This City Drives Us Mad! The Fateful, Brilliant and Criminal St. Petersburg

The mysterious and dark sides of St. Petersburg attract many people just as much as its architectural gems and the white nights. Any tour in which the word “mystical” appears is doomed to success, while the word “rasc—ленинград” has long since become a grim meme. And what else is there to be surprised at, since from the very beginning the city bore the mark of a “cursed” place—the prophecy of Yevdokiya Lopukhina says: “St. Petersburg will fall into emptiness.” Thus, barely appearing in the world, the city acquired a myth about its end.

“And with the Tsaritsa Avdotya, accursed, Dostoyevsky and the possessed City went into the fog on its way, And looked out again from the darkness, the old Petersburg loafer and wanderer, As before execution, the drum was beating…” — Anna Akhmatova

In her new book, tour guide Liliya Sergeeva explores what shapes the image of St. Petersburg: its history, climate, architecture, and residents. She connects various elements that make the city so unique and alluring—from ancient Finno-Ugric legends to mysterious sphinxes by the Neva, from gloomy prisons with ghosts to ruthless street gangs. Peter I, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Brodsky are all intertwined in this fascinating illustrated journey through the centuries. Perhaps, by looking at different sides and details of the city’s amazing mosaic, we will begin to understand better why Petersburgers are exactly the way we know them. And by studying the colorful, vivid, and dim fragments of a kaleidoscope called St. Petersburg, we will at least a little come closer to unraveling how and why this city drives people crazy.