“Cannibal Corpse is *not* black metal. It is death metal, I think.”

Saturday afternoon I hooked up with my Russian friends Anton and Victoria. Anton works with me and is a maintainer for the Russian ispell translation for Debian. His girl -- Vika for short -- goes to school in Novomoscowsk some 60 miles away. I was very grateful that they elected to spend a Saturday in their relatively new relationship showing me around an island that bore military significance in the Finnish Gulf into which the Neva dumps. We were sitting in a Chinese restaurants avoiding the stares of the few patrons of the largely empty noodle shack. I had a mountain of fried chicken with a side gallon of some loose approximation of hot and sour soup. I knew not that which I ordered and out of politeness they let me do it. From what they told me they heard American portions were, to put it charitably, “generous” and, to put it uncharitably, “fatass fucking huge.”

We were exploring Kronstadt, an island that had great military significance to St. Petersburg. Aquatically, St. Petersburg is remarkably accessible as it sits on the delta of the Neva River. The city is a series of islands and channels as its creator -- Peter the Great -- had it in his head to make a city like Venice, only with more ice. This is great for walking and admiring as each island bears its own personality and neighborhoods and, often, architecture.

However beautiful, militarily speaking, St. Petersburg is pretty fucked. Sitting in the armpit of the Gulf of Finland, there are about a thousand ways to get into the heart of the city by boat. Presuming that boat has a couple guns, the potential for a rather dramatic uptick in traffic and death is likely. Presuming that boat has more than a couple guns, real carnage could be wreaked largely at the boat captain’s leisure. This makes the lovely riverside vista of the Winter Palace a hair precarious, as in all likelihood in the building of said palace a few enemies of the boat-owning persuasion were made.

The answer to this problem is Kronstadt, an island that sits conveniently in the middle of the Finnish Gulf to intercept any nautical ne’er-do-wells from rolling in and getting their rape and pillage on. The couple and I wound about the island admiring boats, buildings, monuments, cathedrals, and the occasional glimmer of sunlight.

To make conversation, I asked what kind of music they liked. Vika was very quick to respond with a litany of sorrow:

“Oooh, I like all kinds. Metal, black metal, death metal, ambient, black ambient, techno, drum and bass, acid house” etcetera.

Eager to jump on a point of similarity, I responded, “Oh yeah? I’m into black metal too.”

Blossoming with a huge smile she responded, “Oh? What bands?”

Rattling off a list that would make my associate in California Dr. Julian Ostrow proud recited, “The Haunted, Deicide, Lamb of God, Cannibal Corpse, Cradle of Filth.”

“Um,” she interrupted timidly. “Two years ago I was a true metalist. I listened to a lot of records and went to a lot of shows. I think Cannibal Corpse is more death metal.”

Caught posing, I tried to backpedal, “Well, it has elements of black metal in it.”

And the debate began there.

Flickr:
Kronstadt

This is going to spoil the surprise for our Halloween present, but check out my answering machine message.