The Persian Shah is about to propose marriage. He is sending several elephants as a part of the bride-price. Probably he does not understand that the Russian Tsarina is already married in her heart with Prince Europe… Well, Russia is often suspected of this kind of behavior: being engaged to Europe, while accepting gifts from the East. None of this is real, apart of the fact that Persian shahs of the 18th century often sent elephants to Russian tsars and tsarinas as friendship gifts.
On a summery Sunday a year ago (May 27, 2018), we decided to go to see the elephants visiting the Circus on the Fontanka. They were supposed to march through the city streets, retracing their historical route along the Fontanka embankment and Karavannaya street, to celebrate the 316th anniversary of the city.
I went with my youngest (2 years old) in the go-cart, while my friend Anna K. brought her daughter Martha (2 1/2 years old) and a camera to see the animals. Street police were keeping the crowd on the sidewalks so the cavalcade could pass. People behaved themselves in an «elephantile» way, disrespecting the street policemens’ instructions in their eagerness to be in the center of the action, pressing into each other as crowds usually do.
We were ‘kicking our heels’ waiting for the elephants to appear. We ‘slonyalis’ (past plural from ‘slonyatsya’) . This Saint-Petersburg neology derived from ‘slon’ (the elephant) came from the time of early Saint-Pete when citizens spent their free time watching the elephants’ promenades.
What’s difficult in big events is finding some personal sense in it, different from the one promulgated in official sources; of course, the worst case is if the crowd itself is such ‘sense translator’. Cirques with animals will slowly disappear, I believe, as shooting on film disappeared recently. But that summer noon we compromised, seeing the performing animals. They marched full of the grace that nobody can take away from animals, accompanied by the crowd in the role of ‘pug-dogs’ (check Krylov’s ‘The Elephant and the Pug-dog’).
We didn’t follow the cavalcade, a bit disconcerted by the hot weather and probably feeling compassion for the animals; at the same time, I continued keeping an eye on both children as Anya shot the video.
Then when the square near the Circus was almost empty, I saw Martha K. looking curiously at a pile of elephant’s droppings, fresh and nearly steaming. I sighed in relief: ‘Finally, the essence of the show is found’.
In this piece of nice crap, I found the solution of the strange and all-encompassing feelings caused by the hot air and surrealistic situation of the day. Enjoy the video. Check and checkmate. Shakh and mat!
*Russian ‘shakhmaty’ stands for chess in English, Russian ‘shakh’ — derived from Persian ‘shah’ stays both for ‘shah’ and ‘check’ (to the king); chess ‘bishop’ is called ‘slon’ (elephant) in Russian.
Pug-dog photo by Sasha Shengelidze.