{"id":66713,"date":"2014-02-14T19:28:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-15T00:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=66713"},"modified":"2014-02-14T18:28:31","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T23:28:31","slug":"nastia-denisova-st-petersburg-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/14\/nastia-denisova-st-petersburg-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Nastia Denisova, St. Petersburg, Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nastya_Denisova\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been living here for four months. The center of the city. Fifth floor. I usually look out the window at night, but it\u2019s not exactly a window\u2014it\u2019s the door of a balcony. I can see all the windows of the building opposite mine.<\/p>\n

I see how, from a window on the right, they regularly throw out plastic bags of trash onto the roof of the one-story building in the courtyard. But I don\u2019t know from which window, exactly\u2014I follow the bags, and when I shift my gaze to the windows they\u2019re all closed, identical, except for the one that has a piece of green plywood instead of glass.<\/p>\n

From a window on the left side of the building, people throw garbage without bags. Brown plastic beer bottles and, for some reason, heaps of metal tops from jars of homemade preserves. I see the man who throws all this from the window of his kitchen, leaning out the window and looking down. He looks down and spits. His cigarette butt has set some dead grass on fire. He spits for a very long time. He goes out and comes back with a bottle of water. He pours down the water. He throws the bottle out.<\/p>\n

In the windows of the second floor are the kitchen and the back rooms of a restaurant. They\u2019re always throwing cardboard boxes out the windows. When the boxes start to block the little back courtyard, someone piles them up and they disappear. In the winter, covered in snow, the boxes become monolithic, angular snow architecture. And if you didn\u2019t already know, you wouldn\u2019t be able to say what they are.<\/p>\n

From the window opposite me, cheerful teenagers fling DVDs. Maybe it\u2019s a dorm room. Are they using them like throwing stars, or just tossing DVDs out the window? Have they noticed me? Two discs land on the balcony, through the door that I\u2019ve been watching. Someone has drawn large, colorful butterflies on their surface. \u2014Nastia Denisova<\/p>\n

Translated from the Russian by Sophie Pinkham.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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