Petersburg Dispatch, #1

An enormous building down Nevsky Prospect bears blue letters on its roof stating "Leningrad - City of Heroes"

The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) isn't forgotten here. The Nazis laid siege to Leningrad for 900 days, and some 600,000 Russians starved to death.

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Two hundred and fifty years earlier, Petersburg rose out of a swamp conquered from the Swedes during the Northern War. 150,000 died during its construction.

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You'd think that this would be a city of ghosts, but I've never experienced anything so physical, so tangible in my life. There are shoving matches on the Metro. There's bricks to be laid at a new school, where I sleep in a classroom. There's robust and invincible buildings, centuries old, somehow staying afloat over boggy terrain. Then there's also the bus ride home, with its hard rights and hard lefts threatening to loosen the Heineken from between my knees.

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But maybe there are intangible things to be seen/heard in Petersburg. This city may appear to be little more than brick and mortar jostling, but Gogol cannot be wrong - things in Petersburg are most definitely not as they seem.

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This evening, I'll do nothing except pause to listen - bend my ear for the Spirit to tell me why I'm here and what I'll do next.