Page 169

[Alexandr Korol]

13. Reflection about mechanism of the city

Earlier in the book, I spoke about the bridges in St. Petersburg that have arched pillars, and these pillars often have steles and knobs or golden balls on their tips, and the same balls are depicted on cathedrals and churches.

So you are wondering why we were given this information. Well, I have another question. Why the heck do you people live for so many years – some of you have been living on planet Earth for twenty years, some thirty, some forty, some fifty – but you don’t ask questions such as “Why are those knobs like golden balls on those bridges?”. I have been asking myself these kinds of questions since childhood. And of course, no matter how much I am satisfied with the fact that some will just say, “Because it is beautiful.” Why was I born, for example, in Russia, in St. Petersburg, and neither teachers nor parents nor passers-by can explain to me why? And if they respond, they’ll say some bullshit. If you ask a priest, he will tell me one version, and if you look it up online, you will find twenty more versions. And who to believe? I was just now in the church on Vasilyevsky Island, and a priestess came over to me. And we start talking:

– What questions do you have?

I don’t want to upset her, so I’d rather not ask questions, but she begs me to ask her a question, and so I ask:

– Why do saints on icons hold up their fingers like that? It definitely means something.
– Well, at first, they held up two fingers, and then the trinity appeared, so now they hold up three fingers. Father, son, holy spirit.

Well, of course, I said, “Ok, great, thanks for telling me.” What she said is crap, she just doesn’t know. And at that moment, I was an ordinary person, a boy born into a family. I studied at school, I am from Petersburg, I come to the cathedral, to the church, and the person in the church cannot tell me what it means. If I approach one priest, he will tell me one version, the other priest another version.