The 6:48am Finnish train from Helsinki to St. Petersburg took just over six hours. Once bused to the Hotel Moscow, ten of us piled into a van for a 3-hour city tour. The tour started with the Church of the Bleeding Savior, a typical Russian spired church. This gorgeous structure was built on the sight where someone was assassinated. Then we went to the largest of the many gold domed churches, St. Issacs. The gold was put on the dome using mercury to spread the gold, then evaporating the mercury. Many workers died from what was then mysterious mercury poisoning.
Our tour guide spoke excellent English which he learned not in the U.S. but the U.K. He spoke of the dark and energy sapping winters. The name for the Kirov Ballet is simply the name of a city council member. We saw the major structures and waterways.
The Russian people are much better looking than the propaganda spread during the Cold War lead some of us to believe. The beauty parlors know their craft as I saw a myriad of great quaffs. Maybe it's because they have to wear so much in the winter that many women wear such clingy and transparent clothes when summer permits.
The good weather also brings out the wedding parties. Apparently, there's a St. Petersburg tradition of having the wedding party's photo taken at a series of locations around town. At one such park, I saw five sets of brides and grooms. The grooms all wore the same style black tuxes, but I wondered if the brides compared wedding dresses.
Walking around St. Petersburg, I was struck by the poverty. People lay outside the Metro station with hands out begging. The more inventive beggars use kids and puppies to gain more sympathy. Laying new sewer pipes is done by hand with shovels instead of backhoes. Street vendors sell beer, pop and ice cream. I wondered how they make it through the winter.
The poverty is part of the reason that entrance to The Hermitage is free to Russians and costs 250 rubles for foreigners. Inside, the convoluted layout is by country then artist. Yet there is no order to the order that the artist's paintings are hung. The Monet and Renoir paintings were wonderful. The simplicity of the early Monet contrasted with the intricacies of his painting of a foggy bridge. Up close I couldn't see the bridge. Only by backing away did it become visible in the blue. There were crowds around the two small da Vinci Madonna paintings, but I was more impressed by Renoir's Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary capturing the young lady just before she goes onstage not knowing how her performance will be received. Some of my favorite painters, Gainsborough and Reynolds, were not available for viewing because the British collection was being restored. One of the more interesting collections of paintings was the Hidden Treasures. So called because they are French paintings the Russian army took from private German collections during WWII. The ownership is in dispute so photographs weren't allowed in that part of The Hermitage.
The Hermitage is a maze of rooms and hallways which require a map as aimless wandering is aimless. I used the IBM kiosk to print out route maps to certain specific pieces, like Matisses's The Dance, then used the maps to get around to other areas of interest to me.
There were too many tour groups following their leaders holding signs with things like "Princess Cruise 30" on them. I listened to one group argue about what each wanted to see. I could go through the Dutch paintings rather quickly as I don't care for that dark quality and take my time with the impressionists or study how best to photograph the Spanish room. I ended up being inside from 10:36 until 4:15 - a very fulfilling day. One of the best nonriding days of the best year of my life.
Happy Trails,
Bruce