St Petersburg: Shadows of the Past

Drawing on official documents, literature, art, memoirs, oral history, and personal observations of city streets and buildings, Kelly, professor of Russian at Oxford, offers a history/sociological study/travelogue of Leningrad-St. Petersburg from the late 1950s to the 2010s. "Piter" denizens have a reputation for being formidably reserved and defined by WWII experiences, though its status as cultural capital was long defined through the glories of the Kirov ballet and classical music. Film, painting, and theater also thrived, as did an alternative art scene in the 1970s; but by 2010 "ordinary Petersburgers were no longer so awestruck by the arts." In the Soviet era, major factories aimed "to cater to every aspect of its workforce's needs," shopping meant long queues, "Western goods, films, and magazines... set the standards of taste," and the kitchen was the home's center. In post-Soviet Petersburg, people feared that food was "less %E2%80%98healthy' and %E2%80%98tasty' than in the past"; an obsession with cars created wild road conditions; and a "devastating lack of trust in officials" prevailed. Although this well-researched, ambitious book is often engrossing, the sprawling nature of its material overwhelms and its amorphous style of writing is frustrating, making it less appropriate for general readers and more suitable to academics specializing in Russian sociology, history, and civil engineering. Illus. (Feb.)