Wagner, Tristan und Isolde at the Marinsky Concert Hall

A concert-hall performance , without stage action in the bare environment of a modern concert hall, Homegenous wooden walls in relief, the sort of insipid memorial hall decor which neither offends nor inspires no-one. Even the people who are dressed smartly lack 'eclat' in this flat setting, because it is an Opera but not the Opera.and therein is a great difference. The seating besides gives no encouragement to the great sport of people-watching. So the atmosphere is altogether more academic than the Marinsky prorpre.

Isole was a died blonde prima-donna, appearing in a long Operatic black dress, blood-red for the secind act and black widow lace for the third. She acted nonetheless, with prima donna guestures.

Tooalyetee

Russian toilets are epitomised by a Belorussian friend’s statements ‘Toilets are just for getting what’s needed done as quickly as possible.’ I’d noticed the lack of luxury and architectural importance placed on toilets. This very friend, in a spacious flat with  plenty of extra unalloted space has a closet-like toilet, where there is barely space to fit in; windowless, jammed between the door and the coat rack. It shares its’ space with a cupboard of household miscellany. Clearly, the architect when designing the layout of the flat thought something along the lines of, ‘We’ll stuff the toilet out of the way by the door  in the minimum space possible and leave all the interesting space for other rooms‘. No big windows, no fluffy mats, no coquettish or trashy toilet paper holders.,no decorated tiles , no fresh air or light. A space dedicated to the over-and-done-with-ity. The English pink fluffy towel attitude goes more for the position of ’ its necessary so it may as well be made as pleasant and fluffy and disguised as possible.’

I realise some of this comes from the habitual separation of bathroom and toilet, a practical thing in these flats where there’s often a whole family or two. Wheareas in England toilet often shares  the more respectable bathroom space,

I walked into the grandeur of the Belorussian Opera - not as luxurious as some more important Opera houses, but still leaning towards a certain degree of magnificence - and was glamorously preparing to lament with the princes and princesses of a Tchaikovsky ballet when I discovered hole-in-floor-toilets. Reminiscent of roadway toilets in provincial France. There they were in the heart of ornamental civilisation and all these Opera-goers in their elegant tailor-cut dresses and smart suits go to the toilet in the same way as a Provincial French peasant or workman.

A similar shock was encountered on the Electrisichka St-Petersburg - Viborg, a two hour thirty minute journey. After my satisfactory experience of long distance trains, I was quite prepared for the journey, and I drank a teapot’s worth before getting on the train. ‘I brought a face mask with me., ‘ I imparted to my travelling companion. ‘Where will you wash it off?’. In the toilet basin , of course. ‘What toilet basin? ‘You must be joking. There’s no toilet on Electrishika.’ ‘No toilet at all?’ So I didn’t need the mint teabags I packed either. I asked the train official, just to double check and she laughed.

Now this is generalisation, and there are some interesting toilets with concessions to kitsch if not to light, air, space and windows. One toilet in a restaurant, off Nevskiy, has a  toilet with mirrors on every surface but the floor. The kind of toilet you should go to just to visit.

White Cats in Petersburg (Free-writing)

Who embroidered the chair and where? Some say it was made of Russian hair sold by the gremlins born in the Kremlin and those ind, decent Russian markets. Others suggested and expounded that the red roving carpet, winding like the Neva in islands from balcony to grand staircase between the tables, bookcases and pedestals was dyed with the blood of a thousand bears  Others that the colour is from cranberries collected at gloaming by witches (your average babushkas).

Aloysha likes to stroke the hair because it was filched from beautiful girls. Their halo of  silken femininity castrated by their poverty. Other times he hates the chair and spits on it because the hair came from the poor; beggars, prostitutes, the wayward and more. As his mother and grandmother before told him, the poor are only paying for their sins (when committed who’s to know; in the space between conception and birth?) or was it their father’s sins and fathers sins. Something like that.

Then Alyosha wonders that his father was not considered sinful . Clearly, since Alyosha lives in such a lovely  grand mansion. (Expansion of space. You know you are a lucky race. Though limited here to those 49 Islands. What’s to fear from spreading out - there’s land out there  though no-one wants to live with the bears, or what would we wear?).

The carpet worn threadbare and fire burning secretly, in a neglected corner. The chandeliers silent, no longer singing a blazing song, only a discoloured hum. Each candle in disharmony with the others, latent with memories reposing uncomfortable  in the far-away forgotten night. These candles spoke and caressed  each other with their flames every day  for a century or more and have nothing more to say, have exhausted all topics and avenues of affection. Alyosha the boy stares at them sometimes and traces his finger around their baroque curves, blows air kisses to an angel. The chandelier is indifferent and cold, because he is the 100th , the 1000th, the 100,000 boy to pass under their candles and they are all alike..

