Saying Goodbye to Svetochka

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Svetochka. [2 kb]

Saying goodbye

We got back to Saint Petersburg from Valaam on July 26, just a day before I was to leave again for America. The horror of that thought— of going away from moya Svetochka for some undetermined period of time— was just beginning to sink in.
It was one final day for seeing everything I had not yet seen in Saint Petersburg. There was very much that I had not seen. But the one thing that Sveta thought was most important for me to go to with her was this: the chapel of Kseniya Blazhennaya.
The chapel of Kseniya Blazhennaya is in an ancient graveyard at the end of the metro line on Vasilyevskiy Island, out near the Gulf of Finland. It is where Sveta went once last winter to light a candle, to pray that the blessed mother would bring love into her life. She was thankful to Kseniya Blazhennaya for bringing her me. And I was thankful too.
We lit candles inside, and outside we walked around the chapel three times and put our foreheads against the wall. The photo to the right is a plaque outside the chapel, with flowers and worshippers.
I have never been religious — but yes: the universe deserves great thanks for bringing us this love.

It was already getting late by the time we got back to Nevskiy Prospekt. And it was a little chilly, as well; you can see that Sveta has adopted my faithful REI vest.
We took these photos outside the famous Kazanskiy Cathedral, which has a design some people have called brilliant and others have called hideous. (It is modeled on Saint Peter's in Rome, and anchored to Nevskiy Prospekt by means of the semicircular colonnade you can see here.) Whatever its architectural merits, it is an inescapable part of Nevskiy Prospekt.
Across the avenue from it, there is a statue of Nikolai Gogol, author of Nevskiy Prospekt — of which Sveta presented me a dual-language edition when I first arrived in Saint Petersburg. "Nyet nichevo luchshe Nevskovo prospekta, po krayney merye v Peterburgye," it begins. "Nothing could be finer than Nevskiy Prospekt, at least not in Saint Petersburg."

And then Svetlana rushed us to the theatre — the famous Mariinskiy Teatr, where the ballet "Bakhchisarayskiiy Fontan" was being presented. We got there late, and during the first act had to stand at the back of the very top balcony — from where I snapped this photo.

For the remaining acts we went down to our seats on the third row, center, of the orchestra. Around us were people in tuxedos, rich-looking people— those in our immediate vicinity seemed to be american doctors or lawyers, people with every hair in place, people believing themselves to be the rulers of the universe.
Tom. [7 kb]

Sveta and I were still in the clothes we had been wearing in Valaam and all day in Saint Petersburg. But still Sveta had the look of a great lady.
"Bakhchisarayskiiy Fontan" is from a short poem Pushkin wrote in 1824 or so. Pushkin—who was practically the founder of russian literature— is a great hero in Saint Petersburg, where he died in 1837, at 38, after a duel to defend his wife's honor. Svetlana gave me a couple of books of his poetry, and she read some of his poems to me, in an exquisitely feeling voice, while we were on the train to Chelyabinsk. In Saint Petersburg she pointed out to me the house he died in.

We got out of the theatre around ten at night and walked over to the Saint Nicholas cathedral, which Sveta wanted me to see. Nearby she pointed out the health club where she works out with her trainer, Galina.
Sveta. [15 kb]

. . . And finally back to her little apartment in the western suburbs, where at one in the morning we ate a delicious soup she made from mushrooms she'd collected at Valaam.

And then, the next day — goodbye. I could not speak, could hardly look at her.
We both believed we would be together sometime in the future.
But when? When?

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