Russian Grandmothers

I usually try to avoid answering my phone when it's my mom or my grandmother. Most of our conversations consist of them telling me how I should be doing things differently and how my life isn't what it could have been had I listened to them. So I listen to them less and less as I grow older. For a while though my grandmother stopped calling me altogether because she got used to the idea that she had nothing to say to me that I would want to hear, so when she called I answered.

She said she's getting surgery and I must immediately fly to Russia. She thinks her surgery will be sometime in May, although she doesn't know exactly.  A preliminary consultation with a doctor is scheduled and at this consultation she will be given a specific date for the surgery. Surgery is imminent.

I bought a ticket and came to Russia. I thought my grandmother was getting a surgery. I went with her to the "preliminary consultation" and it was certainly not a visitation to schedule any surgery. Rather it seemed more like a routine check up with a doctor who decided to send her to do an MRI just to make sure she doesn't have cancer. Although I did not ask the doctor weather my suspicions are true because the time and place were not appropriate for such questions, I did think this may have been a yearly routine for my grandmother.

So while I'm here I'll take the time to share some of my impressions about St. Petersburg, the city I was born in.

First on the list is the May 1st celebration. I did not know this but May 1st is Labor Day and is very much observed in St. Petersburg. My grandmother tells me it's observed all over Russia since the Soviet Times. I went downtown to the central city street, Nevsky Prospect, to see what was happening. There was a parade and tons of people came to watch it.

When I first got off the metro I thought the parade was wherever these lovely ladies were and I followed them until the main square in front of the Hermitage where the parade culminated and there was nothing more to see. A small stage was set up there with an awful sound system that hurt the brain so I left. I walked through the arches and back towards Nevsky Prospect.

I thought all the festivities were over and people were just walking the streets now, but suddenly I saw a mass of red flags descending  upon us in a solid wall of human flesh and I knew there was more to be seen.

Fortunately I took a video. To be continued...