Alyosha takes the white cat in his hands and strokes it, ‘How many lives have you had, my dear?’ How many lifes, kitty.’ The cat remains mute and still as china, so ungrateful it doesn’t even deign to purr. Furious, Aloysha grabs the decorative sabre from the wall and smashes it against the cat so that it splinters into myriad pieces, spilling dry white blood, white intestines over the carpet.

Misha, Alyosha’s own white cat, Alyosha’s darling jumps down from the fire ledge and begins to lick the sugar, . She is not made of clay and her tongue winds precariously around the sharphostile edges of  her china cousin's corpse.

She slits it on a sharp corners and and yowls just as Alyosha scoops her up. Seeing the blood drops Alyosha holds her tight in one arm and ruffles through the draws for sellotape or a plaster to bind the grazed tongue. There is only miscellany, letters,  old kopecks and combs, a pack of cards, a ball of wool. White Cat wriggles from his hand. Soon she has disappeared into the corridor and is yowling in the dark.

Alyosha walks back and forth and almost cuts his foot on the china. A pertinent revenge, it would have been. He only wanted to destroy the cold china cat and not harm his Misha, his dear white kitty.

A plaintive mewing rises up from the carpet , like the last whisps of smoke from a dying fire and for a moment Alyosha thinks it is  the shattered china  calling to him. He stares in horror and frantically begins looking for a dustpan and brush  in the caretakers cupboard. He can’t find it there and what is it called anyway?He’d never used one.  Amongst the high shelves  all he finds is a broom taller than himself and in the corner yellowed sheets of a newspaper. He pays no attention to the date inconspicuous in the corner which showed the paper was from 1789 (and that date - what did it mean to him , just a few granny’s grannies ago where perfumes were even stronger and food even more insipid).

 and vroom vroom vroom plops the cat shards in the paper and into the bin amongst sweet wrappers and orange peel. He still hears  a faint mewing and in horror takes the bag and throws it from the balcony into the garden below. The remnants spread out and some of the china fragments fall into the lake.

Night Trains

The Russian trains felt further from European culture than I've been since seeing Petersburg and I felt elation draggin my suitcase through the grand staircases suggesting a previous century of elegant travel, towards the bulky soviet trains.

The trian was decorated with icicles, some filthy black.

'Well, it seems you got the best seat,' says my friend.sarcastically as she deposes me safely to my alloted number. I worry when I see I have a single seat and small table for my 10 hour nocturnal jouney. Fortunately, the whoel structure cleverly folds out into a bed. The problem isI've got on a side bunk near the door to the toilets

. The 'Platskart' has rows of  cosy double bunks pointing to these exposed side bunks, adjacent to the window. The family near is

I’m considering venturing beyond the mysterious train doors, identical tohose gritty grey cantene-style kitchen worktop, to sea whats behind them. Perhaps it won’t be the den of inequity  I imagine - a long pub style interior, chestnut brown and worn reds - with a small buffet, stench of testosterone and cheap tobacco, gravely voices discussing women - and the women they discuss are at once objects and godesses. - and football. Or perhaps they don’t talk in there - maybe it is the metro over again - but sit and stare at the floor and chain smoke.

An image evoked by the slovenly male arms opening the doors before disappearing with a clear click, again and again. So often, that it seems like a revolving doors. They dissapear for a long time.

--

After the noise has died down and most people and in bed, I look in. Behind the  doors - a small rectangular space, a man crouched on the floor smoking..Kitchen worktop on every side. Colourless flat.That’s all.

From the train at night disparate bestial sounds - it is a cacophony, a primitive music. It seems the people have been possessed by the small furry animals they wear; purring in some corners, mewing on others.. Then desparate smokers coughs, reptilian. These Russian trains are an excellent advertisement for non-smoking.

Return Journey

On the train again; fourth long distance train journey in five days. This train has significantly less smokers. No heavy coughing and constantly agitated doors.

I can see feet from every angle. Some feet stick out from under the cover, bare. Others are mummified in the covers.

This whole train thing is very un-English. Designed for a country of hundreds of millions, of proletariat and freezing cold exteriors. Privacy is not something included with Platskart; women sleep adjacent to men. A group of rough men are opposite me today. The sort of unpolished masculinity which spits out like fat from a roasting spit, burning and staining your clothes.

I’m in leggings and a black studded gothic top, a I feel very aware that this is a  kinky sort of get up. Yet I don’t in reality feel threatened. There is the unsettling bit here  reassuring dress that however saucily, teasingly you dress no-one is looking. You are probably the hundreth saucily dressed girl they've seen today. This open place with the strict train stewardess is not an environement to feel threatened in. In the morning she reprimands  the strong bulky young man who fell asleep, beer in hand, on the bench without putting down any bedding. ‘Kak spal!’ . ‘He slept like that.’ Tut tut. She is a matron and these grown up  unshaven men are naughty school-children to her.