The inconsolable thing about opinion leaders is their staying power.

Blue nails on Nevsky

Saint Petersburg

Heaven! I'll be there in a minute. Visual arts, music, and poetry. The Russian soul: the nuances of life. – Laughing and crying. – Loving, arguing, and reconciling. – Embarking on a new era of self-determination. Creative and protective. Welcome back, you who were never really gone. Globally connected, grounded in Europe. Saint Petersburg, you beauty. – Why am I sitting almost alone on the plane? Didn't the world hear the bang?

It did. The starting signal did not go unheard.

It was spring. That was definitely in the air. I didn't care what else was floating around in it. That changed in the days that followed. With seventeen passengers on board, the plane from Helsinki was not a heavy weight of enthusiasm.

We were early to get behind the now holey Iron Curtain. My preparation shone in the form of two stacks of documents, addresses, and reservation confirmations in my handbag and neck pouch. I had covered myself almost to the point of being fussy. Everything was organized. Of course, I also had the confirmation for the transfer from the airport with me. The elegant top hotel on Isaak's Square would send a car. It was more important to me to get there and meet Lena. Culture? Sure. But my husband had turned it into a Mayer performance. I flew to St. Petersburg for a quick week. If Armenia had been my destination, I probably would have taken blood reserves with me. At least, that was the recommendation.

I even had tickets for the Mariinsky Theater. Everything was fine. – Until we landed at the junky airport in St. Petersburg.

At first glance, when I saw the terminal, I was completely fed up. All my expectations of substance had gone up in smoke. Well, I had talked myself into the idea of self-determination and integration in my eagerness for the hoped-for overwhelming experience. That it was new was undisputed. It was completely foreign and had no roots anywhere—these are facts. These require a clear eye and staying power. In any case, this is not something to be swept under the rug.

“Oh, you poor shit?”

I'm sure no one heard me. – Although, something suggests otherwise.

It was like recognizing by the smell that you are in a hospital. At the “airport,” perception had all dimensions. An intrusive presence of movement but inertia, aspiration but negligence, sentimentality but selfishness. – The thirsty rigidity in a beehive after someone had distributed self-help and success guides. – Nothing worked. Nothing happened. No check-in. –

I went through myself, looked for my luggage, rushed out, and looked around. Nothing. No shuttle, no taxi, hardly any people, just faces hanging or drooling and sniffing with greed. My excitement beforehand was not unbiased either. It had bid farewell to the poisoned field with a bang. It had taken the cloak of hospitality with it.

Patience is not a hindrance to waiting. My sometimes bitterly emerging toxicity may be a triggered defense mechanism. As a representative of the “weaker sex,” I perhaps aimed to remain attentive and defensive. The mere assumption of my helplessness really drives me up the wall. I was at one hundred and eighty miles per hour and still accelerating.

Lemon, lemon.

Secretly direct

“Can I help you?” asked a neat, unassuming man in English. His voice was the opposite of my first impression of Russia: clear, steady, yet agile. Looking at the front area, I hadn't noticed his impeccable approach. He had actually dared to speak to me.

Brave little guy, I countered silently, ready to really let off some steam.

“How could you? What kind of shitty country is this? Nothing works here. Everything was ordered and reserved, and not even the damn car to the hotel is here.”

“Ah, you're Italian?” He didn't back away but came a little closer with open arms. Maybe he tilted his head to the side. It's possible that he smiled or laughed. I have no idea. I was preoccupied with myself.

“No, German.”

“So, you're a German Italian. Very pleasant. My name is...” He introduced himself. “I'm from the Russian secret service. We'll get this sorted out.”

At least his name doesn't seem to be a secret. Or it's just as out of place as I feel.

With his confident and open-minded demeanor, he smoothed things over in no time. He waved over another man dressed in a suit just like him. The two spoke briefly. Given the nature of his profession, I didn't feel any crackling tension. The second agent disappeared again. We stood in front of the entrance and talked about hard-hitting, investigation-worthy data: our families, my travel plans, and Saint Petersburg. I was down from my high horse.

A black stretch limousine—more than that, a Russian-made state car—stopped right in front of us. The driver put the luggage in the trunk, and the secret service agent opened the door. I thanked him with a quick hug as I said goodbye to the old-school gentleman with a new approach. Convinced of my comprehensive knowledge of human nature, I saw no risk in getting into the car. I hadn't seen a secret service ID. Otherwise, it could have said anything.

With excited curiosity about the most European Russian city, I sat in the back of the movie-worthy car. The wave of elegance, growing with every fantastic impression, sloshed from side window to side window. The buildings, the Hermitage art collection, and the attitude to life were waiting—for Anna. My inner weather was full of sunshine, and I was looking forward to seeing Lena.

