Two Cafes along Nevskiy

Two Cafes

Firstly not far from Gostiny Dvor I stop into a Konditerskoe, Sever. Something along the line of a tea-room without the doilies and pots of milk. If  only I wasn't sensitive to cream. This place is very sweet and cremeux and extremely Nevskiy; pearly white walls and ceilings  are asunctous as the condiments around. My pink dress harmonises perfectly and especially my pink hand-bag with nine pink flowers blooming from it.

Opposite my table, a mother and daughter share  cakes, a cup of desert and a pot of tea quietly and seriously, as if this  was a ritual or a chore. Not an excuse for conversation. An old couple sit at my table and again they are very calm and quiet. I 'm quite lost in the banter of War and Peace.

I walk down Nevskiy and make a small  but most significant left to Pirozhee where's there's a selection of pies and dairy based food. The sign is red and yellow rather than polar white, marking it as a cheap and cheerful place; although in Russia that is rare. In fact, it's more cheap and mildly sour-faced.(Incidentally, I learnt from my English text book that these colours induce hunger whcih is why they are used my so many places encouraging the super-size meal rather than degustation. This is just one of the many incidental facts that cling to the consciousness of ESL teachers).

Opposite, what a hauty little lady admist the down at the heel muddy brown and beige and grey faux marble decor  of the Pie cafe, sittting below a chinese vase full of lilies(the only beautiful thing in the room) which seem to emerge from her hair like an ornament.Adolescent and shining with long blond hair and a florally embroidered coat. Her babushka sits matt next to her in a raincoat almost the same non-red as the tables.

A contrast from the beauty of Sever. There was the perfect place to read Tolstoy; every surface and conversational lilt was cremeux and amiable. The drawing rooms and carriages fitted perfectly well into those enamelled surfaces. The cinnamon and pumpkin soup I was supping was the perfect dish to sample from the menu of a society dinner.

Here, with my sirniki(curd cheese pattacakes), the yellowed pages of the book look dirtied  and disparaged by the tasteless table. Perhaps the faux-marble is supposed to be luxurious or mayorial. Are the walls purposefully the same colour as the metro building?

Just now the babushka has started selling yellow flowers outside the lily window so that now there are three layers of flowers, with the coquettish embroidered coat at the forefront. The layers of a nineteenth century painting.

To the right are cows buttocks. Images of farms where all this curd cheese and cream and condensed milk are supposed to come from in a wholesome and  rurally photogenic way. A boldly printed poster of a cow being milked in no way convinces that these products are hearty and honest and whole. The inherit poverty of the processed white flour negates such a possibility.