one night in

The most beautiful day.


Crowded streets of St.Petersburg in the late-summer heat. A ride on an old scooter, the breeze on your face is hot and dry, like if you were somewhere in the Middle East. Babushkas selling watermelons and stockings, street dogs laying in the shades, empty beer bottles everywhere, and girls on high heels, Russian girls with their curls and red lips, it all runs in front of your eyes like a fast film, over-exposed. Sunrays, bare skin, the heavy hot air hovering above all. Hold me tight, he says, and so I do.
Capturing these streets, this air, these skins, with old-school cameras and plaid shirts, like proper eastern hipsters, you are laughing with exitement and exhaustion.
An afternoon break with fresh mint tea. Middle and north east more and more mixed up. Shisha pipes, beetroot salad, women with their flowered scarfs, in the city of gold and rust.
In the park there is a man with his guitar, he plays two more songs just for us. An artist, he says, and then we stop an old Russian lady on her evening stroll, a real lady with a long dress and a white hat, first she wants to ignore us but then she stops, she stops and she smiles. You are so young, so young, she laughs, and she feels herself young too, after 20 years of feeling old.

Tell me about the change, I ask as we are following the river and eating our last food. We talk until there is no reason to talk more, and then we drive to the sea. It's past midnight already, but the sea is there and the air is still hot, this strange hot air together with the familiar smell of the Baltic sea, my sea. It's all like a strange dream, dogs running on water, everything blue and blurry, we sit on a tree trunk, silent. There is a temple, and the hare krishnas are still awake, they invite us in and we laugh together with them in the blurry night. Russian disco music on the backround, faraway dreams from faraway beaches, people searching for people and inside these walls people searching for the divine
We drive back to the city in silence. Drunken strangers guiding our way. Police cars, opening bridges, white nights become blue nights and finally all-day darkness, in this city of gold and rust.

I sleep.