To NWO, too long for comment..aren't you sorry you asked ? :))

History, literature, paranormal climate (dark days- lite nites..)years of deliberate defiance of all common sense..It was forced upon the rest of Russia, built by a maniac on wetland not fit to sustain life, millions died creating his vision, millions more died later under siege, repressions, epidemics, just severe hypochondria :). Its soaked with death and depression and is utterly unnatural yet so breathtakingly beautiful and fragile, almost translucent, it appears to be floating through time, frozen..Imagine Amsterdam and Venice and Paris in one, now take that and stick it in friggin Siberia, throw in some toxic marshes..and stage a history's biggest bloodiest revolt followed by a century of godlessness and red terror. Cook on low for 200 years of not fitting in and barely surviving the winters, the floods, the crime and the punishment..(how about cannibalism during 900 day siege ?..) the post-war poverty and destruction..That's a recipe for disaster. It wasn't meant to make it. How did it ?..Some say God, most say Satan..Hence the damned city. It doesn't feel real, yet it is..it mystifies and creates most powerful illusions..of timelessness..you stay there long enough and eventually you feel detached..this overwhelming doom and doubt set in out of nowhere, out of the damn fog..the kind of mild anxiety that is habit forming, a state of mind. You become a shadow of the greatness (darkness ?)that is the City, fall hopelessly in love -- and it never loves you back quite enough..so you're never satisfied..Show me a satisfied happy looking Russian in SPB -- he's here on business for the weekend :) Oh, hell, we're all mutants there..Read some Dostoevsky -- he's SPB personified, it'll all make sense. Or just get yourself locked overnight in Louvre -- awesome ? YEAH !!! Spooky ? -- you bet :)