The buildings in St. Petersburg centre ache with history. Churches, with blood in their names, ooze against gravity. Palaces groan under the weight of the past, tourism and spluttering fumes. Statues, bridges, shop fronts, metro stations, obelisks submit under barrages of photo taking, and the more and more stories piled into them. Places which have seen monks get slaughtered, political smirks kill hundreds, princesses raped silently, fathers removed in seconds by bread vans now sit redundant. They are all fossils.
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Outside this grandiloquent ring, concrete spreads like a vicious bacterium. No thought for beauty or history – ninety five percent of the city is a testament to utility. Never-ending crawls and streams of tarmac banked by identical mottled grey. Flying into St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport you see how the city extends its dirty-cement, crystalline architecture. Gradually the indiscreet mesh of buildings grows larger and larger until you’re in it all – an atom lost in the maze.
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Pyotr and his mother stand in front of the tram tracks waiting as the heavy clicks drum to a stop.
‘Why are we getting a tram?’
‘We’re not going to your usual shops mum.’
‘That’s fine son – where are we going?’
‘I’m taking you to a new spot. Lots of good stuff there. I can’t be doing with all this idiot queuing to buy a crap piece of meat.’
‘Sorry Pyotr. I always go to that shop though. I won’t know what I’m buying anywhere else.’
‘Nor will I mum. Not really. That’s the fucking beauty of it, isn’t it? That butcher’s shop you buy your pork at. It’s too bloody honest for my liking. What you see is what you get. No lies, no packaging – just a piece of fucking dead pig laid out for you. I want some vacuum-packed fillets and some sauces you’ve never heard of.’
‘That’s fine with me then son.’
‘It’ll have to be mum. I paying, but I’m not paying for food from an old woman’s favourite shop.’
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This supermarket is a building the size of an aircraft hanger with a yellow badge of light beaming from it. It even has a name – not some shop with its purpose etched on the outside – ‘bread’, ‘meat’, ‘alcohol’. This place is called ‘Ribbon Mart’. People walk in the electronic doors without slowing their pace – trusting them to slide open.
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‘Here we are mum. Let’s get inside. You’re pushing the trolley.’
‘I don’t usually use a trolley. Is it a difficult thing?’
‘It’s a piece of piss mum. A fucking monkey could do it. Oh shit! Just a second.’
Pyotr moves to the side of the sliding doors, clasps his hands either side of a glass corner. He lets out a pained roar and black liquid sprays from mouth. It’s all done in a second.
‘Fuck me! That fucker rasps!’
‘My Pyotr! What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’m fine – it just happens sometimes. It’s nothing mum. Let’s get shopping.’
‘We can’t go here now. We have to go home. Get you away from here. Get you to a doctor.’
‘No, we’re going shopping right fucking now!’
‘Pyotr – please let’s go home.’
‘Get your fucking arse in this supermarket right now and get a fucking trolley. I’ve got the money – I’m doing the deciding!’
‘Alright Pyotr. I’m sorry, but…’
‘Okay, okay – I’ll see a doctor for sure.’
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Her tears well gently again – another flavour. He glances at her and wipes his chin.
‘Come on. We need pork, remember?’
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