She was standing in front of the hotel with her boyfriend Andrej when the unusually unmarked car pulled up. I hadn't noticed her because I had rushed straight into the lobby. The revolving door showed what speed is. While checking in, I heard a dull knocking and saw Lena and Andrej almost next to the reception desk. The two of them were pressed against the hotel window from the outside. They looked like stuffed animals on the rear side windows of some cars.

Finally, something's working out here, I cheered and waved them in. Fat chance. I hadn't considered the host. He had his own ideas about social interaction and mutual respect for his spruced-up establishment.

“Only guests of the hotel are allowed in here,” a know-it-all hotel employee informed me. She was playing on the establishment's previously impeccable reputation.

Russia had negligently created all the conditions for me to get really angry and bring the kettle to a boil.

No problem. It worked. I'm in.

Together they do best. An audience is enormously helpful when it senses an opportunity to participate, to celebrate its humanity without cost or effort. Here, too, there was an avoidable, sonorous, and purely verbal confrontation. Once again, I hadn't started the argument, but I had won the battle.

Poets and being

After a heartfelt hug with Lena and checking in, we sat down in the bar. We talked over coffee, excited with joy and interest. They both liked the hotel. They had seen me in a rage through the window. It gave them a sense of security. Too much. Andrej got up, walked over to a waiter, and spoke to him.

“Leave my friends alone,” I growled at the waiter.

“Is there trouble again?” I made myself heard in the lobby bar area with the necessary sound pressure.

“No, Anna. Everything's fine. I'm just asking for the menu,” Andrej whispered casually, leaning toward a sophisticated lifestyle.

“What are you doing? – If you can afford it, okay. Otherwise, I'd like to be asked beforehand.”

Now the rest of the people present had also noticed that ‘A German in da House’ was there. Although we spoke English, my tone of voice had no handbrake of politeness.

At the table opposite sat a picture-perfect gentleman with a lush, bushy beard. He wore a brown, tweed-like, three-piece suit. His eyes were captivating if one had taken the time to engage with them. He smiled at me, stood up, and bowed clearly but discreetly. As he leaned forward, he skillfully removed his casual flat cap in front of me and sat down again.

I nodded to him.

What's going on here? I asked myself. Approval of my behavior was a matter of course and did not require applause. Did he recognize me? Do I look like someone? Am I finally the legitimate ‘Tsarina Anna the Quick-Tempered’?

“Anna, do you know him?” Lena asked excitedly. Andrei sat back down at the table—his desire for recognition unfulfilled. He took it like a real man—and only sulked for two hours.

“How would I know this gentleman? None of the other sixteen from the Finland flight are here.”

"That's ‘doesn't matter’. Everyone in Russia knows him. He's a famous and respected writer."

He has a beard, but Tolstoy has been dead for a long time. The much-described and sung-about Russian soul has to serve quite a purpose. Concealing carelessness and bad behavior is a mammoth task for the delicate sensibility. I feel sorry for the guy. How is he going to write about it?

Later, we drove out to her place. Not to the Russian soul, but to the prefabricated housing estate where Lena lived. I looked around:

It's my attitude. The experienced attitude to life was completely foreign to me. Russia: Behind a profound, socially significant lecture, there was no corresponding questioning or demanding thought. It was just not like with the Russian poets. I had weighed it up and found it too light. The food was unaffordable. Of course, I felt sorry, and I was indignant. Lena could have grown the tomatoes, which were demonized as a luxury, on the long, sun-drenched windowsill.

I experienced celebrated suffering in a live experience. It is absolutely not politically correct, and there are explanations for everything. Of course, historically, much can be explained by social development. But complaining and not acting? I didn't get it. Many of the people who were loudly complaining were well-fed and well-educated. They seemed smart enough and looked perfectly healthy. These “elites” were exactly the chickens who liked to scurry into apathy.

This was also the case when a woman fell over on the sidewalk and landed on the street. It happened right in front of my eyes. And it wasn't just any side street. She fell in the middle of Nevsky Prospect. Nevsky Prospect—one of the most glamorous and elegant boulevards in the world. The problem of a country was revealed to me on its pavement:

A bus rushed by, and no one cared. She came to and crawled back onto the sidewalk for her life. I was the furthest away. But I was the first and initially only person to reach her and help her up.

My mood broke the ice when I yelled at the soft-spoken young men, in German of course. Some of them came back or came out from behind their cover. They took proper care of the woman. It was busy and not very presentable.

“I've got so much of the f ...” I thought and said something like that more than once. I am Anna—the previously blue-eyed woman with the unchanged gray-green eyes. It helps me to remember. Shadows, corsets, all the red lines ... are part of my self-respect. That's me. – Also, in order to get along with others in peace and shared responsibility.

It can't be that ... always followed by examples of ignorance and attempts to undermine fundamental values. Normally, I hold European humanism up as a beacon of light. – There were too many renegades.

Instead, I protected the light from the darkness.

