Of bears and people in St. Petersburg

“There are no bears running around here anymore. What did you expect?” Tatjana asks us while we are standing in a traffic jam at Nevsky Prospect. And for a little moment I am afraid that I have offended her with my questions and comparisons. I had only wanted to explain that I had not imagined St. Petersburg to be so European. Somewhat helplessly, I add that I don’t understand Russia at all, to which she replies rather smugly: “How do you expect to understand Russia and the Russians if they don’t even understand themselves? The people from Petersburger don’t even understand the Muscovites, and vice versa.”But these are not the only unanswered questions on this winter day in the “Venice of the East” and Tatjana proves to be an accurate commentator of Russian paradoxes on several occasions.

While passing the wonderful Cathedral of the Redeemer, one of 163 churches in the city, she acknowledges my question about the religiosity of the Russian population today with the wonderful sentence: “We Russians are officially atheists, but we like to go to church. What I can’t get out of my head, however, is the question of what this tsarist rule ultimately cost, and by that I don’t mean an amount in rubles or any other currency, but how much was necessary in terms of exploitation, how much in terms of drudgery and thus deprivation and hardship. “Oh, you know, we always had enough people left in this country,” our companion explains succinctly, referring once again to the short period of construction of the metropolis with its residences and palaces.

But I don’t give up for a long time asking about the attitude to life then and now in this fascinating city. How can one live in this city with a monthly income of 150 to 200 euros, while, apart from basic foodstuffs, many things are as expensive as they are here in Western Europe? This remains a mystery to me, which I hope the life-experienced and extremely well-read Tatjana will solve for me. “Well, the contrasts have always been immense in this city and even more so between city and country in Russia. Here the palace and there the poor huts. And as I said, we always have enough people left here.” And as we pass a man shoveling snow and a woman discreetly begging, I’m sure that “left over” was not a mistranslation.

And as a small addendum – since 24.2.2022 and thus only about two months after this meeting, with the invasion of Ukraine it became even clearer what could be meant by the sentence: We have enough people left…