February's long good-bye

The shortest month of the year nearly burst its seams. It began with preparations for an interview with Juhani Pallasmaa focused on Lewerentz that will be published later this year. The result exceeded my most optimistic expectations and now the task of transcribing over 2 ½ hours of audio awaits. Paper deadlines followed, pushed forward by my family’s arrival here in Helsinki. My sister had barely been here a day when as bad timing would have it, we happened into a large multi-story shopping center just minutes after a middle aged man had jumped to his death. A rather inauspicious, not to mention morbid and disturbing start to her vacation. My brother and his wife arrived that same evening and after a day of seeing Helsinki we all piled into a train bound for Russia.

I watched Viipuri run out through the window and after a long stretch of forest we emerged on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Everything was huge. Giant apartment blocks, wide streets, big skies and hundreds of filthy little cars. From Finland Station we walked across the Neva. It was as wide as the Columbia and frozen solid. 18^th and 19^th Century buildings lined the banks in various states of grandeur and colorful disrepair. Canals cut through the southern part of the city making it into a caricature of Venice inhabited by stinking automobiles and filled with noise. Every block had a little booth, sometimes sturdy other times cobbled together, from which someone kept an eye on the street. Suspicion lingered in the frozen exhaust infused air. Crumbling courtyards overflowed with piles of dirty snow and twisted and rusty debris. Uniformed men filled the sidewalks and alleyways. Around a final corner a plaza that could hold a half dozen Place de la Concordes opened up, the beautiful and strangely green Hermitage on one side and an endless arching yellow building on the other. From time to time a furious motor would propel a car or van straight from the last world war around the vast space. People scurried out of the way scolded by hollow aggressive horns.

Nighttime and crisp air cast a surreal glow on the city and its gleaming gilded domes. Cyrillic signs kept even the most benign and banal shrouded in their secret code. Pectopah repeated over and over. It must be something serious and related to the government, I mused. I was intrigued and tried to crack the code. B as in van. H as in Napoleon. P as in restaurant. Or Restoran or Pectopah.

Wanders through miles of art filled hallways and arrays of strange 17^th century medical specimens were punctuated by sifting through old coins, worn icons, hat shops and plates of dill. Minus 18° C, again. Fur starts to make sense and vodka for breakfast sounds good. We descended deep beneath the streets and into old blue metro cars and made our escape.

We emerged in Tallin, which puts Disneyland to shame. It was perfect. Our apartment was gorgeous, stone walls and timbered ceilings with a view to a medieval church and its accompanying 18^th Century chapels. Friendly faces, familiar words with mixed up meanings, wooden toys, wool socks, linen everything and cozy coffee shops. We wandered, cooked, took saunas and regrouped. Then back into the unknown on a bus bound for Riga.

We pulled in from the east and it looked like we’d perhaps landed back in Russia but that first impression was quickly dispelled as we walked past the medieval center, through the 19^th Century parks and boulevards to our apartment. Riga was a balmy +1° C and after what we’d become accustomed to it felt like spring had arrived. After some minor difficulties getting into our apartment we wandered back out to find dinner. For just a few Lats we found great food (only a little dill this time), amazing beer and BALZAM! Balsam is an herbal concoction that our guidebook described as “thick as custard and guaranteed to knock the hind legs off a donkey.” They may have exaggerated a little—not so thick and as we don’t have hind legs that part of the theory remains untested.

Riga is home to one of the longest running markets in Europe. It was originally in the medieval town square before it moved to the banks of the Daugava where it flourished for over 350 years. Having grown so large, the city bought 5 zepplin hangers in the early part of the 20^th Century to house the market. The buildings are incredible and you can find any kind of meat or fish imaginable, as well as some you might not want to imagine. Clothing, jewelry and magazine stalls mix with butchers, bakers and sellers of canned goods, coffee and tea. It was a feast for both the eyes and the stomach.

Riga’s medieval town is mostly intact and a few buildings have been rebuilt to replace ones ruined in the various and many conflicts that mark the city’s history. It was part of the Hanseatic League and guild houses mingle with churches, schools and some newer art nouveau apartment blocks. But the surprise highlight of Riga was the unbelievable Jugendstil buildings built by Sergei Eisenstein’s father, Mikhail. Turns out he was an architect, and a rather prolific one at that. Concentrated in just a few blocks are more buildings than you could shake a stick (or three cameras) at. Most were in pristine condition but a couple were mildewed and falling down—heartbreakingly beautiful! I must have run through 4 rolls of film in less than an hour.

My family has gone home now and I said good-bye to Juhani yesterday. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Just a few days left to bid farewell to this sparkling gem of a city and this European dream. Thank you Valle! It has been unforgettable.