We've found a new church here. It is the one closest to our current address, though not by a whole lot: it is about a 500 meter walk, while the church we attended last year is about a 1 kilometer walk from here. So both are quite close by. The new church, while it has the disadvantage of having services mainly only on weekends, has nonetheless now become the one where we most regularly attend, for reasons I will explain shortly.
I should start off by explaining the odd phenomenon of the so-called "student village" within whose environs this church is located. It is an area that, at first sight, is barely distinguishable from the surrounding neighborhood, sitting, as it does, in the midst of many other multi-story buildings along a busy north-south thoroughfare. The main distinguishing feature, apart from some signage (see the photo above), is the fence surrounding the complex.
There are dozens of post-secondary educational institutions in the city of St. Petersburg, some in close proximity to the student village, some not so close. While the bulk of students at these universities are citizens of the city St. Petersburg or its near suburbs, often living at home with their parents during their studies, some students of these universities come from more outlying regions of Russia or even from abroad. These latter need some place of residence while studying here, and it seems this student village has, in large part, been set up mainly for the residency needs of such students.
While it is typical for universities in Russia to have associated dormitories where such students could live, unlike at American universities, these dormitories can be located quite some distance from the university. A friend here who finished her studies not long ago, for example, advised that she had a 1.5-2 hour commute by public transport to get from her dormitory to the university where she was studying.
It can happen, as I have learned, that universities here either run out of space in their dormitories, or that some even do not have any dormitories at all. This, it seems, is where the student village comes into play. Students from outside St. Petersburg who cannot find living accommodations connected to the university into which they have matriculated, whether because those universities have run out of space in their dormitories or because the university simply does not have any associated dormitories, can apply for housing in the student village.
The student village advertises on its web page that it currently houses over 8,000 students in its 10 buildings—most of whom are either from more outlying regions of the Russian Federation or from abroad—that study at 35 different higher educational institutions in St. Petersburg. When the complex was built in the mid-1960’s it was toward the south edge of the city, but its current location, due to urban expansion, is not terribly far south of the city center, so geographically its locale may be much closer to a given university than that university’s own dormitories. So perhaps some students might consider it a happy misfortune that their university ran out of dormitory space for them and that they therefore had to find accommodation in the student village.
As was mentioned, the student village consists of about 10 multi-story buildings in which the students are housed along with a few smaller buildings. The grounds are fenced off and there are security stations located at the turnstyles where students enter and exit the complex. Students enter and exit the complex using ID cards, which are swiped at the entry points. Those who do not have such cards need to stop at the security station and ask a guard to open the gate for them. Such is the situation, as non-students, for us.
We actually discovered last year that there is a church located in the student village. It was unclear to us at that time how to access the church but this year, since this church is the closest one to us, we decided to check into it further.
We discovered that, in order to attend this church, one dedicated to the Great Martyr Tatiana, we would need to contact the administrator of the student village’s ВКонтакте (the Russian equivalent of Facebook) page and ask that our names be added to a list of non-students allowed entry. The administrator (Tatyana) answered our query promptly and said she would pass along our ФИО (family name [Ф], given name [И], and otchestvo [О—Russian equivalent of middle name]) to the priest, who would then put our names on a list at the security station. Afterward we came to the station, gave our names and said we were going to the church, and were let in.
The church in the student village is a very unusual one. The priest, Fr. Leonid, refers to it as a “house church.” It is actually located inside a building with mostly common areas in it, and the space it occupies was obviously previously used as some sort of gymnasium.
It is very unusual as compared to most other churches we’ve been to here in St. Petersburg. First of all, the space is very open and, unlike most churches with their imposing icon screen, this one has almost no iconostasis, as can be seen in the photos.
Another thing that makes this church so unusual as compared to others here is that it has so few attendees. In fact so far, it has been mainly the two of us and the choir. We have seen the occasional student but perhaps the highest number of student attendees we’ve seen this far has been 5 or 6 besides us and the choir.
It is actually the end of the academic year and the period for examinations, so that could help explain the sparse student attendance. But looking at photos on the church’s ВКонтакте page, I see that even at Pascha there was plenty of standing room in the church. As an estimate, I’d say they had something like 20 students total at the Paschal service.
Given the way churches here tend to get packed so full on Sundays and feast days, it’s actually kind of a relief to have so much space at worship services. This definitely suits our American (or Americanized) sensibilities.
It seems there is even a long-term plan to build an actual church building on this site. Below is a photo of what appears to be an artist’s sketch of the proposed church.
As for the main reason we find the new church more suitable to our, or actually my, sensibilities, it is owing to the reality here, at least in the St. Petersburg area, that singing in church is only to be done by those standing in the choir. Congregational singing is generally not tolerated here: as I’ve previously written about on this blog, on several occasions I’ve been told—sometimes by fellow parishioners among whom I was standing and even once by a priest—that I should not be singing along with the choir.
I’ve discovered that this presents a huge problem for me given that, though I have almost no formal musical training but nonetheless do have a decent natural aptitude for music, I’ve been singing in amateur choirs in the U.S. for close to 40 years. So I know some of the music used here and can often sing my bass line from memory. Not to mention the fact that I’ve had years of formal theological and liturgical training and count many good friends among clergy of all ranks back home. So the idea of simply standing at worship with the only form of participation allowed being crossing myself, venerating icons, and praying silently, is quite foreign to me. I need some more active form of participation in worship.
I’ve done some past postings about the choir situation here in Russia, where most choirs seem to be comprised of professionally-trained musicians with one or perhaps two voices per part. These also are paid positions, and one who lacks formal training such as myself, is highly unlikely to be invited to participate, even as a volunteer.
The choir scenario in Russia also seems to invite situations wherein a financial motivation is the main and perhaps even the sole one for attendance at worship services. It also seems to engender a professionalized and more highly stratified environment where clergy and laity do not mix as freely as they do in the U.S. and where each layer of the stratification can seem to jealously guard its territory from incursion by outsiders. So, for example, it might seem a threat to other choir members for someone like myself to participate in choirs as a volunteer—were I to have sufficient training to follow musical notation such that I could accurately sing music with which I am unfamiliar (I do not and am not): if I were to be allowed, then why not other similarly capable volunteers? And so the whole paid vocation could come under threat.
Rehearsing these factors is meant to address the matter of why we have effectively now switched churches here. I grew weary of—despite the fact that the rector at the church we mostly attended last year had given me permission to sing while standing in a particular area—having people tell me I should not be singing. The reality became apparent that, regardless of what the rector had said, the fact remained that parishioners here, at least in the city of St. Petersburg, expect that only the choir will be singing during worship services. The occasional exception to this rule here and there is not sufficient to overcome what has effectively become the local custom or norm.
When we went to check the situation at another nearby church, I was delighted to discover that I was invited, on our first visit, to join their meager choir. Not only was I allowed to join them, I was even asked to do some reading in church. Since I had even begun wondering whether we could continue spending such long periods of time here owing to my discomfort with the worship situation here, this seemed an answer to a prayer. So, to wrap up this posting, we have managed to find a church here in which we can more actively participate such as we have become accustomed to back home.