October 19 – Day 32 – Part Two

Today didn’t end exactly as I had planned. After we left the café, Katiya and I were ready to get back to the hostile and get some sleep but when we returned we realized no one was there. We putzed around a while but the place was eerily quiet, so when Katiya remembered she needed to email a faculty member from her university she planned to meet while in Petersburg I jumped at the chance to go back out. St. Petersburg is a beautiful city and in many ways I love it sooo much more than Moscow but to a certain extent they are still even further behind than the southern city and WIFI is one of the things the are not quite up on. After walking around for far too long in an area we were only somewhat familiar with we decided to try a small coffee shop I had visited on the first day but as I expected, when I tried to communicate I got the familiar ‘Dumb Amerikanski’ stare. It was getting really late and I was falling asleep on a couch while Katiya tried to figure out what to do next. Around this time a dapper young Russian man, most likely in his thirties, came in carrying a laptop. I motioned to Katiya to go ask him if he had any suggestions and she asked if I was sure that was a good idea. At this point my train of thought was, well he is wearing a silk scarf, how dangerous could he be? This is were I made my first mistake. I waited, bemused as she played our favorite game of ‘Help Me!’ charades with the charming Russian man but then suddenly she was motioning to me to come with her and we were leaving the shop with him and his sketchy friend. I hadn’t heard any of their conversation and was not privy to where we were going but when I tried to ask her what the hell was going on she just gave me reassuring looks that she knew exactly what she was doing. We walked through the busy courtyard above the metro stop and I grabbed her hand repeatedly but no one seemed concerned. That was until we reached the end of the block and the men motioned toward a darkened alley and said in broken English, “Five Minutes.” That was it. I mumbled ‘Say Goodnight’ to Katiya and drug her into the MacDonalds on the corner. I was utterly freaked out when I got inside. She kept telling me that she had no intention of following them down a darkened path but figured as long as we were out in the open it would be fine. I am pretty sure I didn’t fully agree with her logic but none the less we were fine and safe and she was buying me fries so I was content. But somewhere through the first third of the box I noticed the men lingering outside and before too long they came in, walking right past us but staring from the line. For some reason at this point I was perfectly calm, maybe it was the 200lb butch looking security guard with a gun standing two feet from me, but who knows. Katiya on the other hand was completely freaking out. We decided to leave as nonchalantly as possible, waiting till they were ordering to make our exit but somewhere in the process Katiya flipped and launched out of her chair, running toward the door and practically body checking the security guard. She did not stop running until we were through the courtyard and half way back to the hostile. And at that point we just collapsed against a building laughing hysterically. That is the twisted thing about living in this country – I mean, Katiya is a hard core New Yorker; tough as nails, fearless, maybe even a little crazy and I guarantee she could have taken out one of those guys with no problem but it is not the same when you don’t speak the language, you don’t know the customs and the gender relations are so skewed as compared to western culture. There is a certain exhaustion that comes from constantly being on edge, constantly being aware. Even tough girls get scared. Even the smartest, most sensible people feel lost.