Moscow and Petersburg:
the experience of comparative cultural studies

St. Petersburg Lev Lurie on the site "House of Culture" of his name is characterized as "an economist who has become a historian and a historian who has become a director on a federal television channel." In addition, Lurie teaches in high school and conducts cultural expeditions to St. Petersburg. Alexei Firsov and Alexei Serditov talked about the differences in St. Petersburg and Moscow mentality with Lev Lurie.

Lev Lurie: “Petersburgers have time to do good”

Material prepared by the project
Center for Russian Culture Studies

Petersburger potential

- To what extent does the idea of distinguishing “collective conscious or unconscious” cities have a right to exist? For example, Moscow and St. Petersburg? After all, all agglomerations are complex, there are professors, and gopniks, and the outskirts, and the center. And you often compare Moscow and Petersburg. How do you manage to single out the general that characterizes complex urban entities?

- On the basis of intuition, I emphasize. It seems to me that the main feature of St. Petersburg in relation to Moscow is its low labor productivity. This is our plus and minus at the same time. The difference between Moscow and St. Petersburg is the same as between America and England. This is a hypothesis. Actually, it is journalistic and even provocative in nature, so there is nothing to prove further, this is an essayist’s technique. I do not think that comparisons should be limited to St. Petersburg and Moscow. Today I wrote a review of Alexei Ivanov’s book Öburg. This is just a book about how Yekaterinburg differs from other cities in Russia.

- Nevertheless, low labor productivity cannot be such an obvious criterion. It is low everywhere in Russia, although in Moscow, perhaps, a little higher. It seems that the main thing is the motivation of people.

- From this point of view, Moscow is "labor shortage", it is ready to take more and more. At the same time, Moscow makes certain demands on people, this is a kind of competition. And Leningrad, of course, is a more stagnant place in terms of the possibility of movement. He accepts people from Murmansk, Petrozavodsk, Siberia, but not to the extent that Moscow does. In St. Petersburg, it’s more difficult to get a special job, but they require less from a person.

- That is, at some point the situation turned upside down. It is generally accepted that Petersburg as a capital was more energetic than Moscow.

- Yes, the situation turned upside down. Petersburg today is what 19th century Moscow was like.

- That is, everything in Russia is centered, determined by metropolitan functions.

- To a large extent. There is a city with metropolitan functions, and there are various large "merchant" cities.

- The transfer of the capital quickly enough leads to a change in the mentality of the inhabitants. And how does this mechanism work?

- Geniuses are born in the provinces, and die in the capital. The most vain young people who seek their application, and now the girls are rushing to the capital. And they are ready for serious enough self-restraints, including moral ones, to achieve certain goals. The capital requires a person much greater self-restraint - moral, psychological…

- That is, Petersburg is somewhat more licentious than Moscow?

- A Petersburger gets up later than a Muscovite. She goes to bed later. Spends much less time on the road. He gets less, and therefore values his work less. Of much greater importance are certain qualities of a person that do not determine his position. For example, knowledge of the Japanese language, disinterested. A person knows Japanese, but does not translate, does not make money on it. Or knows 154 architects. In St. Petersburg, this human "underwater iceberg" is much larger. Moreover, a person in St. Petersburg uses a very small part of his potential. Therefore, Petersburgers are very successful in Moscow. There is a large supply.

- Take this conditional Petersburger who knows Japanese, but does not know why he needs this language. How could you reconstruct his motivation? Why is he teaching Japanese?

- I think he teaches him because he wants to understand the meaning of life through him, for example. Take at least Sergei Shnurov. He sings songs in which there are obscene expressions. It is clear that it is impossible to rotate on radio stations and show on TV. For hell, does he use foul language, in terms of common sense and commercial considerations? Or here are the complex texts by Grebenshchikov. Compare with Makarevich. Everything is clear in that, in Russian. And Grebenshchikov is guessing, thinking, why it is said so. Two more typical paths are Brodsky and Yevtushenko. Brodsky wrote poetry without any hope of publication, with incomprehensible pride. Yevtushenko has a different motivation.

- Now Moscow, federal structures and companies are coming to St. Petersburg. Does it change the mentality of citizens, the cultural field?

- What I was talking about does not mean that Petersburgers are stupid and idlers. St. Petersburg has its own "chips" that are for sale. Material moments influence the mentality, but England is not only based on American capital.

- Do you have any established image of a St. Petersburg businessman?

- There is. I have many friends among businessmen. Generally speaking, I have been raised in an anti-bourgeois spirit, but on the whole I am well disposed towards business people. Practice convinced me.

