St.Petersburg is often misnamed “The Venice of the North” – presumably by people who haven’t seen both to compare. Venice is indeed famous for its canals, and it does have those beautiful renaissance era buildings. St.Petersburg’s buildings too were often designed and built by Italian architects, however its canal network, designed in part by Peter the Great, takes more of a stylistic cue from Amsterdam and Manchester than north-eastern Italy.
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Parliament House, with Chingghis Khan’s imposing statue in the centre

Sukhbaatar Square in the Mongolian capital of Ulaan Baatar is named after the man who originally brought democracy and independence to the country back in the early 1920’s. It is the main square in the city. I remember it when there were no skyscrapers, and the vista was stunning and uniform. Today’s progress has rather ruined the effect. However, it is still a lovely place to visit, sit and hang out, as many Mongolians do. These are the views from around the Square.

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I was interviewed today by the lovely Enkezul Orgodol, who I have known for 15 years. She was my tour guide in Mongolia many moons ago, and later became an intern at my firm’s Singapore branch. Today she runs a successful business consultancy and is married with two young children. It’s great to see friends and colleagues doing so well. I don’t often post business things here on my personal blog,but for anyone curious about my professional expertise and what I know, this interview is a good place to get a feel for that.

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Monkey damage to my roof this morning. A bunch of them were after one of my Jak Fruit and the branch broke. Several broken roof tiles and a big mess. Must have been funny to see it but that’s several thousand rupees worth of fixing needs doing. The Jak Fruit they were after is the dark green rugby ball sized object, the yellow gunk insides of other part eaten Jak Fruit. All mixed up with large amounts of smelly green Monkey poo as they collectively shit themselves when the branch broke thirty feet above. Lovely.

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It’s back to my Sri Lanka home after time in wintery Russia, and as the cupboard is bare, men need to go fishing for their supper. This is reef fishing, a couple of km offshore, and about 100-150 feet deep. I use both a very simple hand held line and a rod, but find I can feel the fish better with a hand held line. It’s harder work to pull them in, but more effective in my view. Bait is just chopped raw squid. I am almost guaranteed a catch, and in two hours had enough fish to last two weeks.

Reef fish aren’t especially tasty unless they are cooked really fresh, in which a simple descaling, olive oil and herbal treatment then grilling over hot coals will suffice. Otherwise they are better in a Boulibasse type stew, but this evening saw the BBQ come out at home. Caught, cooked and eaten in two hours. Bellisima!

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This is a Polugar Vodka Martini. This brand recreates the tastes and recipes of the time of Peter The Great, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Pushkin. The difference? It’s distilled from the same grains used to make bread (it used to be known as “Bread Wine”). This is their No.3 recipe, with added caraway, but not enough to be overpowering. It has a warm bread like taste with the aromatics just coming through enough. Imagine a few caraway seeds on rye and you’ve got it. I added 1/7th dash of Dolin Vermouth to it and shook well. It’s excellent.

The website states: “Polugar is the true legendary Russian bread wine brought back to life using the traditional technologies and recipes from the 18th and 19th centuries. It hasn’t been produced for the last 120 years, is 38.5% alcohol strength, smells of rye bread and has a soft pleasant taste.

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Your intrepid reporter gets jazzy

Although St.Petersburg is renowned for it’s opera, ballet and architecture, it also has a strong literary culture and with that goes the intellectual stimulus of jazz. The Hat Bar, which is conveniently just around the corner from where I live, is a cool dive with young musicians queuing up to play each evening. There’s also the chance of a jazz superstar coming along to jam after a concert elsewhere in the city. The trick is to get a seat, which really means arriving before 10:30pm. The venue is square shaped,with a three sided bar to the rear and the stage upfront. Limited snacks are available-but they do know how to make decent cocktails (I always order a Negroni here) and have a good selection of Russian draft and bottled beers. It’s a hang out dive, so not expensive, and usually open until 4-5am.

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Ivan the Terrible contemplates whether he should chop off the head of the Pskov High Priest.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Maid of Pskov” – a tale featured the doomed Princess Olga (death by cannon) and Ivan the Terrible at the Mariinsky. More choral than arias, but an impressive set and costumes, plus horses on stage made for an entertaining evening. In Italian operas, everyone falls in love, in Russian ones, they all die. Except Ivan, who lived on, grief struck. Par for the course?

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The hapless fish merchant Mendoza, wooing the woman he thinks is the rich and beautiful Louisa. Actually she’s Louisa’s poor, ugly yet very savvy Nanny

Everything about this has a joke, including the title, in Prokofiev’s romantic opera, composed between 1940-46 and completed in Almaty, Kazakstan. It’s a nod to the Italian influence on Russian opera, with the plot involving Don Jerome, who intends his daughter Louisa to marry the vain, wealthy and ugly fish merchant Mendoza. However, she loves instead Antonio, who is poor, though noble in spirit. Furthermore, Don Ferdinand, son of Don Jerome and prone to fits of jealousy, wants to marry Clara d’Almanza, who is a virtual prisoner of her stepmother. It’s the Italian classic story of being married off for financial gain rather than for true love.

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The Snow Maiden Opera. This is a 25 foot tall Rooster welcoming in the Chinese New Year. It flapped its wings

It was a truly nutcase “Snow Maiden” at the Mariinsky last night, Rimsky-Korsakov’s operatic masterpiece of returning spring, reimagined via copius amounts of LSD in a surreal world of fairy tale meets Sacre Du Printemps via liberal helpings of marijuana. What were the set designers on? Shades of Chinese New Year as well as our heroine eventually melts and the sun is free to shine and usher in a very late spring. Madcap, but fun.

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