Kostya's Dacha

Kostya's Dacha, originally uploaded by laurichka.

Yesterday we spent the day at Kostya's Dacha, having a cookout and enjoying some time away from the city. You can see pictures of it on my flickr page.
The pond next to Kostya's dacha was full of frogs mating- we heard a choir of croaking (more convincing than my nokia ringtone!) and saw about a hundred frogs mating all together and laying huge piles of eggs.
Spring is in full swing after waiting out a long long winter. I know that it's officially spring now because the fountains around the city have been turned on, all of my water heaters have been shut off, and restaurants all around the city are building their decks for patio seating. To make up for 4 hrs of sunlight in the winter, the days are long- sunshine lasting past 9 o'clock. Syd has a few more days here in Petersburg with me so I have to run to do more city touring. We've been having a fantastic time enjoying the new feeling of spring on this city.

signs of spring

Judging by the hemline on the skirt the girl (above) is wearing, spring is officially here. Syd and I spent all of yesterday walking around soaking up the sunshine. There was a huge military parade (rehearsal?), we weren't entirely sure what was going on. Yesterday was Lenin's birthday, but a soldier we asked said the parade had something to do with victory day (May 9th).

Soldiers, Soldiers everywhere:



We walked past this bus just before it unloaded. The little sailor boys all blew kisses at Syd and me. We were cracking up:

We caught up with Peter the Great:

Then watched the last remains of winter float away down the Neva:

Everyone was walking around on Nevsky, this guy was posing with his bike

Bright spring coats!

Darth Vader? I guess everyone is starting to flock to Petersburg now that it's spring.

The prettiest girl at prom:

was my little sister. That one sure does clean up nice! I'd like to thank Facebook for making these pictures available to me. Unfortunately Mark deleted his page, so he'll be harder to track down.

And again, i lag far behind.

Petersburg is starting to bud into spring. We've had several days over 50 degrees F and the rollerbladers are out in full form. I've switched from my long coat to my short jacket (even though i've had a couple of chilly walks home, i refuse to wear the winter coat anymore!) I've even been able to ditch my boots most days and walk around in my sneaks. Yuri said he has an old soviet bike in his apartment that he'll let me borrow for the next two months so that i can really enjoy spring/early summer in this city.

I finished binding together my Boy With the Red Balloon book. I'll send you all gorgeous pictures soon! Syd just got in to Petersburg this morning after a rough trip on the overnight train from Moscow. She's recovering by sleeping in past noon, and i'm in the kitchen enjoying sampling the selections of coffees she brought me from the US (Stumptown thanks to my old housemates in portland, and a giant bag of Metropolis coffee from Chi-town) and dipping apple slices into a fresh jar of peanut butter for the first time in months. Hopefully i'll take it easy and let the stuff last a while. I recently found Hummus in this city and I've been gorging myself on it whenever I'm back in my apartment.

Syd and I met here in Petersburg- she was a Bard student studying at Smolny for the summer program and for the second semester. We traveled all through Europe together at the end of the year. After so many adventures together we hadn't seen each other in two years, having failed to meet up in states in the meantime, until she got here early (6 AM!) this morning. Syd, Kostya and I sat in the kitchen drinking tea and eating fig newtons (syd didn't have any, fruit disgusts her) just like no time had passed. I'll keep all you anxious readers up to date on our excursions over the next two weeks. Knowing Syd they'll be far beyond the Russian "normal."


Abbie and her friend Jessie came through two weeks ago and stayed for a week. We all shared my bed and were lulled to sleep by Abbie's orchestrated snoring lullabies. These fine ladies got to come with me to see the printmaking studio and meet Yuri. We also saw a ballet at the Marinskii, saw the peacock clock go off at the Hermitage, heard a great funk band play and other things I failed to keep track of. Most memorable were the delicious dinners we put together- curry, italian style veggie bake w/ meat sauce, and a whole dinner of party finger foods Mermaid's style (you know, the movie with Cher winona ryder and a young Christina Ricci). All in all, a wonderful week!

arting around in petersburg

Now that there's little time left in Russia everything has sped up- I can hardly believe that it's been nearly 3 weeks since that last post. Sorry folks.

I've finished printing all the pages for my book, I've made a cover, now all I have to do is sew the whole thing together.

This last week was lots of printmaking and art openings.
First up: Pyotr Bely- the artist that shares the St. Petersburg Printmaking studio with Yuri had an opening at the Comic Art Gallery. He constructed spaces out of rubber, lights and color. i remember one day he walked into the studio playing with a big slice of rubber declaring that he'd fallen in love with the stuff. The gallery was super crowded so it was hard to get a good view of any of hte pieces in the front room:


but i really liked these spaces set up in the back. Still, they reminded me of renn fayre projects.



The Hermitage just opened a show about books in their collection- a mixture of artist books, rare antique books, and book objects. Yuri got me an invitation to the opening because one of his books is featured in the exhibition:

clock books:
I'm looking forward to going back again and actually getting a good look at the works- when i was there it was full of camera crews and photo journalists:
Everyone went off to drink champaigne and toast the event but I wandered around some of the hermitage interiors and found this hilarious wax bust of peter the great!