Boot pockets: Make the most out of your footwear!

So, I have officially been in Russia one month, an anniversary I shall celebrate by departing some deeply studied and researched reflections on Russian culture.  I mention in my last entry, all those days ago, that I would disclose my thoughts on fashion in Russia, or, more specifically, fashion in St. Petersburg, and I shall not disappoint.

We must remember that Russia could, excluding the last ten years or so, be always (in my opinion) be defined as a deprivation culture.  As I’ve already explained, having to wait for things is critical to the cultural mindset.  Immediate satisfaction did not exist, and the American “I want this and I want it now,” philosophy would have appeared absolutely ridiculous and unsustainable within a culture where first there was NO food in stores, and then there was LOTS of food in stores that no one could buy because of gross inflation.  After the collapse of the USSR, there was a cultural backlash that manifested itself in the form of the satiation of random, immediate, often materialistic desires.  Prostitution and narcotics were rampant, and the weak-kneed police force maintained little control.  The opening sequence to the film Window to Paris shows a man jumping on a trampoline in the middle of the street, while a full-sized band roams about, with dancing babushkas in toe.  You get the idea.  I’ll do what I want when I want.

While perestroika and the collapse of the USSR are buried in the recent past, materialistic fascination still exists, and is particularly evident in the fashion world.  According to people I’ve spoken with, GAUD has calmed down since the 90’s, and having huge rings on each finger is no a popular a fashion phenomenon amongst the Novie Russki (the Newly Rich), thank god.  Now a disclaimer is required to explain that as a long-time resident of Happy Valley Western MA, I am unqualified to speak about fashion.  I have never lived in a city, and thus living in St. Petersburg is not only my first experience with Russia culture, but with city culture, and thus it is hard for me to distinguish what is a metropolitan phenomenon, and what is a distinctly Russian phenomenon.  Fashion, I believe, is the bastard child of both.

St. Petersburg is ridiculously well dressed.  Painfully so, and I mean that literally.  Most women sixteen and older are wearing high (HIGH) heels, often high heeled boots.  The result of living in a city populated with over five million is that every day I see many examples of shoes I would love to have, and other shoes that tempt me to gouge out my eyes in Oedipus-like despair (though, thankfully not for the same reasons.  I don’t think Oedipus’ kingdom was in the midst of a fashion crisis, but who knows).  For instance, literally sat on a bus for a half an hour in a state of utter stupor, transfixed by the fact that the girl sitting across from me was wearing calf-length, plastic black boots, studded with rhinestones, with four inch heels, and, horror of horrors, enormous POCKETS with BUCKLES on the sides.  And when I say pocket, I mean ordinary sized pockets, like the ones you find in your jeans.  Almost as bad was her huge red, fake (hopefully) snakeskin bag, also covered in inappropriately placed pockets and metal bobbles and studs.

Such is the St. Petersburg tendency.  Bags and shoes are the most obvious displays of wealth and fashion, often covered in studs, rhinestones, buckles, and the like.  I’ve also seen a few rhinestone covered cell-phones—quite fab.  Jeans are very tight, skirts and dress are very short.  Hair is fixed up very nicely, and makeup and nails are done very well each day.  What I find most impressive about the entire situation is that women are able to maintain their composed, gorgeous appearances throughout a day of hopping on metros and marshutkas, walking miles along REMONT filled streets, and standing in escalators, elevators, and stair wells.  By the end of the day I always look like I’m back from Mongolian conquest.

As for the men of St. Petersburg, they do not escape to high maintenance fashion culture.  Leather is big, as are fancy designer jeans, ridiculously printed designer sweatshirts and hoodies, and nice dress shoes.  No t-shirts or khakis, and, god forbid, no shorts (although there’s obviously a weather issue that comes up when wearing shorts as well).  Women are big on the leather too, and everywhere there are advertisements for FURS AND SKINS, or FURZZZ AND SKINZZZZ, if you so prefer.  To each his own, I suppose.

And how does poor little Cathy react to the fancy St. Petersburg get up?  Well, I couldn’t compete if I tried, and all my attempts are half-hearted, if they can be considered attempts at all.  Clothes here are EXPENSIVE, and thus buying things is virtually an impossibility in my case.  Obviously my jeans are not very tight, and I may be the only person at any given time wearing corduroys in Russia.  Nonetheless I feel that there is a personal safety risk involved if I was ever to don high heels, particularly with snow and ice right around the corner (yes, the calls of fashion persist into the winter months).  I can barely keep my balance on a bus in my L.L. Bean light hiking boots, so forget about dress shoes.  I’m also more comfortable carrying a crappy bag and old briefcase around the city to decrease my chances of being mugged, even if the decrease my scene points in fashion circles.  The only place I every really feel uncomfortable and underdressed (or overdressed, in the sense of too much clothes) is at the gym.  Gyms are generally for the wealthier crop of city residents, and it’s certainly evident at my FITNESS CLUB, which always has a very judgmental, critical, and passive aggressive locker room environment.  Nonetheless, I will do anything for free access to clean, cold drinking water and a SAUNA, and the cold stares of women with the latest waxings and gold, gaudy gym suits is worth it.  I can run faster than them anyway.

