Cemeteries and Ballet

19 June 2011 Sunday

The Necropolys. It is a State Museum of Urban Sculpture, plus a cemetery.

We’re now enjoying “White Nights” here in St. Petersburg. It doesn’t get dark all night long. The sun sets at 11:25 pm and it rises again at 4:35 am, but it is twilight the five hours in between. I saw one of our old missionaries in church on Sunday—Olga. She was yawning and I asked her if she were tired. Of Course!! It is White Nights. She is up half the night with her friends just hanging out and walking around the city. They do it because they can. She said she will sleep when it is winter. I taught her the word “hibernate.”

The bridge from the official cemeteries to the Monastery. Pigeons are considered holy birds and they are not molested. Pigeons are the same bird as doves, which are a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Yesterday, after a baptismal service, we went across the Neva River which flows near our apartment, to an old monastery with several cemeteries where Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky and other notables are buried. It was a beautiful day and we had a nice time just walking around. During the Commie days, many notable atheists were buried right in front of the cathedral, not in the cemeteries proper just over a little bridge. Secret believers or in-your-face atheists? Hmmm. I must admit, it is a pretty place to be buried. Phil noticed a lot of military men who all just happened to die in 1935, the same year Stalin purged 80-90% of the officer corps. And a lot of people died in 1917 with the Revolution. Regina likes the peacefulness of cemeteries which Phil finds a little bit morbid. Afterwards we walked home over the bridge, as opposed to taking the Metro which is just outside our window. We got some great views of the area and the Neva River. It was fun.

Phil in front of the Composer Rimsky-Korsokov's grave.

The Neva River which separates us from the main island on which St. Petersburg is built. The church building, the mission home and office, and Luna's apartment on in the building on the right with the pointy top. Only the mission home faces towards the river. Everything else faces into the middle of the block. Between the river and the building is a major noisy road, so I am glad we face into the middle of the block. It is very quiet. This is also one of the drawbridges that raise up in the middle of every night to facilitate river traffic.

Next week we get a new mission president--N. Warren Clark of Utah. This is a big deal in a mission because the president has such a great impact on the character of the mission. We don’t know much about him other than he speaks English and no Russian at all and that he's not the one who was supposed to come here. After studying Russian faithfully for months, our original mission president was turned down when he applied for a visa to come. They were very disappointed, but it does happen sometimes. So the church decided to solve the problem by having them switch places with another mission president who was slated to go to Anchorage, Alaska. Both Anchorage and St. Petersburg sit at about 60 degrees north latitude, just on opposite sides of the planet. Maybe the Church figured that at least they both will have packed for the same type of weather since their belongings had already been shipped off when they got the news. Our new president just started the visa application process a couple of weeks ago. He won't be able to get a visa and get over here for at least a month or more (the old government here transformed red tape into a fine art and the legacy lives on). So in the meantime, an emeritus church general authority happens to be living in Moscow on a Church History mission at the moment--Dennis B. Neuenschwander--so he and his wife are coming up to run things until our new president and wife arrive. Neuenschwander played a big part in getting the church established here in Russia. He speaks Russian fluently. As a young man he served a mission in Finland so he also speaks Finnish. We look forward to getting to know both our new presidents. Coincident with the departure of President Podvodov is the departure of the Lunas. After they are gone we are on our own. This could be a source of trial for the new mission president.

Today we started going to the Central Branch at the request of President Podvodov. The Central Branch also meets in the main church building, but it is smaller and it’s impossible to get lost in the crowd. We think we will enjoy it there and it will only be a very short distance from our new apartment which will be very nice in the winter. Our new apartment is the Luna’s old apartment and we will move there about the 1^st of July after the Luna’s leave. It’s not as big, but it’s so much closer to the mission office and church. And it’s not as expensive, so that is good. The bad part is that the couch is also the bed and it is only about 6 feet long and not very wide (Phil is 6’ 4” and we are both not petite). We may quickly find ourselves looking for a bigger couch/bed.

