everything with these little emojis, something I intend to abuse.

It is quite a gang that’s coming though, look at us all dressed up and ready to rock’n’roll ? (see what i meant?)

I would like to try putting in a gallery of images though, let’s try this… Get ready for a bunch of dog pictures.