Wednesday is excursion day, and yet again, I have no pictures for you. But I have a good reason this time, not some bogus excuse like "they wouldn't let me take pictures of the beer factory because of terrorists!", but we went to Kresti Prison today, and nobody gets to take pictures of the prison. Today was a nice reminder of why I don't want to ever get caught doing anything illegal here.
So anyway. Because it's Wednesday, you also get a little history lesson. Because I should at least try to be informative if I can't be entertaining. So Kresti was built way back when and opened in 1892. It's cool because it's super old and it's also built in the shape of a cross. It also has an old church that's undergoing restoration smack in the middle of one of the crosses. The prison is actually a huge compound (as they tend to be) and it's very centrally located in downtown Petersburg. It's maximum security, and Kresti is only where they keep you before your trial. I can only imagine that where they take you after that is about a billion times worse. Anyway, the cells are really small and supposedly only have six people in them (according to the guide), but my good friend Lonely Planet says that they actually have more like ten to fifteen, sleeping in shifts. The doors were about as thick as my hand and totally soundproof. We found this out when the guide shut some of the group in one of the rooms and we couldn't hear them scream. Ha ha.
The doors also have a small window in the middle of them, probably about the size of two of my hands put together wide, and a hand and a half tall. Or about the size of my Katzner dictionary. Anyway, these windows are pretty small. However, I did see one of the prisoners on the upper level had managed to stick his entire head out of the window and was talking to the guard. I'm not sure how he did it, because the windows are too small. Amazing. It was really creepy to walk down the hall and have people come to the window of the door (if they had one) and watch you. It made me feel like I was the one in the zoo, rather than the other way around.
The prison is actually a really beautiful old, red brick building that's slowly deteriorating. The day was grey, drippy, and cold, and as strange as it is to say, made the prison prettier. Maybe just because it fit the mood or something. The prison museum was cool. They had all kinds of artifacts that prisoners had managed to smuggle in (like knives, files, guns, and bombs), tattoo guns with ball point pens, and things that the prisoners had made out of bread. Don't ask how this works because I don't really know. Actually, I do, because I watched that Sorokin movie. Alex, you know what I'm talking about. They chew the bread up until it forms a paste that they can mold. When the paste dries out, it becomes really hard like clay. It's really gross. But kinda cool. (In the same way that I'm fascinated by the color of my stomach acid...)
After the prison, we all needed some cheering up, and so I went to the sit-down Teremok with some of the other kids. And what better thing than blini and bad company? Actually, the company wasn't that bad. It's not like I really have problems with any of them. Some of them are just annoying. Which doesn't make them bad people. Actually, whatever. It totally does make them bad people. If I can't stand to be around you, you're probably either a bad person, or too good of a person. I'm such a snob. Anyway.
I headed home for a little while before heading out to Novus to hear Jen and Lafleur DJ. I was pleasantly surprised by the company. I ended up meeting Jen's soon-to-be ex-partner Mischa, a Russian who speaks flawless English and translates for a living. He's really cool and I ended up getting rather sloshed and heading out with Jenna, fully intending to catch the metro and go home. But then Jenna said that we should go get shwarma and stay at her apartment. And being drunk, greasy shwarma sounded like the best thing ever. Also because it smells so good, but everyone always tells you not to eat it.
Why should you not eat shwarma in Petersburg? Ask any Russian, and they will tell you that it's made out of dog. This may or not be true, but it's pretty tasty. Regardless, there are better and worse places to get shwarma. Meg says that the shwarma by her house is bad, but the one where Jenna and I went is better. I've decided that the difference in quality must be due to the age of the dogs they're using. The shwarma cart at Senia Ploshad must employ faster, younger men who can go out and catch the younger and tastier dogs. It's a funny thing—you never see any puppies in Petersburg...
So we had drunk shwarma standing outside in the cold, and it was quite possibly the best thing I've had here. I know I say that about everything, but this might actually be true, drunk or not. Then we wanted water, so we headed to the grocery store where there was also the drunk purchase of a hat, some diet coke, water, and hair die. Then we walked to Jenna's house and decided to play drunk beauty parlor at 2am. My hair came out pretty well. I was going to take a poll (from the three of you who actually respond...) as to what color I should do my hair (I'd been debating about going either a bright out-of-the-bottle dark red, brown, or blond) but then I just decided that I'm going to be blond again for a while. It looks pretty okay. Deciphering the directions was a bit of a mess and I'm glad that I'd done it all before. Otherwise my hair (and Jenna's, who did dye hers red) would be a disaster. We finally got to sleep around four, still drunk.
