St. Petersburg and Moscow ~ Cats and Dogs

These two cities define what most see of Russia, and they are so different, yet in some ways the same. They have forever been in contest with each other, and are today.

 Moscow is a masculine city. It is an exploding powerhouse of opportunity held together by threads of personal energy and ambition. It is a cocoon of lives stacked seven stories high, living all the happiness and sins of people anywhere – only at the extremes Russians are so capable of.  Moscow hardly sleeps. It has a muscular aggressiveness unique in Europe and traffic jams that make Los Angeles look easy. The one word that describes Moscow is power.

 St. Petersburg is a feminine city. Her historic personality is as an elegant and noble woman sitting draped with the jewels of her youth waiting for her prince to return. This “Venice of the North” with its symmetry, architecture, statuary, art museums, performing art, palaces, gardens and languid summers with endless days make it a city never to be forgotten.  St. Petersburg is not Russia; it is the historical myth of Imperial Russia.

 Moscow is a city of dogs. There are two classes. One can be seen in vagabond packs or stalking alone, scheming to survive, begging, much like the city’s underclass inhabitants. The other is the canine elite, who walk their masters, regardless of rank, in the parks each morning and evening. The disenfranchised class lurks around the apartment blocks sniffing the garbage for anything to swallow.

 St. Petersburg is a city of cats. From the streets at night, you can see their shining eyes, peering through the arches from the inner decay of “Dostoevsky‘s St. Petersburg,” the faceless blocks of communal flats. The cats hang comfortably in the dead trees, dine elegantly in the overflowing garbage, sit regally on the broken steps. For some reason, the cats always look healthy and fat.

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“You know the fact!”

“You know the fact! I am the best. I wear Levis and Nikes”

                                                                                   An unknown Russian boy

These words were scribbled by a child in small English letters on the yellow brick wall of a residential Moscow building near where I lived in 1994. That says more about the future of Russia than any academic think tank with their computer generated prophesies based on arguable statistics. There is the quest for global status in those scribbles of the young. And in the end (and the end may be down the road a bit) it is the young that count. That is where the promise lies—with those who can wear Levis and Nikes and still be Russian. That is “the fact.”

On one of those early post-Soviet days, walking down the Old Arbat, just after Mayor Luzhkov had banned the street kiosks and the pandering of KGB uniforms and Lenin T-shirts, I was approached by a small boy with a big bag. The boy, about ten, furtively looked over both shoulders to assure no police were watching, and pulled out of his plastic bag a matryoshka doll so badly painted I thought it was done by a dyspeptic. He said in near perfect English, “Look at this beautiful matryoshka doll, only $5.99.”

I said, “This is the ugliest matryoshka doll I have ever seen.”

“Then how about $4.99?” he snapped back.

“No, you could not pay me to take this doll.”

He quickly dropped it back into the bag and pulled out an equally ugly lacquer box, smiling, “Then how about this beautiful box.”

“That is worse than the doll. What is your name?

“Peter.”

“Well, Peter, you tell the guys who sent you out with this trash to give you really good dolls and boxes and you will make them and you rich.” He puffed up with pride and looked over his shoulder again to see if his mentors were watching. I continued, “When you grow up, you come see me, and I will give you a good job, because you are a great salesman.” He stuffed his ugly box into the bag with the ugly doll and ran off to tell his bosses of his promising future. That boy will go far in the new Russia—or anywhere.

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