Quite literally, from the cold: it seemed like St Petersburg fired up its district heating (central heating for the whole city, that is) halfway through my week there, making the first few days pretty chilly, the last few quite bearable. What I saw of the city is impressive but selectively welcoming.

First impression: the scale of the thing. The city is a big, sprawling collection of blocks, each of which is much larger than we usually expect in dense, packed European cities. The second impression is that of width: the main roads are three-plus-three lane avenues, with wide sidewalks, often in straight lines. They are made for parades. And the buildings in the centre are big palaces or apartment blocks; not very high, but easily a couple of hundred metres long. Fourth impression: the right angles between the buildings and the road level: the entrances are almost hidden, often diminutive cutouts in the facade, or single-storey arches leading to the internal courtyards. No wide entrances, no steps leading up to a first-floor portico. It seemed as if the architecture was planned to underline the impermeable line between the people on the street level, and those on the inside of the palaces. Nowhere did I get this feeling more strongly than outside the Hermitage, where the scale of the piazza drowns out the individual, and reinforces the grandeur of the State.

This “inside/outside” distinction was underlined by our modest mini-hotel: a steel door on the side of the building with a minuscule sign next to a buzzer, leading to a pretty shabby stairwell (occasionally occupied by a chain-smoking gang of youths, indifferent to the patrons passing by); then, on the first floor, another steel door and intercom, leading to the exact opposite of the stairwell: a clean, well-lit corridor, with a friendly concierge.

The Russians themselves, however, were the antithesis of the city: warm, friendly, eager to chat, if occasionally frustrated by the language barrier – in many cases there's enough English to talk about work, but not to exchange jokes. (Having said that, one of my most memorable conversations was with [José and] a complete stranger in a bar, who spoke as much English as I do Russian: the exquisite joy of the half-drunken search for gestures and common word-roots that only the small hours give rise to.)

I was particularly impressed with some of the younger generation of designers (“younger”, from where I'm looking at things, is the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings). There seems to be no shortage of talented graduates (I think most from the Moscow schools?) who are taking typography very seriously. At least a couple of them stood out: I had met Irina Smirnova and Alexandra Korolkova in Helsinki, where they showed me accomplished typeface designs. So far, so good. Irina is now working at Art Lebedev's studio; Alexandra pulled a rabbit out of her hat: in the three years since Helsinki, she graduated from university, started teaching, and – get this – extended her final project into a proper book: Живая типографика. I can't understand a single sentence, but I can figure out the book: the topics, the chapter headings, the diagrams, the manner with which images have been shot, all make the approach are all evident. I didn't see many introductory texts by Russian authors on the modest book stall, so this must be a welcome addition to Russian designers' libraries. Some people whose names I recognize and respect have added their bits on the back cover, so it seems that others share the good vibe.

Oh, and – for reasons undeserved – I got a medal! It's a proper chunk of bronze, with Peter the Great on one side, and the extended version of the conference logo on the other side. We'll get it in the University Bulletin, but I don't think it will be enough for me to get a raise.

A few days ago a series of coincidences starting with an email about recent work brought me to MB's drawing about her dad. I was reminded of feelings for my father, a naval engineer for half of his career. He enrolled at the naval academy at the inconceivable age of fourteen (the youngest cadet ever, if family myth is true) and spent the next twenty-five years in and out of the bowels of ships: from wooden torpedo boats to hand-me-down US Navy destroyers, all the way to enormous crude tankers in Japanese shipyards. As much as he could, he exposed me to this world of wonderful machines, making me the only boy in my school who had seen where a propeller shaft exits the hull from the inside of the ship, or heard the deafening clanging of a tanker engine at full ahead (sound so thickly enveloping you that felt like water flowing around you in the sea).

The engineering background brought a garage full of too many tools (no, wrong: you can never have too many tools) and a facility with making and fixing things. I inherited the enthusiasm and some of the skills. I can now appreciate that a confidence to tackle anything I can figure out by looking at how it works and thinking it through, is one of the most valuable things I got from him. (Which also explains my failings with electronics: I can't look at them work, nor take them apart and lay them on the table.)

In all the years of my tinkering, from toy models to motorcycles and a much-suffering Citroen 2CV, one tool has been my favourite. I've got no idea what it's name is in English,¹⁾ but in Greek it's called μποζονοβγάλτης – bozonovgáltis – essentially a tool to loosen nuts. It has an adjustable grip, from a few hairs' wide to easily six centimetres wide, and once locked onto an object it will grip as strongly as if you had run a bolt through the thing. Its force of grip is such that you can loosen a locknut by gripping two opposing sides with less wear on the nut than a spanner will inflict.

Yet the reach of the handle will always be at the optimum for your hand, and a simple push on the small lever will release the tool. You can use the rear side to bash things loose – or even drive a nail in – and the lever action makes the cutter slice through the thickest cable or rod with little effort.

When we bought our house, it was the first tool I bought. Now, in my oldest son's hands, I hope it will feed his and his brother's desire to take things apart and put them back together again.

(First of a series of entries on things my dad gave me)

A couple of days ago a humidity barrier was painted onto the older concrete slab prior to screeding (the bit of the underfloor that is actually smooth and level). “Humidity barrier” is a euphemism for “disgusting, sticky black goo that looks like liquid tar”. A couple of rooms' worth of spreading the thing around, and the man had to leave the gloves on the broomstick. They went, broom and all, in the skip the next day.