Bodies in Urban Spaces (Pro Arte)

On Friday the St. Petersburg art institute Pro Arte celebrated its tenth anniversary at Peter and Paul fortress. The event included a choir singing soviet-style patriotic songs about Pro Arte, video installations by students and the visiting US artist Billy Viola, and one of the best performance art pieces I've seen: Bodies in Urban Spaces. The performance was exactly what the title implies. Photos below:








(we were incredibly impressed by this girl- she was so compact!):






Drainpipes galore!



These kids added to the performance and yelled "no! we're not part of it" to me when i snapped their picture, just in case i was confused:

And Only a Month Remains... or I (heart) SpB

I pasted hand-drawn calendar pages on my dresser a month ago to make sure I'd get everything done before i leave. Tonight I'll cross off the last day on page one, which means I'm well into white nights, but have little time left in Piter. Leaving in summer is tricky, but the way to go in Russia. Everyone has thawed from winter and is taking full advantage of light past midnight. City walks are warm and the breeze blowing accross the neva carries that refreshing water smell that brought Peter to build this city 306 years ago (yesterday was the celebration of the city's birth, so we're all counting).



Here are some things I've been up to since the weather has gotten nice:

spending time in parks with friends
performing feats of strength



Sasha turned 22 so we had a party for her here at the apartment. We made a bunch of food including some American treats- ants on a log, banana bread, and salsa (to go with recently found tortilla chips!):

The spread:


we bought this pie and then forgot to serve it during the party:
we ate some of it for breakfast the next day, but it was a lot more beautiful than it was delicious, so the guests didn't miss out on too much.

, originally uploaded by laurichka.

way better than any balcony

way better than any balcony, originally uploaded by laurichka.

This afternoon Olga and I climbed through a mess of stairs and sat up on the roof of her school. I love a good view of St. Petersburg rooftops. We enjoyed the sunshine as the threat of rainclouds were collecting on the horizon. I took a lot of pictures today and put them up on my flickr page.

rooftop romance

rooftop romance, originally uploaded by laurichka.

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.