Why do we love Petersburg so much?

Each resident and guest of St. Petersburg has his own unique relationship with him. “The city of bitter love beloved” will write Anna Akhmatova, “the burden of the Northern snob” will say Osip Mandelstam, and for someone he is a protector and patron, ardent lover or gloomy genius.

 

Everyone loves him in his own way and everyone loves him for something of his own: for the measured noise of the subway, under which it sleeps so well or is read, for the coolness of the fountain in the courtyard of the Hermitage, for the smell of coffee that bursts out on the Nevsky from the confectionery “North”, for the horses rushing to the will from the Anichsky Bridge, for the ghost of the Mikhailovsky Castle, for the comedy theater over the Eliseyevsky deliery, for the severity of the Petropavlovsk spire. Without all this, our city is unthinkable, but it’s time to finally ask yourself, “Why do I love it?”

 

First of all, the white nights. For the fact that it is impossible to fall asleep when sluggish twilight replaces the languidness of the summer night, because the body does not understand that it is time to go to bed, the feeling of fatigue disappears and you want to even prolong these moments before dawn. I like to be deceived when you suddenly look at the clock, and outside the window is not 9-10 in the evening, but already 3 in the morning.

I love this city for the drawbridges that do not allow you to get home, you just have to forget about time and miss the last subway train. I love that, being stuck on the “alien” shore, you can enjoy the weightlessness, the brevity of the white night of St. Petersburg, breathe one breath with it, carrying a soft breath from the Neva, soak up the warmth of granite embankments accumulated over a long day.

 

We have been waiting for this time for so long, we have been waiting for eleven months, and that is why now we want to live, to breathe fully, to accumulate the energy of the white nights in ourselves, in order to squander it gradually on long, boring, winter evenings in anticipation of a new spring burst of feelings.

 

I love the changeable weather. For never knowing whether the sun will look out all day or whether it will rain all day. I like to hide in the doorways from an unexpected downpour, when the dashing wind blows small splashes into a seemingly reliable shelter, and small streams, turning in a matter of minutes into stormy streams that dominate everything in their path, are struggling to wet light summer shoes.

Everyone finds something in this city, understandable and accessible only to him alone, the city opens up to a person from different sides depending on what you expect from St. Petersburg. What do you love him for?

 

Author: Gusak Anna Ivanovna