FROM afar, lasers and strobe lights could be seen bursting mutely from within the island fort, as if it were being consumed by some mysterious battle, transforming it into a radiant beacon amid the 3 a.m. twilight covering the Gulf of Finland. But as the ferryboat loaded with young people docked after its three-hour voyage, music pulsating from the turreted fort broke the stillness. On the first weekend of July, as many as 10,000 of Russia's youth laid siege to an abandoned and crumbling Czarist structure some 30 miles off the coast of St. Petersburg for dancing, performance art and general merriment during the season of northern Russia's White Nights, when the sun sets for only three hours.

[continues 1233 words]