I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Sixty-Four

Alex likes to see little out of the way places and so we drove about an hour out of Moscow to Sergiyev Posad. On the way into the town we passed fields and forests—so very much of the country is still forestland and rustic. We passed a huge field of dachas, which are like Russian summerhouses, though they're little wooden houses usually without water or electricity. In the town we saw the Church of the Assumption, which had the onion dome tops, but several of them were dark blue with big gold starbursts painted on. The church bit was very ornate and lovely, I thought it looked like a big child's playhouse. There was also a bazaar there where people sold...pretty much everything that they could. Alex bought a set of handmade nesting dolls for me. Also there was the Trinity Monastery of St Seregiu, enclosed by high white walls like a fortress. Alex and I seemed to always visit monasteries on our travels—I felt peaceful there and wondered how to transport that feeling back to The Bower—perhaps with a walled-in garden?

After Moscow we went to St Petersburg, where her family lived. The architecture reminded me quite a bit of Rome, except I didn't find it as oppressive. Her cousin and her husband lived in a flat along the river. We hauled our bags from the taxi to the door and knocked and a woman that bore a striking resemblance to Alex (except with curly hair) answered. Alex exclaimed, 'Rita!' and they hugged and laughed and kissed on both cheeks. I had always thought Alex was English looking, but seeing her there with her cousin I could see the Russian in her, as well. Alex introduced us, 'Catherine, this is Margarita Petrenko and Sergei, her husband.'

The woman offered her hand and said in thickly accented English, 'Please, call me Rita.'

I liked the way she pronounced the letter 'r'—it was nearly Scottish sounding the way it rolled. I shook her hand, 'It is very nice to meet you, thank you for allowing us to stay with us, I mean, you. Sorry, my Russian is not perfect.'

Her husband chuckled deeply, 'That's all right, my English is non-existent.'

We laughed in the way strangers who want to get along do and I shook his hand, then Rita showed us to our room. I wondered if Alex had told them about us, but then I realised they only had one guest room. Alex's cousin seemed embarrassed by that and apologised, 'I know you're used to a bigger place...'

Alex and I both shook our heads and said it was all right—we really didn't mind. After we settled in and had a cup of tea the four of us went for a walk by the river. On benches everywhere were older women in babushkas, chattering away. It's interesting to overhear the babble of conversation in a language you don't listen to most of the time. There's a different musicology to it. Russian is very lyrical sounding to me—Italian had sounded like everyone was reciting poetry all the time, but Russian sounded like English being spoken backwards. The people of St Petersburg seemed much happier than the residents of Moscow. In Moscow I don't think I saw one person smile. If I lived in St Petersburg I would be happy, as well. It was to the country's capitol as Florence was to Rome.

The thing about the place was how the buildings went right up to the water. There were hundreds of bridges crossing the canal, most of which had great huge statues at either end, my favourite were gold winged griffins. I thought if I lived there I'd never take transport and would always walk. I often felt that way in Europe—there was so much to see and absorb, why would anyone want to see it from a car? Speaking of which, there were small triangular signs posted near the canal to warn people to not drive into the water. I don't know why, but I thought they were amusing.

While we were there we saw Catherine the Great's palace, pale blue on the main section and white with gold accents down the wings. That was my favourite building, though the Hermitage was also impressive. It used to be the Tsar's Palace, but was now a museum of the history of Russia. We saw the Lyceum, where Pushkin went to school, with it's gold domes, and the man-sized statue of Lady Liberty in the harbour. I wasn't prepared to see the symbol of American freedom in Russia, but there it was.