I’ll tell you what is called a case from life. In 2010, twenty years have passed since the death of Dovlatov. The "Fifth Channel" gave us quite a lot of money on the Leningrad scale, I published a book about Dovlatov, we began to break through and install a memorial plaque. It was complicated by city laws, but we broke it. It took about five thousand dollars to set up a board, we collected them on television ourselves, we just worked out. Dovlatov’s daughters were invited to the opening, but there was not enough money to make a banquet. Opposite the house of Dovlatov, on the Rubinstein street, there is a pub. I went there and just told my friend about the situation, did not ask for anything. And he immediately gave me money - three or four thousand dollars. And I know many such cases, not in relation to me, but in relation to other people. I think we are holding on to this.

Russian north

- It is curious that Muscovites and Petersburgers agree on each other and themselves. Petersburgers consider Muscovites energetic, but too fussy, arrogant. Muscovites consider Petersburgers to be intelligent, but lethargic and somewhat lazy, not very fit for business, not motivated. Perhaps some initially mythological construction gradually came to life as reality?

- Rather, it first formed as reality, and then it was defined in words.

- But when I work in Moscow, I am more energetic and collected than in St. Petersburg, I feel it.

- It is clear that if a Petersburger is transferred to Moscow, he will gradually become a Muscovite.

- Gradually or immediately?

- No, not right away. The advantage of a Petersburger, as I said, is that he knows a bunch of unnecessary things. Here Luzhkov is a Muscovite, and Putin is basically Leningrad. Tell me why the lieutenant colonel of the FSB is such an art of rhetoric that allows you to make a speech in German in the Bundestag? Why do we need to know geography and history like no other country’s leader knew, at least not after Lenin or Stalin?

- I would like to clarify. When we say "Petersburger", we mean the people who grew up and formed here, absorbed the tradition. But a “Muscovite” is an artificial concept, mainly visiting people in Moscow.

- I am not a supporter of this kind of "racial theory." I believe that if a person has lived in Moscow for twenty years, he has already become a Muscovite.

- And how then do you explain the certain tension that exists between the native Muscovites and non-native? Indigenous people in a sense lost the competition of visitors of the 90s. Hereditary Muscovites from the point of view of these “new Muscovites” are more sluggish, passive, somewhat reminiscent of Petersburgers.

- I know many “old Muscovites” and really love them. They also spoke with us, albeit not in such terms, about "come in large numbers." The number of migrants to St. Petersburg has decreased since the 70s of the last century, unlike Moscow, St. Petersburg consists of two-thirds of the people who were born here. I am a fifth-generation Petersburger, but I don’t feel like some kind of aristocracy. The peculiarity of the city is that it can digest migrants and make them their own.

As for Muscovites, here, unlike Petersburg, there has always been a kind of “all-class brotherhood”. And Petersburg is a very formal city, “buttoned all the way”, first of all, in terms of human relations.

“Does the word snobbery fit here?”

- Sure. Snobbery is a defining property of St. Petersburg.

- Where could a Petersburger move, besides Moscow?

- I’m not sure that a Petersburger can even move somewhere. He, of course, can leave, but this is a step that denies himself. For St. Petersburg, it does not matter where the person went — to New York or Moscow. "The old man is out."

I can say which cities are close to Leningrad, where it is easier for a Leningrader to move. The Russian North, not even Novgorod and Pskov, but Norilsk, Magadan, Vorkuta, Anadyr, Murmansk or Petrozavodsk. Petersburg is the capital of the north. A huge number of geologists, oil miners and sea captains once became Leningraders.

- That is, a Petersburger can move to those cities that, one way or another, were in the zone of influence of St. Petersburg.

- In many respects, proximity to Finland is also decisive for Petersburgers. Perhaps this is the most important thing that happened to Petersburg over the past twenty years. According to statistics, a Petersburger is five times more likely to be in Helsinki than in Moscow. Finns are closer to the Petersburger than Muscovites. In Helsinki, the distance between people is greater than in Moscow. People do not raise their voices. In St. Petersburg, the subway is quiet, and in Moscow it is loud.

- Yes, and Helsinki looks like the outskirts or a continuation of old Petersburg.

- Yes, Helsinki looks like Petersburg, inhabited by Finns. I can easily imagine that St. Petersburg can be cleaned, roads improved, Finns settled, and the city will not differ from Helsinki.

Keep quiet

- In the history of states there are times when social reactions escalate. And in these reactions, differences in the inhabitants of different cities are more pronounced. Now, in many ways, such a moment in the history of Russia. Does the reaction of Petersburgers and Muscovites to the current situation (Crimea, Ukraine, confrontation with the West) differ?

