Not Quite Right
"Right people, listen up! Our next stop isn't on the itinerary. We're going to a black market shop which is highly illegal! So we have to be QUIET and NOT DRAW ATTENTION TO OURSELVES!"
Our tour guide was perched on top of a seat, bellowing into a microphone. We were cruising through the outer suburbs of St Petersburg, past crumbling buildings and abandoned Ladas with missing tyres. In a giant white bus with CONTIKI shrieking down the side in bright orange letters.
"Now my friend Serge is very kind to let us drop by", he went on as the bus pulled up. "So just make your selections quickly and act NORMAL."
As normal as 45 tourists with cameras round their necks and fat wads of cash in their pockets could be. We trailled after our guide in single file, like 45 ducklings following their particularly prolific mother.
We went down an alley, jumping over grimy puddles and stray car parts. The guide knocked on a heavy door. 
I don't know if it was some sort of secret black market knock, but let's just say it was because that would be more interesting. A heavyset guy in a sheepskin jacket peered out and nodded, "Ahh. Come in, come in."
It wasn't so much a shop as a tiny room crammed to the ceiling with all manner of pirated CDs. Once our whole group was inside the smell of sweat and plastic was suffocating.
"Right. CDs are three euros, they're arranged in alphabetical order," explained the guide.
My tour-mates lunged at the goods 
with a great clatter of jewel cases. I was completely useless, overcome with Music Store Amnesia. You know, where you wander from A-Z wailing, "Shit. Shit! SHIIIT!" because your giant mental list of Must-Have Albums immediately deserts your brain when presented with a smorgasbord of sound.
Finally I scooped up Franz Ferdinand, because if I was going to buy 2004's most hyped band, I wanted it with a photocopied cover and the copyright warning written in Russian. I also got the new Stereolab album, where they didn't even attempt to copy the original cover, they just got out their trusty spirograph and went to town.
To add to the shadyness, the inside sleeve had a photo 
of the band with Mary Hansen in the lineup. Mary Hansen who actually died two years ago. Classy!
Next we were herded into another room packed to the gills DVDs - classic films, live music, Russian porn and new movies that had barely made it to the cinemas back home. Serge also had a great range of Truly Shithouse Russian Souvenirs - Matroushka dolls, furry hats, Authentic Soviet War Medals, and 750ml bottles of Smirnoff (only 2.50 euro) so potent they could strip the tar from a chain smokers' lung. You may recall I am powerless to resist such tat, so I snapped up this retrolicious hammer and sickle t-shirt! 
Despite the near-transparency of the fabric, it made a top quality pyjama top - if you don't mind waking up with red skin.
Buying dodgy music in a dark alley is no more glamourous than stealing it sitting in your undies in front of a computer. But it's certainly more fun and surreal with a frowning guy muttering, "Cash only, cash only", then dashing back to the bus so you won't be late for the ballet.
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Congrats on your upcoming wedding! I'm definatly gonna vote for ure blog,, ure just So, so, funny!! And I think if I was in ure situation I would've had to buy something to..I mean, How Can you pass that kind of oppurtunity up?
Music Store Amnesia - what a perfect description! I get that pretty much every time I walk into a record store. Ditto for surfing iTunes. And yet I love music . . . I think it's the choice that overwhelms me.
i'm going to st. pete's in august...can i get directions to this place?! although it sounds a bit too sketchy of a place to just pop in, me and the husband.
Oh, my goodness. I would have died so bad in that store. This is totally going on the list of things my friends and I are going to do when we tour Russia after college.
I like the 'real one' vs 'dodgy one' side by side stereolab album comparison. ..and the act 'normal ..as normal as' bit.. I laughed right out loud for that one, I did.
Act normal is just a battle cry to my ticks and twitches to start with their show-ponying ...
Gold, Shaunybaby.
For some reason, I find the concept of underground Russian prn rather frightening ... I bet they don't pixellate like the Japanese.
Blah, that was me ... iip.
Sooooo glad I'm not the only one who sits at the computer in my undies!!
glad to see *record store amnesia* is a rather common problem
d´uhhh
You write the way I'd love to write. You know how to express your thoughts well and keep it lively and entertaining. I have a very good knowledge of spelling and grammar, but such a hard time putting what I'm thinking into words that satisfy me. If you have any tips for me, I'd love to hear them! Great blog!
heh, i'm russian, living in saint petersburg
and it seems to me that i know what shop you're writing about :)
have you seen rioting pensioners?
Ah, yes. For a couple of years my brother actually wore, in public, the Saint Petersburg "Hard Rock Cafe" T-shirt I bought him (despite the fact that there was no Hard Rock Cafe in St. P - the lettering, which I think came out as something like "Xapt Pokh" in Cyrillic, was the attraction for me). The picture of Saint Petersburg on the back was printed in very lurid and unlikely colours indeed.
Greater love hath no 11-year-old. The T-shirt eventually ended up very, very warped and difficult to iron - also he grew out of it. He's still got the 3-inch model Lada, though. In its original box.
This visit to shauny.org is sponsored by the website of the University of Canberra, which I've just had to visit for work, and which made me think of you. Take care, Shauners.
Muahahaha. Music Store Amnesia! I get that too. Think it must be an epidemic! I always end up buying a bunch of things that have never been on my list, that I end up listening to once. And my list gets longer and longer...
Is that the Husband-To-Be modelling the t-shirt? or did your chest go flat and your arms get hairy? heh.
brethil - rioting pensioners? wow... that wasn't on our itinerary, sadly!
kirsten - i wish serge had the model Ladas, i would have got a dozen!
kimba - yep, they are gareth's arms and chest. if they were mine i think i'd have more things to worry about than the lack of wedding dress :)
That dodgy stereolab cover is like somehting I'd make if I burnt my own copy of that CD *grin* I always get that type of amnesia. There's even a name for the phenomenon when you go into a shopping centre and forget where you are, become a bit lost, get disoriented and just wander about trying to find something/anything to buy. I can't remember what it's called but centre management make mega bucks in rental by quoting the time it takes for shoppers to get like that. The quicker the better from their perspective. Scary. The new QV and Melbourne Central complexes must be making a bundle!