WHITE NIGHTS

a few observations, Russians don't smile a hell of a lot, they love ice cream, they aren't allowed to drink on the street anymore but do anyway. The architecture is either powerful, minimal and, scary - or it's like an explosion of color with brightly colored onion domes. The city design is very structured and sterile but, there are flowers everywhere. Lot's of huge flowerbeds. It doesn't seem to ever really get dark here. DId you see that movie White Nights with Baryshnikov and gregory hines? You get the idea. This has made it very hard for me to re-adjust my already screwed up sleeping pattern. It kind of gets dark around 10-11 p.m. I have been falling asleep around 4-5 a.m. and by 4-5 the suns back up. I'm in St. Petersburg now. Forgive my ramble I was on a train all night and am trying to stay up all day and get it together. Moscow was impressive to say the least. Walking around the Kremlin area, whoa, fear through city planning. My highlight for sure was my first nights dinner at Cafe Pushkin and my visit to the state museum Tetrykov gallery. It's filled with really interesting, yes interesting 17th. century Russian painting. Many of these guys had a really handle on the decisive moment idea of photography. The genre scenes are far from posed and static but feel lifted from photographs directly. I can't figure on how they painted these complex scenes from memory. I'm liking St Pete's more already. my hotel Sovetskaya is a lot more my speed. I spent a fortune at the Metropol. This place is very sparse complete with oddly positioned mauve couches, really bad fountains and, a general surplus of wasted space. The place is huge. I need a bigwheel. My room is kind of like a prison cell. The bed belongs in a LES tenement circa 1888. I love it. I do have a great big window that looks out over a canal. I walked a few miles today to the Hermitage. My St. Pete's guidebook has this to say. " there are museums, there are great museums and, there is the Hermitage. It's pretty amazing. Imagine if you delivered the Louvre a fatal dose of LSD, steroids, birthday cake and, Bernini. It's madness and, It never ends AND, it's filled with really old tourists following pom poms or the popular fresh red daisy. The whole place is a really rough around the edges. An army of  scruffy stray cats are poised to take over. It's surrounded by dozens of cats. They lazily guard the place occasionally a fight breaks out with a band of stray pigeons. I arrived early enough to race to the top floors and find myself virtually alone for a hour or so. It was very spooky up there. Many of the exhibits are incomplete, empty cases, unlit rooms. The place is very understaffed. I  actually saw a woman stroke a Van Gogh???? Crazy. Strange mix as well. They have a current show up of DeKooning late work. I'm still sorting this place out. The first few days of these trips is trying. One of the hardest things is definitely the language barrier. I really should have gotten a handle on the Cyrillic alphabet and stuck with those language tapes. It gets lonely in Russia with no one to talk to. I'm really looking forward to my time in Siberia and Lake Baikal. Oh, the trains are very nice. I had a great ride last night, even without sleep. And, for those of you wondering...the women are VERY attractive but, not very friendly so far. I will say this, I must have mastered my swagger. I've not been asked for my papers once and have been spoken to in Russian many times. Do I look Russian to you?             dylan

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