White Nights

Thirteen minutes to midnight here in the former Leningrad.

It’s
an oddly familiar place, actually.  Lots of imperious public buildings,
national galleries devoted to the arts, and large green squares devoted
to dead warriors.  Took a while, but then it was obvious: it’s a lot
like Washington, D.C. 

With one large exception.  Shortly before
midnight as I write this, it’s still bright enough outside to read a
book, assuming you have decent eyesight and at least a 12-point font.

They
call the evening here during this time of year "White Nights," and with
good reason.  It never actually gets fully dark.  The sun goes down,
but just in a peek-a-boo way, hiding just below the horizon for a few
hours before popping back up a bit after 3 am or so.

The big
activity here in all the extra daylight seems to be dressing up in a
boxy sport jacket (for men) or a too-tight outfit possibly intended for
a pygmy chimpanzee but certainly not a full-grown human female (for
women), smoking many cigarettes while looking bored, and then wandering
down to the Neva at about 1:30 am to watch the drawbridges being raised
one after another.

You get the feeling the acting-bored part isn’t exactly a pose.

Although
everything I just said is completely unfair to a city which has managed
for many generations and under some of the worst conditions imaginable
to remain an important center for the fine arts: within a ten-minute
walk of this here coffee house, you can find important landmarks
in literature, music, theater, dance, and the wearing of large Italian
sunglasses while scowling bitterly.

This last art may not be
fully appreciated yet in the rest of the world, but the folks walking
around Nevsky Prospekt are clearly committed to pioneering and
popularizing the form.  You get the feeling that people from the
suburbs may even be taking night classes.

You don’t really notice
your body clock being affected by all the extra light.  Not at first. 
Then one day you’re walking along at about three in the afternoon and
you notice that all the stores have closed, nightclubs are spewing
pulsating music, it’s almost sunrise the next day, and that you’ve got
about as much time sense as your average UFO abductee.

Which is
why I’m sitting in a coffee shop at six minutes after midnight, feeling
perfectly alert despite having walked enough miles to personally
re-enact Napoleon’s retreat to Paris.  And in a little while I’m
planning to saunter down to the Neva, slap on a pair of designer
shades, and give total strangers a withering look of disdain.  If
someone even tries to talk with me, I’ll be entirely too important to
even notice.

Which is another way this place feels like a lot like Washington.