Kim St. Who doesn’t like traveling to St. Petersburg? This is the favorite pastime of every Muscovite – visiting St. Petersburg for the weekend. Going to St. Petersburg. Look, compare, rejoice.
I always traveled by high-speed trains during the day – three and a half hours and you’re there. And recently at night, I tried the slow ones. There is a kind of correct regularity to this. After spending the whole day busy with work and household chores, arrive at the station early, enter a dimly lit compartment, drink tea with cubic sugar, lie down on a shelf covered with clean sheets, share a few routine sentences with a random friend. Fall into a shallow sleep for eight hours, accompanied by the sound of travelers and wheels and short pauses.
Moscow is the showcase of all possible achievements of humanity. Here are the skyscrapers and VDNKh, here is the Park of Culture and kilometers of traffic jams, here is 24-hour lighting and people constantly running. Moscow is a spontaneous city and at the same time it is very focused on itself, its development, decoration and people. Nobody really needs anyone here, but everyone lives somehow well, everyone knows each other, everything can be done here today, everything can be agreed upon here right now.
Today St. Nothing can be done in St. Petersburg. If you need to meet someone or do something, you’ll most likely hear: “I can’t do this today. Not today. Let’s try tomorrow.” And you need to get used to this pace of a different life. St. Petersburg was not built for this purpose, so that people would be alarmed there again.
St. Petersburg is a city that has been thoughtfully and meticulously thought out. True, it was a very long time ago and, of course, does not meet any modern requirements. The difference with Moscow is huge, but we are going on a short journey to feel this difference.
Are you driving along the street and can’t tell whether it’s two lanes, one and a half lanes, or just one lane? How long does the taxi take and why is it maroon?
My St. Petersburg friends, who recently came to Moscow, everyone walked and gasped – how much greenery, how many trees! And it’s true, I sit at my window and I don’t see any white light – around me maples and birches grow higher than the houses. And it’s not like I live outside the city. For some reason I never thought about this. Then I came to St. Petersburg, walked along the Griboyedov Canal, saw three poplars and stood for a long time, looking at them with amazement. That’s right, St. Any greenery in St. Petersburg is a surprise, like a nature reserve. Because the city clearly corresponds to the intended plan – this is a city for people, not for all kinds of plants. Another question is that the 20th century turned this game table upside down, everything became different. Now St. Petersburg is a very rested, even sleepy city. Everything seems slow here.
Someone told me that 74 metro stations have been opened in Moscow since 2011, in the same period in St. Petersburg. Four of them were closed in St. Petersburg, he said. First, this seems to be true, and second, it doesn’t seem like anyone will suffer from it.
Yesterday I got lost walking from one metro station to another on my way to the office. I have lived in Moscow since I was born and have been to this office several thousand times in five years. But I’m still lost. All these MCC, MCD, diameters. They’re good and comfortable, there’s no doubt about that, but somehow they’re inhumanly tiring. One of my distant relatives, when he first came to Moscow in the sixties of the last century, went to Maroseika, saw the rushing crowds of people and said: “Okay, we are doing business, but where is it all going? ”
The situation is different in St. Petersburg. The underground train goes and goes. Where? There. Maybe this is where I’m supposed to be. I’ll go there and figure it out.
Once I met a very nice married couple at the opening of a bookstore in St. Petersburg, we started talking and they immediately invited us to visit them. That’s what they said; It’s not far from here. “Let’s take a taxi,” I say. “Why,” they answer, “it’s close.”
We walked, took a trolleybus, which was already exotic for the modern Muscovite Sergei Sobyanin, walked again, then transferred to some kind of minibus and again walked on our feet. For a Muscovite, this path is unthinkable. It looks like: you order a taxi, pay and get where you need to go in ten minutes. But this is a St. It cannot be explained to a Petersburger. If you’re not in a hurry, why pay? Don’t rush, otherwise you’ll be on time.
What about the wonderful St. How about St. Petersburg food? There is everything there and you can eat anything. Would you like some oysters? Please. If you want cheap chicken broth, here it is. Not so long ago I ate a hot dog at VDNKh in Moscow for 650 rubles. It didn’t even taste good. And St. I had a full lunch for 220 people in St. Petersburg. You won’t find this in Moscow. At least it’s in the center, not in the crowd.
How many times have I been to the Hermitage and I never cease to admire the Jordan Steps and how many people come there. Like millions. Everyone should definitely check out Gainsborough. And every sweet sitter will definitely tell you how to get into the room with paintings of the 15th century Italian Renaissance. Even though it was two kilometers away from him. What’s the rush? The Renaissance will not escape the Hermitage.
Moscow and St. Petersburg is like two poles. However, one cannot be imagined without the other. Therefore, we need to run to the train again.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.