Please tell me that Pokemon is not in vogue there?
Used to be, still available at every corner shop.

can small firecrackers be set off in St. Petersburg legally?
Small firecrackers! What use are small firecrackers to a Russian? BIG firecrackers are freely available and can be set off pretty much legally around New Year and kind of semilegally (no one cares, anyway) all year round! And I mean BIG firecrackers, like CORSAR 4, which is powerful enough to rip your fingers off through to CORSAR 6 which has been known to take people's hands off in some cases. Go ahead, bring coal to Newcastle....