The Yale Globalist - St. Petersburg's Spirits

St. Petersburg's Spirits

Monday, 11 May 2009 | Anna Aleksandrova

Almost every week, Gleb Portnov sends me a message recounting his weekend’s “adventures.” Unlike those from the party and bar scene familiar to his American counterparts, Portnov’s stories center on the songs his friends sing while he accompanies them on the guitar, drinking to their health. For them, a standard night out involves staying in: Most of their drinking takes place at home.

Among St. Petersburg’s college student population, drinking means more than pure intoxication, an excuse to make “bad decisions.” Students from the city use alcohol not only differently than Americans but also differently than students from surrounding rural areas within Russia. College students from the city often remain in their parents’ homes while attending university, a norm that helps differentiate local drinking patterns and reinforce a social division between native Petersburgians and newcomers.

Unlike in many cities around the world, bars and clubs are not go-to destinations for many of St. Petersburg’s youths. “You have to be of a certain attitude, demeanor, and class to get into most St. Petersburg bars and clubs,” said Alexander Pushkov, a student at the Smolny Liberal Arts College in St. Petersburg. “Most rural students just don’t have what it takes to pass the ‘face control.’”

Pushkov, a native Petersburgian, is dating someone who comes from outside of town and has experienced being an “outsider.” His girlfriend, Anastasiya Sviridovich, explained that most students originally from outside St. Petersburg drink lower-quality alcohol and do so with people from their dormitories rather than go out to city joints. After hearing about a typical evening of drinking at an American college — friends drinking in school dormitories before going out to a bar or club — Sviridovich said that the routine “sounds similar to the nights we spend drinking in the dorms, but we rarely leave to go out to clubs afterwards.” The concern is both price and perception: “It’s too expensive, and we don’t want to get humiliated if the bouncers don’t let us in.”

Contrasting with Sviridovich’s experiences living in a dorm, locally raised Russian college students like Portnov and Pushkov spend their evenings in the company of friends at parents’ apartments, where most of

them still live. Portnov said, “Our parents often accept that we drink occasionally while in high school, and many of them do not object to us drinking at home after we turn 16.” As they reach college age, students continue to drink at home with their friends, and some parents even join these casual get-togethers.

This state of drinking is uniquely common in urban Russia, since, according to a University of St. Petersburg poll, over 80 percent of Russian college students live with their parents or rent a nearby apartment with friends to avoid university housing. Living with parents and having the freedom to invite friends for a drink at home, according to Pushkov, “helps students understand their drinking limits and avoid surpassing them during the academic year.”

Although many first- and second-year students do go out to bars and clubs, older students prefer getting together with intimate groups of friends and bonding over common interests and drink. Without the culture of living at home, these students would not have the right place or the appropriate atmosphere to spend their evenings this way.

Sviridovich on one hand, and Pushkov and Portnov on the other, have different experiences with alcohol and together represent the two main ways St. Petersburg’s students drink. Many of those who live in dorms miss out on a common form of bonding among native Petersburgians: that which occurs over a bottle of vodka at a parents’ apartment. Many of these newcomers also feel at a disadvantage to the urbanites because of their rural upbringing, their appearance, and their occasional inability to access the most popular bars and clubs across St. Petersburg.

In contrast, the group that remains living with parents benefits from years of shared tradition and emotional bonding that comes from spending an evening with close friends over “some small dishes, good drink, and excellent singing,” as Portnov cheerfully described. Even in times of economic hardship, their living situations and drinking habits form an integral part of native St. Petersburg students’ lives as they continue to rely on each other for moral support and good company.

Anna Aleksandrova is a junior History major in Davenport College.

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