It has been 30 years since my friend Peter died at the age of 19 after being hit by a car. It happened just two days before my group was scheduled to leave St. Petersburg for our long journey back to the United States. When we left on Friday night, he seemed to be doing better and I had hope that he would make it. Peter was a talented musician who was studying physics at the university. It isn’t every day you can walk the streets of the city and discuss quantum physics in English with a Russian.
It wasn’t until over 24 hours later when I got back home that I learned Peter had died. Even though it has been many, many years since his death; I would like to return to St. Petersburg and visit his grave…and maybe sit and talk a while. See if his parents are still living and visit with them as well.
It is Peter that I have to thank for seeing Raskolnikov’s home and make the walk from his home to the Haymaker Market - and getting a chance to bring to life the events in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”.
In my two trips to St. Petersburg, I spent a total of four months. I would probably be hopelessly lost but there are a few places I would like to see again; like the Alexander Nevsky cemetery where several of Russia’s most famous composers are buried. One of them even has a part of one of his compositions carved out on his tombstone!
Now that I know more about my ancestors and where they came form, I would like to visit some of those places in Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, and England. Back even before people had last names, my Dad’s family began roaming the seas. They began in Denmark and then began what I call the “island hop”; going form Denmark to Scotland, then Ireland, and England, and then to the “New Country” – first as one of the settlers at Jamestown and in 1640, Captain Anthony brought a ship filled with pilgrims to the new world and landed in what would become Virginia.
Like walking the path of Raskolnikov, it would be interesting, and I am sure very educational, to follow the path of my ancestors who fought at Hastings, brought settlers to the “New World”, and helped to create and defend this land.