Labyrinth

Last week I discovered a courtyard next to the courtyard in the center of the philological faculty.It has a few cannons in it, a couple of benches, a handful of sculptures, and a circle of grass. The grassy space is the interesting part; at first glance, it looks a bit like a cemetery, but the stones are arranged more or less in rings instead of rows. Each stone (currently about one in every two stones) has a niche carved near the top, with a rock in it and a plaque next to it bearing the name of a university. The stones, a nearby sign explains, form a labyrinth:

LABYRINTH

Given to the Philological and Oriental Faculty on the 300-year anniversary of St. Petersburg.

The labyrinth is designed according in the classical pattern, famous for more than 40 centuries, with stones sent from the oldest and most prominent universities of the world.

In various cultures the passage of the labyrinth symbolizes a procession on various scales:

From the motion of a planet in the solar system to the path of a person’s life, the path of education, of change, and the path to the solution of a problem.

I paced out the labyrinth and was disturbed to discover that it’s a dead end; it leads only to the center. Even if (as Wikipedia suggests) it represents the attainment of a long-sought goal, it leaves nowhere to go except back. Then again, perhaps it’s meant to be liberating: once you’ve reached the center, the only other choice is to walk out between the stones.

The Labyrinth, incidentally, is also the name of the section of the Philological Faculty where we have our classes. That one’s been around a lot longer than the other labyrinth, though, and as far as I know the only thing that ought to be read into the name is that it’s a maze.