Non-conformist: Getting to grips with the Avant Garde

Loft is an Art gallery in St. Petersburg. Its exhibitions are housed in an old Bread factory, close to that vapourish Bread Museum.  I had been told by several Russian it did actually exist. Maybe? Like Paravda meant Truth, but what do I know? Brutus is an honourable man.

Modern art non-conformist art, is difficult, but debate about weather its worthwhile is over. If you're against modern art, you have to to move with the times. The real question  is weather what  you're looking at it is good or not. A lot of Art in Loft was. But as I said its difficult, so I eased the experience with a Bloody Mary.

I had met some couch surfers and we went to the Opera. Not the Marinisky, the tickets were sold out, that was the opera house the old Irish Lady had told me about. But to the St. Petersburg Opera house. They were playing the Carpetner of Livonia, by Donizzetti. It was ok, good because it was opera but not for much else. It hadn't been performed in over 100 hundred years and I could understand why. I felt sorry for the company, the material they were working with just wasn't up to scratch.  It sounded like a re-hash of Rossini, and midway through the second act,  I was unmistakably hearing a snippet from Mozart's Queen of the night. Still it was good, I love Opera, and seeing it for 200 Russians was a bargain.

I was with two Irish Couch Surfers, Russia, is not as sensitive too Race and Religion as we are in England and we all audibly winced, when the money lender was portrayed as a Shylockesque Jew, and the servant, a Blacked up girl. It was like a return to the classical Black and white minstrels.

Its stays light late in St. Petersburg at 10 it was still +20 degrees when we left. We were on the way to meet some Russians. They were the avante garde, arty types, poets, writers; skinny jeans,  have made it to Russia.  I told them I had been to Loft; they nodded their approval. "Da"

I'd sunk a couple of glasses at the Opera (you needed too) and with the Bloody Mary I was feeling a little tipsy, which added danger an otherwise benign trip. When these Russians weren't painting, sculpting, smoking Cigarellos and quoting Puskin, they climb roofs. Its one of those reclaim the urban environment movements; like Par Cour. They treat the city as a giant climbing frame, finding roofs to get good views, climbing things like Children.

We broke into a bell tower and climbed the ramshackle interior. As I hauled myself over and above some scaffolding  I was feeling the drink and almost slipped on the third floor. But, I  have a strong will for self preservation and my grip tightened, I'd be damned if I was going to end my days in some god damn,  bell tower. I've always fancied meeting my maker in some sort of Blaze of Glory. We reached the top, and I presume like mountaineers I was overcome with the feeling of what next? I knew, though, as did the Russians, we cracked some cans of Beer and I lit up a fat Russian Cigar.

They took us to a street called the John Lennon Street, more of the Avante Garde. Apparently some aged Russian Hippy lives there, but Summer of Love is long over, of course you never know, Russia is stuck in the past, but behind the blast metal door of his flat there was no answer. They took us too a Bar. The bars in Russia postivley try and turn customers away. It was in a cellar, and you had to ring two bells to get in. It was called the Friendship and was only supposed to be for friends of the owners, very friendly.

"Good for business? I presume."
"It won't be cool if everyone knows about it.
The markets still getting started here, but true, true.

I got battered at the friendship. Talking to these Russians, the children of the new Russia. The Beer was reactively and relatively cheap Beer and I hammered them down, one after the other, like an endless series of Russian dolls. We all did, but I think that's what you do in Russia.