- I do not see much difference. On Facebook (продукт Meta Platforms Inc., компания признана экстремистской организацией, деятельность на территории РФ запрещена), I have about the same number of Moscow and St. Petersburg friends. And the delimitation is about the same.

- Why is it so, is there a difference in the mentality of Muscovites and Petersburgers?

- I think the difference in emotional intensity. Shouting out loud is still not ours.

- But the structure of public opinion is about the same, despite the fact that Petersburg is considered a more European city?

- Yes, but it feels like. I don’t know for sure that the election of the governor will show.

- Probably, Petersburgers still consider themselves the largest Europeans in Russia…

“No, we don’t say that.” Petersburgers and Muscovites are a kind of Russian. In a sense, Muscovites are more Europeans. They have more money, they travel more. Maybe, on the contrary, Petersburgers are more Russian than Muscovites.

- Probably, this is still a certain stereotype of the “window to Europe”. But you spoke of certain standards of European behavior for Petersburgers.

- Yes, when in Petersburg a person in a vehicle touches another person, he shivers like an electric ramp. This is not so in Moscow.

I talked a lot about the fact that in St. Petersburg there is such an institution as a wineglass. Captains of the first rank, teachers of technical universities, pensioners and drink there. It’s not customary to talk here. Behind the counter is a strict woman who suppresses any noise. Poor, but clean, people drink culturally. In Moscow, this is simply impossible. There will always be two Uzbeks and a drunk man from Balashikha.

- The recent visit to the wine-glass in Moscow was remembered by how one person for a long time assured that he was born in 1783…

- We also have a lot of crazy people.

- As for city crazy, it’s interesting. I don’t know if there are more of them in St. Petersburg, but here they are more noticeable, they are more loyal to them than in Moscow, this is obvious. The lunatics here are less timid.

- In St. Petersburg, a person, if he speaks politely, even if he is crazy, gives more time to speak out than in Moscow. It is known that in St. Petersburg they show the way, but in Moscow they don’t. We have more idle people, they have time to do good.

- It seems that in Moscow the number of idle people who can afford not to work is greater. Many live on rent and so on…

- In Moscow there is a critical mass of energetic, predatory young people.

Opposition in St. Petersburg

- The last ten years they have been trying to do something with Petersburg. Repair, clean, create new infrastructure, bring large taxpayers. What succeeded and failed, in your opinion? Is this all for the better or worse?

- Of course, oil rent has been spilled on us, much has been done, especially under Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko. It is clear that everything could be done more efficiently, but the roads really got better, the facades were painted, in general there was nothing to blame. Much has been done at the expense of small business. If not by civil society, then through private initiative. Indeed, the young man who lives here does not go to a large corporation because it is hard to get a job. He gets a loan and opens a bar. We have a great advantage - small business is fighting for us. He wants our three rubles.

From the point of view of the social landscape, Petersburg may be experiencing the best period in its life.

- Do you assess the decision of Peter to build a city here as an afterthought or as something tragic for Russian history?

- The construction of St. Petersburg is an absolutely inhuman step, which has become a huge PR of our country. This "Unprecedented happens", as Peter wrote on medals in honor of the victory over the Swedish fleet.

“And Gazprom, when he was trying to build a tower on Okhta.”

- The story with Gazprom, with the opposition to this project and some others, showed that even if we don’t know how to arrange Bolotnaya Square, like Muscovites, we can really defend some small things. The city is more interested not in general political issues, but in specific issues.

- In the story of the skyscraper, you, of course, were in opposition.

- Yes.

- What was decisive for you? Did you think that the tower would spoil historical views or was it more annoying that the company was so impudent?

- Then the main idea was that any look from the center to the east would fix a spoiled panorama.

- That is, the optimal future of the city in preserving the historical part?

- I think yes. Although we have different points of view on this subject, many want some kind of Docklands here, as in London. I think that in the center, if you destroy something, you need to make a park. In the center of St. Petersburg there is little greenery.

- Probably, in the historical part of St. Petersburg it is impossible to build a building that will immediately be positively evaluated.

- In architecture, there is such a property - it improves with time. How many scandals there were around the small hotel that Sopromadze built near the circus on the Fontanka. She is inconspicuous, completely background, perfectly stood up. The second stage of the Mariinsky Theater against the background of what is there is not terrible. I do not see anything there that would offend the public taste. Such a Brezhnev cosmism.

