Side By Side

From November 21st to November 28th we’ll be posting writing from Ed Wolf documenting his trip to the Side-By-Side LGBT Film Festival in St. Petersburg. Catch up with Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

Part Five: Paradox

Sunday November 23rd 

It’s 9 am, and it’s still dark outside.

I’ve received a message from Bard who is staying here at the hotel. Bard is a member of this year’s festival jury as well as the programming director for a similar film festival in Oslo, Norway. He suggests we have breakfast together. I hop in the shower and get dressed, happy to have something other than my orange outfit to wear.

In the hotel restaurant, Bard tells me that the festival screening has been cancelled for today. The owner of the venue where the bomb scare occurred last night no longer wants to have the festival on their premises. Even though there’s a signed agreement to use the space, the owner refuses. It’s impossible to know if there are other pressures involved, besides the bomb scare—but whatever the truth is, the festival is cancelled for today.

We have a long leisurely breakfast and talk about film, the terrible situation for Russia’s queer community, HIV, and life in San Francisco vs. Oslo. We have the whole day ahead of us and decide to go to the Hermitage, Russia’s most famous museum.

As we leave the hotel, the clouds suddenly clear and there is sunlight and blue sky. We walk several blocks before heading down into the massive marble and granite station. We can’t believe the length of the escalator; it takes us several hundred feet underground. The murals, busts and mosaics in the station are worthy of a museum all by themselves. Within fifteen minutes we’ve traveled to the river and have returned aboveground, walking toward the Hermitage complex.

The weather is exhilarating and beautiful. It lifts some of the heaviness from the bomb scare and resulting cancelation. The majesty of the museum and square is fantastic and I become aware of how far I’ve been able to walk today without having to stop and give my new artificial knees a rest. All the surgery, hospital stays, pain management, physical therapy, and bodywork have paid off. Healing was slow in coming, but it has arrived.

We stand in a long line, waiting to enter the museum. Once we buy our tickets and check our coats, we head directly to the café for coffee and chocolate. I observe the endless array of people passing by and my gaydar begins to go off. As we began walking through room after luxurious room of paintings, furniture, tapestries...