No Shirt, No Shoes

"Уважаемые пассажиры..."1 says a female voice over the loudspeakers in the diagonal chute of boredom known as the escalators to the metro. I think she's trying to sell us something, but too bad for her, I can't tell.

Dear readers, I really enjoy public transportation in St. Petersburg. I personally can't begin to imagine the headache that is driving in the city. There are a lot of cars around, but I noticed a couple weeks ago that there is a conspicuous lack of parking ramps and lots. In my neighborhood, there are a slew of towering apartment buildings, but they are unaccompanied by towering parking ramps. The people that do have cars park them wherever they can -- along the 'frontage' road, in the streetlets between buildings, and, well, I have spotted at least one parking lot along the coast.

Riding the bus this week, I suddenly realized that Russians' parking options are almost completely unrestricted by signs. Whereas the streets of American cities are dotted with confusing NO PARKING M-F 11-6 EXCEPT HOLIDAYS, WEEKENDS, AND EVERY OTHER FULL MOON signs, the most you get around here is a hand-crafted МАШИНЫ НЕ СТАВИТЬ 2 on the gates to courtyards.

I solved another sign-puzzle two days ago while I was waiting for the bus, the instigator and incubator for all great culture revelations. Some stores have two phrases that accompany their hours of operation. I saw the word без (bez - without) and something that looked like the word for "shoe," so naturally I assumed that they were proclaiming the familiar "No Shoes, No Service."

"Does that mean I could get service without a shirt?" I thought idly and left it at that. But this Wednesday, I took a closer look at an advertisment posted crookedly on a pillar of the bus stop. It had the same two, familiar phrases, but this time I actually read them and they said:

Без обеда, без выходных. 3

I figuratively gasped and wheeled around to check the hours of the grocery store that constitutes the bulk of the bus stop. Again, Без обеда, без выходных. I had completely misunderstood every single sign up to this point! They didn't care what I was or was not wearing, they were just boasting that they didn't close for an hour for lunch, or take a break on the weekends. See, most every where used to take an hour (or two) in the middle of the day for lunch, the largest and most complex meal of the Russian's day. Even the ticket "office" at my metro station, Primorskaya, a little covered stand-like affair operated by one women, takes a break from 15-16 for obed. Times, however, are changing. Less time for lunch, more time for sales.

And now the program manager is inviting me to tea. How Russian. Except he's from Long Island. Cultural adaptation at work!


1. Uvazhaemy passazhery -- Dear passengers
2. Mashiny ne stavit' -- No parking
3. Bez obeda, bez vykhodnyx -- No lunch, no weekends