Winters
in St Petersburg are long and cold. I’m used to them by now; it’s my fourth
year here. I know all the signs of oncoming winter but it still takes me by
surprise. Almost as if I didn’t notice nights getting colder, mornings being
darker and evenings shutting their windows to the night earlier and earlier
each day.
The sun is high and strong and the walk
proves to be very enjoyable despite the cold. Snow is almost gone from the
pavements and streets but still sits on the roofs and grass. I walk past the
families with over energetic kids who don’t seem to feel the cold. Even pigeons
are going about their daily business as if they weren’t too bothered by it.
I’ve been walking for a good twenty minutes and I need to warm up. I head to my
usual place. It’s a cafe opposite to Kunstkamera museum. It’s not very
adventurous but I really like its cosiness. I often come here during my breaks
between lectures. It reminds me of Paris. When I come here alone I sit by the
window and watch the people walking by. I like watching people when they are at
their most natural. After all, people are my ‘speciality’. I’m an
anthropologist. Yet, I’m a loner; I don’t like human contact in everyday life.
I’m
walking into ‘my’ cafe. The waiter knows me and asks if I’ll be sitting alone
today. When I nod to confirm, he takes me straight to my window table; the best
spot for “people watching” on this side of Kunstkamera. I move my chair from
its original place and situate it in the position in which I have my back on
the cafe and am facing the window. I take out notepad and writing paper from my
waistcoat pocket and put them on the table. Then I search through my pockets
for the pen. After a short moment of panic I finally find it and place it next
to the paper. When I’m all settled, I sit and stare at the street. Sometimes
passersby notice me, some turn their eyes immediately and walk off, others get
shy or embarrassed; there are also people who stare back as if they want to
challenge me in some staring game. In those cases I play the game for a moment
or two and if they don’t give up first, turn away slowly as if it was boring
me. Last summer a couple of young kids, maybe five or six years old, managed to
get me involved in a face pulling competition. Till this day I don’t know who
won because their parents called them away. I watched the family together and
became very jealous. I wanted to be six years old again and hold my mum by the
hand. Seeing the kids with their parents reminded me of myself at that age.
Suddenly, I remembered that sunny Saturday afternoon when my mum was dusting
the shelves; and the black box with the coins inside. It looked pretty, very interesting. I went
over to the table and tried to open it. The lid came off easily. I looked
inside and found something I hadn’t seen before. The box was full of round
metal things that looked like money but were different.
‘Mummy, what’s this?’ I asked.
Mum
put the cloth down and came over to the table. She took one round thing and
looked at it for a moment.
‘What is it?’ I asked again impatiently.
‘They are coins.’
‘But they look different’, I was
puzzled. She stroked my hair and smiled.
‘Yes, they are different because they
are old coins and they come from many different countries’.
She
took a handful out and spread them on the table. They had different shapes,
colours and sizes. The sun shone on the table and all the coins, some of them
really sparkled and I had to squint. I chose a big silver coin with a head of a
man with some leaves on his head.
‘Which country is this one from?’
‘This one is from Rome.’
‘And this one?’ I picked another silver
coin but slightly smaller, ‘Where is this one from?’ Mum took it in her hand
and turned it over couple of times.
‘This one is from Russia.’
‘Ooo’, I stretched out my hand to take
it from her, ‘from Russia’
Mum
gave the coin back to me. I held it with adoration.
‘From Russia!’ I repeated. Mum laughed
and stroked my hair.
It
was then that I decided that I wanted to know more about people from different
countries and that I wanted to visit Russia.