- And in general, the history of St. Petersburg is a chronicle of fierce opposition to new architecture. What about St. Isaac’s Cathedral, what about the Singer House of architect Suzor…

- Remember the Savior on Blood, which Alexander Benoit proposed to blow up.

- What places in Petersburg do you like most? Where do you especially feel the “energy” of the city?

- I was born on the Petrograd side, and I understand her. Her charm was in the waist, she is like cheese. But now this part of the city is the most spoiled. The Petrograd side was not completed by 1912, and the Bolsheviks did not touch it, because it was built in large massifs. And such Moscow courtyards remained there. And now all this has disappeared, because the unsecured places were built up with business centers. But still a favorite place.

I like the streets crossing Suvorovsky Prospekt, the area near the Vitebsky Train Station metro station, the area from the Pushkinskaya metro station to the Technological Institute and beyond. There is charm in places from the 1st to the 8th line of Vasilyevsky Island. Colossal, inhuman, I would say Egyptian beauty in the central squares of the city. Perfect charming Kolomna, New Holland, Gunner Island.

This is very important, I see it from children, that in St. Petersburg you can go to some unexpected place.

- The subject of discussion is not only the general differences between Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also the details, the nuances. Ballet schools, for example.

- I think that everything that is small, which depends on the person, is better with us. We have better with good high schools, with libraries…

- It seems that Petersburgers, such as you, will be satisfied in general, so that everything in the city remains as it is.

- Of course, I would like to see other city authorities. I will not say that some Koshchei Immortals ruled us, but the mentality…

These are people who were not useful in Moscow, why should they be useful to us? But the people who come here quickly begin to be shy and afraid. At first Athos, Seraphim of Sarov, Cossacks, and then they somehow all understand and wander.

- And how do you feel about large-scale St. Petersburg holidays that delight Muscovites? Scarlet Sails, for example. Hundreds of First Petrov in the Neva and so on…

- The holiday "Scarlet Sails" existed in Soviet times, under the first secretary Romanov, but then it was closed as not quite Soviet. Revived Valentina Ivanovna, who was terribly fond of the holidays and herself was a man-holiday. Scarlet Sails is a beautiful sight. Another thing is that they never knew how to make a good moment when passing the yacht, when Captain Gray was approaching Assol. Some Dima Bilan, who has nothing to do with St. Petersburg, necessarily appears here, and drunken ninth-graders write in the central part of the city. And the townspeople, especially from the center, treated this without any enthusiasm. Here, of course, there is a contradiction. In fact, after all, children from St. Petersburg’s outskirts, especially from dysfunctional families, do not visit the city center. And here they come in huge numbers, and it is not clear how to behave with them.

Of course, everything that is created by officials is always unsuccessful. And everything that happens from below, for example, the flea market on Udelnaya, is always successful.

- Of course, do you think the idea of moving part of the capital’s functions to Petersburg senseless for the city?

- Pointless, no need.

- When you call Petersburg Leningrad, what does this mean for you?

- There is nothing shameful in the word Leningrad. This name is "washed away" by the blockade; it does not bother me when the city is called Leningrad.

Gangster Petersburg

- Who for you has become the literary discovery of St. Petersburg over the past two decades?

- With literature, I’m pretty bad. I think that in the sense of prose, from the time of Tatyana Tolstoy, who also left for Moscow, there was nothing more significant. With poetry, too, not very. Of course, in other genres there are: Masyanya, Shnurov, Mitya artists, Shinkarev, Kopeikin. This is a usual story for St. Petersburg, because it is not commercial. As soon as it becomes commercial, it dies.

- The soil for literature is not rich in Moscow today…

- But in Moscow it’s better with literature and theater.

“It happened because it happened, or do you see some objective internal reasons?”

- Prose is a heavy genre. When not printed, it cannot exist as samizdat. We have not had a single exciting work in the last twenty years. We did not have Pelevin, there was no Sorokin.

I can tell you whom I consider talented. The book "Gangster Petersburg" by Andrei Konstantinov will be reprinted for many more years. This is no worse than Gilyarovsky, absolutely. And by the boldness of the investigation and the depth of detail is superior. We also have Evgeny Vyshenkov, he wrote an amazing book “Roofs of St. Petersburg” about Petersburg bandits. The book is built on an interview with them.

- St. Petersburg crime was generally inclined to philosophize, there was a desire to share something with society…

- St. Petersburg bandits had their moral principles, they even tried to get away from crime. Lily Bells. We have not divided crime into districts, which is interesting. It was a brotherhood of athletes who together went through sports camps. They lost faster with us and now do not play any role.

- They tried to stay in history.

“But it did not.”