Russia (and Sarah) Loves

• Ice cream
• In Russia, it’s more likely that you’ll see a vending machine selling ice cream than one selling soda or candy...in my dorm, for example. It's available on every street corner, and there's even a Баскин-Роббинс on Nevskiy Prospekt; they carry a delightful black tea flavour. Personally, I'm excited to try the crème brûlée variety.

• The 80s
• The scrunchie is still a hot hair accessory, mullets abound, and I've heard my roommate wake up to death metal more than once. More proof: the opening band for the Saint-Petersburg International Economic Forum was Duran Duran. Swoon.
  

• Literature
• Many bookstores are open 24-hours a day, and Dom Knigi (below), is a landmark. And also, how amazing is it that there are metro stops named after Dostoevsky, Pushkin, and Gorky? Russians honour their writers as Canadians honour hockey players and war heroes. Even children know their literary history, and museums are devoted to Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Blok, and Brodsky. It’s inspiring.

• Excess
• If you have the money, fabulous seats at the Mariinsky, champagne and caviar breakfasts (why not?), and private river cruises on the Neva await. There's a lot of awesome stuff to spend your rubles on. On the downside, male life expectancy here is fifty-eight, HIV is rampant, and recycling is unknown. This is not a culture that values life. But, it’s a culture that ironically will not die—Russia has undergone heaps of drama, and it continues to reinvent itself. I like to remember that this is the city that produced Rasputin, a man who was poisoned, shot, bound, and thrown in an icy river before he died. Think about it.