One Night In Leningrad I'll Always Remember

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The time of year has come when I think of a very special night in Leningrad in the (then) Soviet Union. Yes, Leningrad. The city hadn't got its old name St. Peterburg back yet. This happened only in the year 1991. I don't remember the exact year when what I'm going to tell you took place. It must have been in the early 1970s. I used to teach Russian at a secondary grammar school in Germany and went to Moscow and Leningrad twice on a one-week school trip with a group of students. We flew to Moscow and stayed there for half a week, then took the night train to Leningrad for the other half and returned to Germany from there. When we were in Leningrad my colleague and I decided to thank our friendly and helpful guide Ludmilla by inviting her big-style to one of the best restaurants. It‘s on the ground floor of the 5-star Grand Hotel Europe on Nevsky Prospekt in the centre of the city. Now we couldn't afford a night out there any more, but then we were rich with our Deutsche Mark against the Ruble. I'm not especially impressed by caviar. But we had it there, red and black one, together with blinis (a type of thin pancake) and other specialities up and down the menu. We drank champagne from Crimea and had a shot of vodka in the end. There was a small orchestra with a very good singer, a tenor, who specialised in Italian arias. No idea why he didn't sing Russian songs. Maybe the musicians thought that the foreign guests felt good when things weren’t too foreign for them. (Which is indeed often the case). When midnight came, the festive evening ended rather abruptly. A grim, elderly charwoman appeared with a bucket full of water and a floor mop and began cleaning the floor between the tables. So we left. We went to the nearest underground station, not drunk but tipsy enough to take the wrong underground train. Our hotel was far away from the centre somewhere in the periphery. When we didn't recognise any of the names of the stations we passed, we got off. It was after midnight then, but not dark. The days in the middle of June are called the White Nights in this northern city. The sun shines until 10 / 10.30 pm and starts shining again at around 5 am. In between the sky is light grey. We had no idea where we were. Neither had Ludmilla. She wasn't from Leningrad and had never been to the outskirts. Understandably, as all sights are in the centre. The good thing for my friend and me was, of course, that we had someone with us who could speak the language perfectly. But this didn't help much as at that time of night the streets were empty. We didn't feel too good as you can imagine. After some time the door of a high rise building opened and a young couple, dressed normally, and a young woman in a long nightie came out together with a dog. When they heard that we were lost, they decided to accompany us to our hotel. The dog wouldn't mind where it was walked. We were already near but approaching it from a different side. So we hadn't recognised the area. When we saw our hotel, we parted thanking our three saviours profusely. Our students had also enjoyed the light night and walked around at a time when it was already pitch dark at home but none had such a nice story to tell. You can imagine that I have fond thoughts when thinking of this city and its people! --- P.S. I've found the photo on the net but without the name of the photographer.