Reminded of “Requiem,” but not quite as poetic.

September 2nd:  a discourse on two typical Russian phenomena, which are not mutually exclusive—namely, waiting, and standing in lines.

To put it bluntly, I had the most awful day.  Yesterday, September 1st, was a holiday—The First Day of School, on which all the school children and students don their finest, that being enormous bows, cute jumpers, and mini tuxes for the little ones, and fish nets and leather for the older ones. Old women selling flowers stood outside every metro station, surrounded by (surprise, surprise, enormous LINES).  In the morning, everyone under the age of 21 is carrying at least one bouquet, a gift to their teacher/professor, and in the evening, instructors can be identified by the dozen of bouquets that they are struggling to keep hold of on the metro.  It’s a festive holiday, and, of course, although it’s specific purpose is to celebrate the BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR, many students and teachers skip class.

Unfortunately, this extends beyond September 1st into the beginning to the month.  My class yesterday was cancelled, and I was able to go home early.  Today, I had two classes (six bloody hours) of Russian Art History that I was planning to attend.  First class:  waited for an hour, no one shows.  Apparently no class.  As a result, I had four and a half hours to kill, so I got myself a migraine and didn’t get anything done.  By now I am skeptical, tired, and want to go home.  Go to classroom two, students have gathered and my hopes rise, but alas, after another hour of waiting people start leaving, giving up on our no-show of a professor.

It’s culturally accepted that professors don’t have to show up to class, especially in the first week, and even more common for students to not show up at all, ever.  Nevertheless, I found it exhausting and discouraging; an entire day I could have spent out doing something interesting in the city (the whether was uncommonly gorgeous) or getting a little bit of work done (prohibited by onset of migraine) wasted.
In a depressed, tired state, I dragged myself back to the metro station at rush hour, and observed gloomily the flood of people crowded outside the three entrances.  I joined the crowd, and proceeded to wait, for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

As I stood in the crowd, breathing down the neck of a leather clad teen, and a Babushka shoved against my back, I suddenly recalled Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, in which she describes waiting in line, day after day, with hundreds of other women, for a chance to give notes and small gifts to security guards at the prison for their sons and husbands, contained as political prisoners.  Talk about waiting on disappointment.  Talk about a waste of time, discouragement, and exhaustion.  I thought about the former bread and ration lines—disregarding personal space to receive mere scraps of food.  Waiting has always been a part of Russian culture—this doesn’t make it less tiresome or disappointing when the results are negative or worthless, but it does make one accept them, and live to wait another day, hoping that eventually you’ll be rewarded.
Time moves slowly—part of this is just city life, and part of it is Russia.  Granted I walked and took buses a lot at home in MA, more than most people, but my awareness of the process of going somewhere seems stronger here.  The blocks in St. Petersburg are LONG, and the subways, due to the marshy ground, are DEEP.  While the subway ride itself is only five minutes, it takes five minutes to get down one escalator one, and five minutes to get up another.  As I go up, I stare at people, and they stare at me.  If you don’t have anyone to talk to/mack on, staring is the thing to do.  That’s one thing I love about Russia.  None of that confusing “who do I smile at or acknowledge of the streets, and when do I start smiling.”  Here you just don’t smile, eliminating that very confusing and uncomfortable social phenomenon that we experience in the states, and staring, hey, it’s no big deal, what else are you going to do while you’re waiting in line?

Line multitasking is also very popular.  Often, the woman in front of me in the line for the cashier at the supermarket will tell me “remember me, I’ll be back in a minute,” which essentially means that she’s going to start doing her shopping, and she’ll be back with her purchases when I’m about to reach the cashier.  She probably has also reserved places in all the rest of the lines (if there are any, despite the number of cashier stations often only one or two are open), and, when she’s done shopping, she’ll go taker her place in the line that’s moving fastest.

I’ve never been a very efficient person, but I like to have a rhythm.  Right now, unexpected disappointments and fruitless waits are throwing me off, but I expect that as time passes, these will simply become part of, to quote that wonderful middle school chorus song, THE RHYTHM OF LIFE (puts a tingle in your fingers and a tingle in your feet, oh the rhythm of life is a powerful beat).

That’s all for now, but I plan next to discuss the fascinating subject that is RUSSIAN FASHION (aka, the unfortunate prevalence of the MULLET and knee high stiletto boots—reasons why Cathy is automatically identified as an American on the streets) and perhaps divulge the super exciting tale of “How 300 old women saved Cathy from being crushed by a bus door.”