Six Days in Leningrad Quotes

“When he asked isn't it beautiful, my father was seeing his youth, and his youth was beautiful. He closed his eyes and saw himself young and so handsome, in love with many girls, funny, brilliant, popular. Of course it was beautiful. It was mystifying. It was mystical.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad

“I couldn’t wait to get out of the car. The first thing I did was smell the air. I closed my eyes and took a breath, the biggest breath of my life, knowing I was taking the biggest breath of my life. I was taking a breath to smell Shepelevo. Breathing in Shepelevo was like hitting the right note on the piano. There was only one right note. When I was young, Shepelevo was the smell of nettles, of salted smoked fish, of fresh water from the Gulf of Finland, and of burning firewood, all wrapped up in one Shepelevo. As it had been, so it was. Across two continents, a dozen countries, twenty cities, three colleges, two marriages, three children, three books, and twenty-five years of another life, I breathed it and smelled the air. Nowhere else in the world had it. “Papa,” I said, my voice breaking. “Do you think we could photograph the smell?” He gave me a look and then laughed.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad

“The anecdote was funny, but as my father gazed across the river at the university of his youth, his Russian life was in his eyes.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad

“The sponge of my heart had been filled up sometime last evening and had begun to drip.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad

“That's what it was. I had been given something I absolutely did not deserve. And only here in coming back did I realize what I had been freely given. Why was I given it? What was I going to do with it now that I knew I had it?

I didn't want to go to sleep. I didn't want this to be my last night. I didn't want to go home. I wanted to understand, and after I understood, to feel better.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad

“I walked into my dream and kept walking with my Leningrad in front of me and behind me and all around me. I wasn't carrying Russia with me. It was carrying me.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad

“Breathing in Shepelevo was like hitting the right note on the piano. There was only one note. When I was young, Shepelevo was the smell of nettles, of salted smoked fish, of fresh water from the Gulf of Finland, and of burning firewood, all wrapped up in one Shepelevo.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad

“Why was this more difficult for me than for my father? I didn’t know for certain that it was. But where I wanted to linger, he wanted to speed up. He wanted to rush through his Shepelevo, so he could again leave it behind and forget. With our American eyes we saw our past life. There was so much that needed to be forgotten. I was crushed by the relentless poverty of it. But the smell, the heady, intoxicating smell, more powerful even than the sight of Shepelevo. The sight of Shepelevo tore us up inside. Yet the smell was nothing but bliss.”
― Paullina Simons, Six Days in Leningrad