Not Your Run-of-the-Mill Walk to Work

Opportunities present themselves when you least expect them.  Just when I thought my Russian life was fitting back into its predictable box, I heard a knock.
"How would you like to substitute teach in St. Pete?" Drew asked two days after I arrived.
Just getting comfortable in my favorite chair in the living room, with my feet tucked under me, warm tea cup in hand, I said, "So, what's going on?" in a non-committal kind of way.

He told me the story. . .
characters --
Jack - high school English teacher, recovering from hip replacement surgery
Ron - principal, Anglo American School of St. Petersburg (sister school to the larger one in Moscow)
problem -- no one, except Ron, to cover Jack's classes until his return on Sept. 6th
rising action - possibilities contacted; none available
climax - school is starting -- Help!
resolution? -- What about Twylla?

To take you directly to the "Happily Ever After" ending. . .  "Twylla arrived on the 10:40 fast train from Moscow, suitcase and laptop in tow, eager to meet her new students."

The element lacking in the story is a description of the setting:  a magical city of castles, statues, a glistening river spanned by drawbridges, golden domes, gardens, palaces, ornate churches. . . and ghosts of Russians Past, infusing it with their lives.

My morning commute to the school is surrounded by the magic, the dazzling elegance of St. Petersburg.  Five minutes after opening my front door, I pass Palace Square and catch a glimpse of the mint-ish green and white exterior of the tsars' Winter Palace, imagining Nicholas, Alexandra and their children playing hide and seek in its 1057 rooms.

Following the curve of the Moika River, I walk along listening to its sloshing sounds, my mind momentarily flitting ahead to my first period English class, when the domes of the Church of the Spilt Blood come into view.  Although its official name, The Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ (or a similar variation) hides any hint of violence, the location does mark the spot where Tsar Alexander II's blood was spilled as a bomb exploded under his carriage.

      
Slowing my pace slightly to gaze at the regal architecture and intricate mosaic work, I force myself to keep walking, hoping to beat the line at the copy machine.  Crossing the street, I parade across the expansive Field of Mars, past the eternal flame commemorating St. Petersburg's victims in wars and revolutions.

The Trinity Bridge is in view as sprinkles of rain pepper my umbrella and gusts of wind threaten to turn it inside out.

But Peter and Paul's domes and spire guide me across safely to the other side.
 

Five minutes more, and I'm at school.  I've spent a half hour with no traffic to maneuver, no train to hurry and catch, no newspaper to bury my head in as I pass the time, no crowded metro to squeeze into. Only fresh air and exercise as I journey along streets and waterways that speak of the people who have lived here before me.

It's a privilege to share the city with the past and the present. As I open the gate to the school, "Good mornings" greet me, and I look forward to the day with staff and students, then to retracing my steps.