beetrock

Today my Godson and I went to a brand new shopping center, built where a children’s ground once stood and where dog owners used to walk their pets. The shopping center, reminiscent in size, shape, and steel lining to a Titanic, or some other massive ship, filled me with a feeling of anxiety as we approached. Dragging Kirill away from mean Russian drivers I guided him to the automatic doors.

I remember that when I was Kirill’s age automatic doors could be found only in one location in Saint Petersburg and seemed to be the most amazing thing that ever existed. Kirill passed through without even noticing.

We entered the 4-story building with escalators, adorned with glass, and center-pieced by fountains. A Guess and Esprit to our left, an Addidas and a Speedo store above us and I had an immediate familiar feeling of entering a suburban American mall. Missing the Ms. Field’s cookie smell and the everpresent Bath and Body shop and Banana Republic, the Russian mall version is not as grand, but as depressing in its solitude.

We went straight for the top to find a movie theatre and the “Game Zone.” Russians are hesitant to use the word “zona” - the Russian equivalent of the word zone that is well associated with prison camps, so the Game Zone is an all American experience, or perhaps, a Japanese one since most of the machines are made in Japan. So Kirill and I raced cars and then snowboarded. I had to get on the snowboard with him since he was too small to wiggle his butt effectively enough. Then we bought popcorn and a Pepsi and went to watch “Over the Hedge.” The cartoon definitely went over the Russian heads. A sarcastic make fun of America’s suburban obsession with food, the movie will shortly be applicable to the life on an average Saint Petersburger as well.

After the movie Kirill and I went home and I bought and old fashioned Pirate board game that we played to distract him from his computer.