Lena showed me her city. The imposing buildings had nothing in common with social reality. I was in the Hermitage. Familiar paintings rooted in me hung on the walls. The director led me—for whatever reason—into a room. At least at that moment, it was not open to the public. He presented me with a keyboard instrument on which Chopin had played. The contrasts ate away at my love for humanity like battery acid.

As I hurried into a church, a Russian Orthodox priest snapped at me in German: “It's about to start. Chop chop,” he said, tapping his wristwatch.

I have no idea how they all conclude that I'm German. What does it matter? The young man was right: “Thank you for the information,” and thought, “You might as well get a punch in the costume.”

A growing resistance had taken hold in me. I didn't care about statements, announcements and commands, or about rules and empty slogans. There was an abundance of everything when theatrical consternation blossomed into glittering lies.

I was trespassing in Peterhof, the Tsar's summer palace. My visa wasn't valid for the outskirts.

Who cares? Not me. Come on!

A young French couple was sitting next to us in a restaurant there. They had been trying to order for quite some time. The waiters had not only ignored them but had finally turned them away. I called the staff together and asked them what their Russian mothers would think of this. Then things started to work. The two charming Frenchmen thanked me with their right hands on their hearts.

Somehow, I was annoyed, exhausted, and disillusioned. The red polish on my otherwise healthy fingernails turned blue. I was sour. Judging by the deep blue appearance of my nails, the air was too.

Redistribution

In the evening, I went to the hotel bar. Some bars are purely drinking dens. Others enjoy a short-lived trend or are classics. Rare but legendary are those where, upon entering, you become part of an organism. It shields itself from the outside world. Inside, conversations develop into lasting memories.

The hotel bar in Saint Petersburg was none of these things. It was a meeting place, a gathering point, a retreat—but meaningless. Guests of all kinds and with different attitudes gathered there. A gold-digging bunch of international travelers was at the start. And quite a few already thought they had reached their goal. They came from real estate and industry. They were salespeople or had been sent by corporations to set up branches.

It was the beginning of the free market economy in a new geographical market. More people, higher numbers. Structures were changing. A reshuffle was looking for its winners. Everyone was salivating for their piece of the pie. Urban development contributed only to a limited extent to a foresight of the tasks of the future. St. Petersburg lay ready like a platter of food at a wedding reception. The bride must have cried at the brutality. That did not dampen the mood. There was still time. The bridal bouquet would be caught. As long as it rose again and again into the air without falling to the ground, confidence in the bond remained.

A Japanese fashion guru stood out for his straightforward restraint. Not a single fiber of his charisma fit into the scene that surrounded him. – In this place at this time. – Or did it? He was like a signal of stability. Grounded, sensitive, but invulnerable. He wore a black suit with a stand-up collar.

EU commissioners and their staff sat apart from the crowd in full regalia. That night, a few hours later, they wanted to go to the port of Saint Petersburg. Their mission: to guard a ship carrying aid supplies. It was a shipment of potatoes. The commissioners were responsible for ensuring that the cargo reached its destination and that nothing was stolen. I talked to them, and they were as fed up as I was.

I stumbled backwards out of the Mariinsky Theater, for which I had reserved tickets. Theater tickets were in high demand because they were cheap. Not that it was about the play. During the intermission, there were sandwiches. These were unaffordable when sold freely in the city. A ‘relative’ win-win situation. People got food. The theater justified keeping the underpaid ensemble by selling out performances.

Mirror of souls

I found a nighttime scene on St. Isaac's Square strangely lonely. It was one of those moments touching your perception in a completely unspectacular and unemotional way. You try to remember it, or you look again. It's not possible to explain away the fleeting appeal while passing through. I was done and in no hurry. What I saw burned itself into my memory like the essence of what I had experienced during those days:

A motorcyclist sat sideways on his parked bike in the middle of the deserted square. He stared into nothingness with an equally empty gaze.

With the impressions I had gained during the week, I was certain:

I won't be coming back for at least the next twenty years.

Enough of the acting

At the clearly unattractive airport, I was not relieved but still flattened. Next to me in the waiting area sat a group, an ensemble of German actors. I knew and got them all from television. They were in town for a few performances on behalf of the Goethe Institute. They were also leaving. I struck up a conversation with the actress I knew best. She looked as shaken as I felt and confirmed this to me in return. We had had similar experiences in Saint Petersburg and had come to the same bleak conclusions. We lay in each other's arms, crying.

A colleague of hers from the ensemble is known for his roles in comedies and love stories. He trotted into our world in a comical and charming mood, clueless and insensitive. “Well, girls. How about a glass of Cham...?”

That's as far as he got. Wrong place, wrong time.

“Home sweet home.” Home is the best place to be. At least the misery is manageable and sometimes avoidable.

“That must have been awful. You look terrible,” my son greeted me. Junior refrained from further compliments from Mayer's repertoire of precision landings. He was right—and had said it all.

Lena visited me the following year. Even though we had gotten along well, we lost touch. It was probably similar for both of us: there was familiarity, but no closeness.