St. Petersburg

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Goodbye St. Petersburg, Goodbye Russia

We’re wrapping up our time here in St. Petersburg.  It’s hard to believe that the girls and I fly out this Wednesday, June 29th.  We fly Petersburg to Moscow and then have a direct flight all the way to New York.  I’ll let you know how I feel about that when it’s over.  David will join us a bit later on July 10th. 

I actually considered breaking out our down jackets one cold day last week, but then I realized that the flurry of white outside our 8th storey apartment was not snow at all but rather an abundance of cottonwood seeds let loose from the trees below us.  It was cold, though, but not down-jacket cold luckily.  It’s still amazingly cool very often, but we have had plenty of sun and warmth to go with it.  Now, we have sunlight outside until well past 12am and an eerie dawn-like lighting for the rest of the night.  Our Russian neighbors really know how to enjoy the “White Nights” of Petersburg.  We see people sitting outside talking and eating ice cream cones, exercising, and even one lady dowsing herself with buckets of water at all hours of the night.  It’s as if people are using these extra hours of light to make up for lost time due to those long dark winters. 

Our friend from California came out to visit us for a week in late May.  The weather cooperated and we had a great time with him seeing many of the sights of Petersburg.  The girls now consider Jared as part of our family and call our living room, “Jared’s room.”  The other day we were discussing the fact that David has to have a job to make money so that we can live and Hazel came up with a plan to help us out.  “Well,” she said very earnestly, “Jared works.”  And she looked at me in a way that suggested I should start planning a string of Fijian vacations right then and there.  So, Jared, are you in?  It’s always great having visitors, though, not only for the taste of home you get when they are there, but also because you experience the city in a new way when you have someone to show it to.

Russia has been our home for these past ten months and it is difficult, now, to say goodbye.  A friend recently reminded me that transitions are always hard, even when they lead you home.  And I suspect this will be true for us even as we head home.  I suspect that we don’t even know yet all the ways our experience in Russia has changed us and formed us, all of us.  It has been an incredible blessing to have lived here though.  God has provided for us and we have had a good experience here.  David has had a very successful research year and will begin organizing and writing his dissertation this summer.  Gretchen is currently trying to eat as many sardines as she can hold now that we are leaving.  Yes, we can get them in the US, but it just won’t be the same.  They won’t be Russian sardines, bought on your way home from the metro and carried lovingly and carefully all the way home with stop-offs in the communal playgrounds along the way.  And Hazel also looks forward to getting home.  But often when she speaks of leaving, in the very same breath she remembers that it may be a long time before she sees friends here again.  I can almost see her little heart torn two ways.  And I, too, look forward to resuming “normal” life, but I know that it will be jarring that first trip to Costco or that long walk through the cereal aisle back home.

Already, David and I are plotting the demise of our kitchen and all its gadgetry back home.  We’ve lived in St. Petersburg for three months with a total of four forks and a handful of spoons and haven’t ever needed an extra utensil, not once, even with guests.  So we’re heading home.  And we’re bringing Russia with us.      

Porvoo, Finland

Winter Photos

October pictures

September Pictures