Cruising in the Pays du Tendre

Abstract

This chapter begins with a brief description of the Tavricheskii Garden as a physical space and a hub of queer sociability and spatial practices. The rambling paths, glades, and embankments of the garden played an important role as regular meeting places for queer men and for some it served as a relatively safe social setting—an emotional refuge among St. Petersburg's public spaces. The chapter then connects this description to an emotional or allegorical map of cruising that celebrated poet Mikhail Kuzmin and painter Konstantin Somov set out to make. It explores Kuzmin's experience of flirtation, friendship, love, and confrontation as he participated in cruising patterns that often started in the garden. Finally, the chapter looks at the interaction between cruising and friendship, tracing modes of queer socialization that suggest a more diffuse and less instrumental sexuality than that often attributed to queer men in the historical city.