So anyway. Because it's Wednesday, you also get a little history lesson. Because I should at least try to be informative if I can't be entertaining. So Kresti was built way back when and opened in 1892. It's cool because it's super old and it's also built in the shape of a cross. It also has an old church that's undergoing restoration smack in the middle of one of the crosses. The prison is actually a huge compound (as they tend to be) and it's very centrally located in downtown Petersburg. It's maximum security, and Kresti is only where they keep you before your trial. I can only imagine that where they take you after that is about a billion times worse. Anyway, the cells are really small and supposedly only have six people in them (according to the guide), but my good friend Lonely Planet says that they actually have more like ten to fifteen, sleeping in shifts. The doors were about as thick as my hand and totally soundproof. We found this out when the guide shut some of the group in one of the rooms and we couldn't hear them scream. Ha ha.
The doors also have a small window in the middle of them, probably about the size of two of my hands put together wide, and a hand and a half tall. Or about the size of my Katzner dictionary. Anyway, these windows are pretty small. However, I did see one of the prisoners on the upper level had managed to stick his entire head out of the window and was talking to the guard. I'm not sure how he did it, because the windows are too small. Amazing. It was really creepy to walk down the hall and have people come to the window of the door (if they had one) and watch you. It made me feel like I was the one in the zoo, rather than the other way around.
The prison is actually a really beautiful old, red brick building that's slowly deteriorating. The day was grey, drippy, and cold, and as strange as it is to say, made the prison prettier. Maybe just because it fit the mood or something. The prison museum was cool. They had all kinds of artifacts that prisoners had managed to smuggle in (like knives, files, guns, and bombs), tattoo guns with ball point pens, and things that the prisoners had made out of bread. Don't ask how this works because I don't really know. Actually, I do, because I watched that Sorokin movie. Alex, you know what I'm talking about. They chew the bread up until it forms a paste that they can mold. When the paste dries out, it becomes really hard like clay. It's really gross. But kinda cool. (In the same way that I'm fascinated by the color of my stomach acid...)
After the prison, we all needed some cheering up, and so I went to the sit-down Teremok with some of the other kids. And what better thing than blini and bad company? Actually, the company wasn't that bad. It's not like I really have problems with any of them. Some of them are just annoying. Which doesn't make them bad people. Actually, whatever. It totally does make them bad people. If I can't stand to be around you, you're probably either a bad person, or too good of a person. I'm such a snob. Anyway.
I headed home for a little while before heading out to Novus to hear Jen and Lafleur DJ. I was pleasantly surprised by the company. I ended up meeting Jen's soon-to-be ex-partner Mischa, a Russian who speaks flawless English and translates for a living. He's really cool and I ended up getting rather sloshed and heading out with Jenna, fully intending to catch the metro and go home. But then Jenna said that we should go get shwarma and stay at her apartment. And being drunk, greasy shwarma sounded like the best thing ever. Also because it smells so good, but everyone always tells you not to eat it.
Why should you not eat shwarma in Petersburg? Ask any Russian, and they will tell you that it's made out of dog. This may or not be true, but it's pretty tasty. Regardless, there are better and worse places to get shwarma. Meg says that the shwarma by her house is bad, but the one where Jenna and I went is better. I've decided that the difference in quality must be due to the age of the dogs they're using. The shwarma cart at Senia Ploshad must employ faster, younger men who can go out and catch the younger and tastier dogs. It's a funny thing—you never see any puppies in Petersburg...
So we had drunk shwarma standing outside in the cold, and it was quite possibly the best thing I've had here. I know I say that about everything, but this might actually be true, drunk or not. Then we wanted water, so we headed to the grocery store where there was also the drunk purchase of a hat, some diet coke, water, and hair die. Then we walked to Jenna's house and decided to play drunk beauty parlor at 2am. My hair came out pretty well. I was going to take a poll (from the three of you who actually respond...) as to what color I should do my hair (I'd been debating about going either a bright out-of-the-bottle dark red, brown, or blond) but then I just decided that I'm going to be blond again for a while. It looks pretty okay. Deciphering the directions was a bit of a mess and I'm glad that I'd done it all before. Otherwise my hair (and Jenna's, who did dye hers red) would be a disaster. We finally got to sleep around four, still drunk.
posted by hillary at 9:19 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home