Travel notes
Miracle: Journey to St. Petersburg, August 3-13.2018.
To be honest, this time I went on a tour on my own, not from Miracle. But my favorite tour operator, I wander around the world under his flag, and therefore did not violate the traditional beginning of travel notes.
So, Petersburg. Why gangster? I have been asking this question all the last years, when the central television every day scrolls the endless series "Gangster Petersburg". In the end, I came to the conclusion that this is just an allegory to attract viewers. Well, the intelligent capital of the country cannot be gangster by definition. Alas and ah! Maybe. How else can. Even in the very heart of the intelligentsia - the cultural life of the city. Proof of? You are welcome.
I'm going to Oreshek to pay tribute to the memory of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands who died for our lives and honor (the battles there, according to stories, were terrible). Transfer to the island through the channel - 200 rubles. Enter the territory of the ruins (naturally, the Nazis mixed everything in the fortress with the earth with massive bombing attacks) - another 200 rubles. Ladder to the top of the preserved wall - again you have to pay. But the cashier hasn't come yet - the guard won't let me in. Probably another 100 r. And this is for pensioners, for working people everything is twice as expensive.
So, in order to bow to those who saved our lives and honor, we must give at least a thousand rubles. (I don’t say about 220 rubles for an electric train from St. Petersburg, this is public transport). But they are tearing up a thousand, and none other than cultural workers. After all, this historical monument is under the jurisdiction of the department (or the Ministry? of Culture of the Leningrad Region), in the final instance, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture of Russia. It turns out that cultural workers make money precisely on the blood of the heroes who, by their death, saved the lives and honor of themselves too. Isn't that banditry?
I hear the voice of unbelieving Thomas. Like, like a rooster unearthed one fact in a dunghill, and well, crow about the system. Alas and ah. This fact is far from unique in the sphere of the same St. Petersburg intelligentsia. The next object is the State Museum-Reserve Peterhof. I go to the entrance of the administration, show the identity of the journalist of the central newspaper and ask the guard to let me through to one of the representatives of this venerable department. “The administration does not advise journalists and does not give them preferential tickets, stand in a general queue and pay like everyone else in full. ” Yes, I already bought a discount ticket as a pensioner, and now I need advice on what else besides the museum I need to see first of all, since I only have half a day in time. The guard does not agree to call anyone, continues to repeat his own. Finally, the representative comes out and repeats the security guard's resume word for word. So, everything has long been sung and slept with them. Although a new one has also appeared: “If you want to get advice, buy a ticket for an excursion in our travel agency, they will tell you everything there. ” Immediately pops up before the eyes of an ad in front of the cash register. I can’t retell it word for word, but the meaning is this: individual tourists enter the palace twice a day in a limited number starting from 12 o’clock, the rest only through tourist groups. It turns out that the administration operates according to the principle: “Well, how not to please your dear little man? ", living with them under the same roof to their own (or related in the leadership? ) travel agency. That is, in order to be guaranteed to enter the palace, an individual must not only purchase a ticket, but also buy the services of a local guide. Again knocking out money at the level of the administration of the cultural center. Even for a two-minute consultation with a journalist.
Two facts not enough? Please, the third: St. Isaac's Cathedral. For the entrance, neither more nor less - 800 (! ) R. Isn't it bad, isn't it. I would even say, famously. And the same workers of culture are skinning tourists. Although all over the world the entrance to the temples for everyone is free! That is why an all-Russian scandal recently flared up when they tried to transfer Isaac from the department of culture to the church. How so! The supposedly cultural intelligentsia of the whole country cried out, St. Isaac's Cathedral is the cultural heritage of the whole country, not the church! Throw a shadow on the wattle fence, good gentlemen. The casket opens easily. The church will open the doors of the cathedral to everyone for free. Whereas you will lose an unmeasured amount of absolutely free, not earned banknotes. Last year, St. Petersburg was visited by about eight million tourists. Multiply, how much it turns out, more than six billion rubles? Yes, for such money you can buy anyone, let alone raise a wave of protesters. The well-known slogan involuntarily comes to mind: “Who are you with, masters of culture? ". Yes, you are with bandits, of course, and only with bandits. With those who built the St. Petersburg stadium several times more expensive than any similar world analogue and dozens of times more expensive than any domestic one. Although the initial estimate, as you know, was quite within reasonable limits. So who are you with? In any case, not with the real, genuine St. Petersburg intelligentsia, about whom I cannot but say a few words. Remember the story with a half-kilometer tall tower (in St. Petersburg it was immediately dubbed "corn"). A lurid, completely tasteless structure of glass and concrete. Only absolutely uncultured idiots could have thought of putting this monster in the center of St. Petersburg. All this colossus would completely crush not only the city, but also St. Isaac's Cathedral, along with the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress - the true symbols of St. Petersburg. All the real intelligentsia of the city came out to demonstrate and still forced the zealous illiterate (or corrupt? ) administrators to evict the “corn” to the outskirts. But even from there, it undoubtedly threatens the age-old culture of the second capital.
I can't help but admire the Hermitage workers (probably, first of all, the oldest of St. Petersburg intellectuals, Piotrovsky Mikhail Borisovich). Someone who, but they could rightfully claim the most expensive tickets for entering the Hermitage. An no. Pioneers and pensioners (as well as many other categories of citizens) - admission is free. Residents of Russia - two times cheaper than foreigners. Here is a genuine intelligent understanding that culture belongs primarily to the people.
And finally, the last pleasant fact is that the intelligentsia in St. Petersburg is still alive. I am walking along the central alley of Alexander Park in Tsarskoye Selo, four men are slowly pacing ahead. Suddenly one of them returns, picks up a piece of paper (apparently he noticed it out of the corner of his eye at the last moment), silently throws it into a nearby urn and just as silently catches up with his comrades. Although, perhaps, this group is from any other region of Russia, but I really want it to be Petersburgers. From a city in which even culture has been overwhelmed by completely wild, unprincipled banditry. With which Starovoitova would certainly have coped. (Matvienko obviously did not cope, for which she landed in the Federation Council as the third person in the state. Although in St. Petersburg she nevertheless became famous for the fact that, in all seriousness, she proposed, in all seriousness, by her definition, “suckers” to shoot down from the roofs not with shovels, but with a laser, for which she bothered to townspeople very sharp verses). Apparently, the bandits killed Starovoitova because they seriously feared that their dominion would come to an end. And then - and still - bandits of all stripes, including those from the so-called culture, live - I don’t want to, eat us even with oil, even without salt.
So, money. They have become the alpha and omega for many, many representatives of the so-called intelligentsia, primarily officials, even those of culture. But in the lands of the same Leningrad region (and not only it), many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of heroes who died in the Great Patriotic War, still lie unburied. So, perhaps, it will be enough to be intellectual and hypocritical and call a spade a spade. Let's say it's quite official to offer the relatives of the victims: contribute, say, a million rubles (or better, two or three) for each deceased (where you get it is another question). Then your grandfather or great-grandfather will be found in the shortest possible time and even, perhaps, reburied with military honors. Although not a fact. To find - they will really find it in the shortest possible time and even rebury it. But is it really a soldier or a wino who has plunged into a ditch? Alas, as practice shows, representatives of our intelligentsia (namely, they will take up the matter) are not capable of such a thing. Vladimir Antonov