“If I were asked to pick a keyword for Alina Obukh’s work, I would choose ‘beauty’ without hesitation.
When a creator’s style is shaped by the city they call home; when a city bursts forth from the creator’s life and takes on an entirely new form—such works are born. The cathedral domes under the leaden sky are beautiful, the scattered sunlight is beautiful, and Alina’s words and paintings are equally beautiful. In the end, there is yet another kind of beauty—the beauty of the everyday—a beauty akin to the London fog in Monet’s paintings, visible only to a select few. Alina Obukh is one of those few. She sees it, and she gently shares with us everything she has seen.”
—Writer Yevgeny Vodolazkin

“With delicate and exquisite brushstrokes, the work paints a vivid picture of contemporary life, full of contradictions, allowing readers to glimpse the most authentic face of everyday existence. The text is brimming with vivid, precise details—details that perhaps only an author with a background as a professional painter could capture so finely. This is highly urban, intellectually sophisticated prose, yet it transcends the traditional notion of ‘Petersburg literature.’ Under Dostoevsky’s pen, gloom, restlessness, madness, and suffering form the underlying tone of Petersburg literature, but this work is strikingly different. In my view, it is closer in spirit to the cosmopolitan Nabokov, who left Petersburg at the age of 18, and it also clearly carries forward the literary lineage of the ‘Generation of the 1960s,’ which was deeply fascinated by Nabokov’s work. Alina Obukh is a writer with a distinctive style, standing alone as a unique voice in her own right.”
—Writer Yevgeny Popov

“For both the author and the protagonist in the book, Saint Petersburg is a world that belongs exclusively to them—a world that is built upon the Petersburg myth embedded in Russia’s great literary tradition. The author’s narrative voice is subtle, nuanced, and clear, yet what makes it all the more remarkable is the self-deprecating, teasing humor that permeates the text. It is precisely this kind of writing that transforms mundane, everyday琐事 into poetic, evocative scenes.”
—Writer Olga Blininger

★ A literary portrait of St. Petersburg—and a urban stroll centered on the “fragile beauty” that lies at the heart of the city.
★ This is not a novel in the traditional sense, but rather a prose-like, dialogue-driven diary of the city’s spirit.
★ Highly recommended by renowned writers Evgeny Vodolazkin, Evgeny Popov, and Olga Breuning!
★ As a painter herself, the author brings a visual rhythm and a distinctive color palette to her writing. With the precision of a sketch, she captures her characters; with brushstrokes reminiscent of light and shadow, she evokes atmosphere, transforming the city into a sequence of “visible moments.” The result is a work that combines the depth of literature with the texture of painting.
★ Through specific landmarks such as stations, streets, and academies, the author maps out an emotional, deeply personal spiritual landscape of St. Petersburg, revealing the city’s intricate textures that remain invisible to outsiders.
★ A meditation on St. Petersburg written through the eyes of a painter and the heart of a writer, this book unveils the fragile yet eternal soul of a great city in the lightness of conversation and the delicacy of fleeting moments.
★ Ideal for readers who love urban literature, prose poetry, Nabokov-style intellectual writing, and those with a deep interest in St. Petersburg’s culture.

Alina Obukh is a writer and painter, a graduate of the St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Industry (also known as the Stieglitz Academy). She has created a work dedicated to this very institution, and nearly all of her writing is deeply intertwined with the city of St. Petersburg.
Her latest work, “Next Stop: Pioneers’ Avenue,” is a series of boundless conversations: conversations with friends, with the entire city, with faith… and with a German man named Leon Schmidt, who, after accidentally hearing a song about Leningrad, set out on a journey across great distances to St. Petersburg in pursuit of its melody. It is also a conversation with a painter who passed away six years ago, with a group of poets standing on Pony Stables Street, their backs turned toward the novelist Nikolai Gogol. It includes a dialogue with Death himself, clad in pink Vietnamese sandals, and with Joseph Brodsky, who made a special trip to Vasilyevsky Island—not to face death, but simply to take a look around. And it is, above all, a tender conversation with you.

[Author] Alina Obukh
Alina Obukh was born in St. Petersburg in 1995 and graduated from the St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Design (Stieglitz Academy). She is a member of the Union of Writers of Russia and the Union of Artists of Russia.
Alina has won numerous prestigious awards, including the St. Petersburg Government Prize for Young Artists, the literary prize of the magazine Znamya, the international literary contest “Voloshin Autumn,” and the national competition “Young Writers of Russia: 21st Century.” Several of her works have been translated into Spanish, Turkish, Bulgarian, Slovak, Chinese, and other languages. A radio drama adapted from her work was broadcast on Radio Russia. In 2021, Alina Obukh’s prose works were included in the list of required reading for the All-Russian Literary Olympiad for Secondary School Students.
Her writings regularly appear in such well-known publications as Zvezda, Druzhba Narodov, Znamya, and Yunost. Her published works include New Wine in New Wineskins, Wild Amber, Stories from the Stieglitz Academy, and Next Stop: Pioneer Street.