M O S C O W Interview with Leonid Shishkin - Passport magazine

Travel
Moscow and
Maya Rusanova
artwork by Julia Nozdracheva
St. Petersburg is well worth a visit at any time of the year. Especially
in the summer when you can ‘гулять’ (walk) all night
long, as although the sun sets, the night never really begins.
Take a weekend off, and enjoy this superb city which is so different
from Moscow. When you go there, it may be useful to
know that there is real competition between St. Petersburg
and Moscow, just as there is between Edinburgh and Glasgow,
or Washington and New York, to name but a few examples
Officially the capital of Russia is Moscow. However St. Petersburg
is often called the Northern Capital. This isn’t by chance.
These two cities came to prominence at separate times, and
they have been competing with each other for 300 years, beginning
in 1703, when Emperor Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg
on the banks of the river Neva.
The reason for the confrontation lies in the fact that St. Petersburg
was originally built to be exactly what is: the opposite
of Moscow. Moscow is the embodiment of the Russian city; St.
Petersburg of the European city. This is evident in architecture,
fashion and even language. In the 18 th century, French was
more popular than Russian in the upper classes in St. Petersburg,
and the city became a ‘window to Europe’, just as Peter
the Great planned.
Moscow’s history stretches back a lot longer than St. Petersburg’s,
all the way back to 1147. Moscow grew organically and
sporadically; it was built on the confluence of important trading
routes. The original settlement was a small village. To this
day, citizens of St. Petersburg still tease Moscow citizens, calling
Moscow a ‘big village’, which in many respects it is.
St. Petersburg was a capital from birth, something that Muscovites
resent; they suddenly became provincials when Peter the
Great moved the capital there in 1712. However St. Petersburg
managed to prove its superiority in some things. The newest
trends in fashion, architecture, drawing, music and literature ap-
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peared in the northern capital first, and only reached Moscow
some time later. Even when the capital was moved back from
Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was known then, to Moscow after
the Bolsheviks came to power, in 1918, the city was still considered
the cultural capital of Russia. Many Muscovites will debate
this. Take rock music. In the 1980s St. Petersburg spawned many
leading rock groups. Aquarium, Kino were from St. Petersburg,
whereas Mashina Vremeni and Zvuki Mu were from Moscow.
Whether Moscow or St. Petersburg music was better or worse,
was a heated topic for most young people.
Moscow is faster, more hectic and business-like. In the 18-
19 th centuries, however, St. Petersburg was also very bustling
as a capital city should be. Much dancing and many sumptuous
dinner parties took place. The city was full of merchants,
the streets of the city were full of shops, cabs and people. Today
St. Petersburg lives calmly and measuredly. In Moscow, for
example, people run down the elevator; in Petersburg people
ride on it. Muscovites seem brusque and impolite to citizens
of St. Petersburg. If you ask somebody the way in St. Petersburg,
locals may not only give you directions, they may take
you for a mini-excursion around the city. People in Moscow
aren’t often able to do that, many are often visitors like you.
In Petersburg one doesn’t need to hurry. The city is much
smaller than Moscow. There a person wants to walk, not run,
although Muscovites don’t walk, they take cabs or the Metro
during the long winter. Muscovites accuse St. Petersburg of being
depressing, because the pace of life is too slow. This is partly
because of the climate. St. Petersburg lies much further north
and the city is very wet and windy. Muscovites often catch cold
after visiting St. Petersburg. The sun rarely warms the citizens
of Petersburg, because of high humidity.
Moscow is sunnier, and that’s why it seems smarter, than
Petersburg. But there is an eclecticism that is peculiar to
Moscow. An antique building and a glass skyscraper can be
neighbours in Moscow, but not in St. Petersburg. That’s why
citizens of St. Petersburg say that the Muscovites don’t have a