21 June 2011 Tuesday

The Mikhailovsky Theater. It is old, but intimate.

Some of the McArthur’s family came to visit during White Nights. Elder McArthur’s brother and wife, and the McArthur’s oldest daughter came over from St. George, Utah. They also came part way with the daughter’s old missionary companion, who jumped at the chance to go see Russia since it has always been a dream of hers. The bad part was the daughter’s friend got stopped at the Estonian border and was not allowed to come into Russia. They did not like her picture on her visa—whatever that meant. So the poor girl was stuck in Estonia for a week all alone. She toured Estonia, which I hear is very nice, and then she went over to Finland and toured there, and finally caught her flight back to the States after a week. The ones who made it in took one of those midnight boat rides down the Neva River when all the draw bridges are up. They said it was a magical ride. St. Petersburg is famous for all its draw bridges on the Neva and the city is full of boats all night long during White Nights. Throughout the city there are over 800 bridges of all kinds over rivers and canals. It is called the Venice of the north for good reason.

Sister McArthur, Regina, Sister Luna playing ballerinas in the hall.

Regina, Elder & Sis. Luna, Sis. & Elder McArthur
Phil in front

McArthurs daughter wanted to see a Russian ballet while she was here, so we and the Lunas also tagged along with all the McArthurs. We got to see Swan Lake at the Mikhailovsky Theatre right downtown. It is a very old theater and fairly small, so that even our tickets in the nose bleed section were very good. Being so far above the stage was actually better for viewing the beautiful choreography of the swan dances. We enjoyed it immensely—even Phil!!! It really was beautiful and the live orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s fabulous music was fantastic. It was such a fun evening. This is the fourth time in our marriage that I have twisted Phil’s arm to make him go to a ballet with me. I must admit, the first three times were all a real bust, but he actually really liked this ballet. He said if he could be sure another ballet was this good, he would like to go again. A Miracle!

The closing bow of Swan Lake. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the performance. There were many more performers than just these.

June 24, Friday

We had a big office staff luncheon today, about 25+ people, as a farewell dinner for Mission President Podvodov and his wife, and the Lunas. Gennady, who is over the registration of foreign missionaries and some other stuff, is a character. He made a movie of every one on the office staff doing their regular stuff and then each person would conveniently show a personal message for the Podvodovs printed on a piece of paper stuck somewhere. Igor the driver pulled the mission van past the camera waving and had two messages stuck on the van’s back windows We and the Lunas all linked arms and did a NY Rockettes-type kick dance, slowly turning around so the signs on our backs could be seen. Every one’s bit part was a little different.

This is the office staff. The President Podvodov and his wife are front and center.

It was quite clever and very nice for the Podvodovs. This lunch was not well thought out or well planned—we got a call late the night before to please bring something to share. They did collect money from everyone earlier to give both the Lunas and the Podvodovs a little present from us all. In true Russian fashion, things came together at the last minute in spite of no serious planning and we had a great lunch—fried chicken, pizza, Spanish rice, Russian vegetable salad with mayonnaise, tons of fruits, cucumbers, tomatoes, Jell-O salad, cabbage rolls (which were very good), pies, cakes, breads, American brownies (one of my contributions thanks to my daughter Kathryn’s care package), etc. We all stuffed ourselves silly. Even the young missionaries finally were full. We had a couple of spare missionaries around the office that day. They were waiting for their companions to come back from a visa trip. They picked a great day to have to hang out at the office—lots of free food. Young Elder Demansky, who was so hungry when we fed him Apostle Nelson’s leftovers, happen to be one of those elders. He stuffed himself and said his stomach was very happy. I took home some chicken and pizza for the next day. There was tons of food left. Much of it was sent with the Podvodovs so they won’t have to cook for a couple of days.

They set up tables for the luncheon in the hall by the Xerox machine.
Regina's work area is just to the right of the camera.