#4 aSafta sheli meta

aSafta sheli meta, ✈️ leHalvaya. "My grandmother passed away, and I am flying to the funeral," I explained during the Israeli security check.

Yes, she was 94, yet she unexpectedly passed away last Thursday. She tirelessly tried to fit me into a comfortable box, eating my brains out, and we had a complicated relationship throughout the years. However, amidst it all, there's one thing I am grateful for, and I've decided it's the best way to honor her memory.

When I was ten years old, out of the blue, she decided to take me on a trip to Saint Petersburg. Not before or after did she show much interest in connecting with her only granddaughter. She usually traveled alone or with someone easy to suppress, but just this once, she chose to share this experience with me, and it became a profoundly special memory.

She picked me up between summer holiday destinations in Moscow. We departed on a night train, and she insisted it was the best way to get there. Even when a more comfortable speed train was launched, she was right.

The train arrived at 5 a.m., and I was as grumpy as a sleepy child can get. We had to find storage for our luggage at the train station, and by the time we were done, I was unbearable. Then, I saw one of the most magnificent streets in the world, Nevsky Prospect, and fell silent. It was almost empty and sleepy. I hadn't expected much from Saint Petersburg, having never been there and probably not paying attention when someone older told me about it. Growing up in an industrial Siberian city, it seemed more beautiful than any fairy tale I knew.

We stayed at her former student’s apartment, but they could only meet us after work. So, we had a whole day ahead of us.

We walked along the avenue of palaces, and she told me stories of the city mixed with episodes from the time she spent there.

It turned out that in the late 1950s, she came to Leningrad (as it was called at the time) from Siberia to study. She had already tasted some uninspiring life in Siberia - she graduated from college and even got married. However, being a school teacher in a village in the middle of dense taiga or a handsome but detached officer didn't fulfill her; she clearly wanted more for herself. Leaving her husband to return to her controlling, unkind mother was not an option. She came with a plan to visit some distant relatives in Leningrad just in time for the exams at the Pedagogical university. And even though the competition was from all over the country, she got in. It was a perfect reason not to come back. Those three years were the happiest in her life, and frankly, they would have been for anyone.

She knew every inch of this city, and it hadn't changed much since her time. The 21st century would soon bring a lot of damage or maybe the European charm Peter would have wanted.

She knew a 24/7 café that served vodka, tea, and fresh pastry. My world kept expanding. We got ourselves some breakfast and continued our journey. The goal was to reach the central telegraph to send a telegram to Novosibirsk that we arrived safe and sound and to call our hosts.

The telegraph was, of course, gorgeous inside and out. All the wooden carved ornaments seemed like another palace. Though probably, it was always a telegraph - for people who once lived in those palaces, not for the ones who had taken over.

We had too much time, so we went for the first screening at the old cinema house that my grandma used to go to. Her colorful stories of how they went to the last shows, kissed, and laughed, finding themselves stuck at 3 a.m. in the center when the bridges were already raised. And if there was no way to get to the dorms, then why sleep at all? They walked, laughed, and kissed until the classes started. I don't remember if she told me about kisses, but that's how my imagination later imprinted it: pictures of young and beautiful people from all over the big country, girls in those signature 50s skirts, and tons of romance. As if the first happy scenes from "The Cranes Are Flying" were in Leningrad. In my imagination, it had very little to do with my grandma, who obviously didn't fit this image.

In Novosibirsk, she sometimes would take me to see movies on the big screen. The films usually ranged from boring to bad, but I loved the experience itself. This was the nicest movie theater that I had seen so far. At the time, the very few cinemas in Novosibirsk that survived the fall of Soviet film distribution were smelly and half wrecked. After the screening, they let us out right onto the street, and it was the stairs above the same Nevsky Prospect. Surprisingly, the magnificent Peter's city was still there.

We had more time to kill, so the next stop was the Hermitage. An actual royal palace full of art, thrones, and shiny things. We got there at 11:00, and the plan was to stay for a couple of hours. I was pretty tired when we got in. But something had changed inside – I was totally hypnotized and had to continue; otherwise, I'd wake up in Novosibirsk, and it would all be gone. The Hermitage was closing at 5 p.m., and I agreed to leave the building only when promised that we would come back the next day. So, we spent the whole next day in the Hermitage. The rest of the trip, we saw many more palaces and fascinating things, but before we left, I insisted on coming back to the Hermitage. From today, I think it was the art that caught me. Under one roof, there was Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Raphael, Degas, Matisse, Canova, Michelangelo, and many others.

Each time I've visited Saint Petersburg after that, I come across some reminder of that first trip with my grandma. Had I gotten acquainted with Saint Petersburg under different circumstances, I would still have appreciated it because it's exceptional. But I think that it's the most valuable thing someone from your family can do for you – share their happy place.