The Jewish Stone
Published in Issue #33 Translated from Russian by Mira Isabella Shrayer and Emilia A. Shrayer subscribe to unlock the full storyWe were strolling along the shore of Lake Ladoga: Lyonya Kogan, my friend from the days of our youth, and I. Both of us were students. Lyonya attended the College of Civil Engineering, I—the Pavlov Medical School. Both of us were born and raised in Leningrad. Both liked hiking on the Karelian Isthmus. On that particular morning we had arrived from Leningrad by bus, unloaded our stuff, paid some ridiculously low fee at the office of the nearest vacation home and were accommodated in a room for six, its air already purple-grey from cigarette smoke. We pushed our backpacks under the beds, had cream of wheat and some bread for breakfast and went off to explore the shore. At the time we were both crazy about collecting rocks and minerals. Sometimes in different spots along the Karelian Isthmus we were lucky to find some rare rock shards that had survived since the glacial period, perhaps even earlier. No, please don’t get me wrong. We weren’t treasure hunters! We were fascinated with patterns and patterning on the surface of perfectly ordinary stones. Sometimes nature would leave its footprints: those mysterious drawings formed by crystals, inlaid on the facets of different minerals. There even was a place in Leningrad where the collectors of natural stone patterns would meet to share their findings, and to exchange various samples. I believe their meeting place was not far from the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Mayakovsky Street, near a soda fountain stand. Sometimes there would be...
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.