November evenings in Saint-Petersburg

22:22. You dart out of your appartments. To buy some cigarettes. Not for yourself. It's Wednesday evening in November. It should be colder outside this time of the year, but now it's raining heavily, most of the day, and it seems like your favourite black leather jacket will keep you warm, but it won't happen cause dank and foggy air send goose bumps all over your body and lightened windows only intensify this feeling. Even fashionable flamboyant rubber boots're feeble to make you a little more cheerful. Damn..You grin to yourself as you start to imagine you're staring some Jeremiah S. Chechik film..,"Diabolique" for instance, as Adjani or Stone heroine. Ready to die or ready to kill. No matter. Just a feeling. Green, Red and Yellow lights reflects from flooded pavement as you pass through a familiar junction. The rows of cars are getting shorter. And it would be better if  "The Trinity Sessions" softly poured out of your headphones. But instead of it you hear the city itself. Crying. And making you wanna do the same. But of course you won't. The soul of the city is definitely hidden  here, in Petrogradskaya storona, and if there were no cars and neon signboards - you wouldn't be so sure about certainty of the epoch you live in. It's like you got lost in time. Such a cool feeling. The door of the market is open. A long queue of despondent people are waiting for someting. You're waiting for your turn. Most of them are buying something with alcohol. As always. You're here for tabacco and tangerines. All alone enclosed by drunkers. Funny. And when you left, a flux of strange thoughts are rushing your brains. Like an old dog digging out his beloved bone, one thought reaches it's destination. And then the trouble signaling will start to shout louder and louder. Don't dig yourself too deep, cause it may turn out that after a long and exhausting scan for problems in the end you'll find a swamp... which was the real foundation for a very beautiful city..So now change the direction, improve your decorations and take yourself to some smoky bar with the best music in the whole city and succumb someone who succumbs you.

 paintings by Leonid Afremov