Blog-skiy
If you are ever planning to travel to Russia, take a few minutes before you arrive to familiarize with the Cyrillic alphabet. I will say that being able to read in Cyrillic, an alphabet not too far removed from our own, helped me massively in getting around St.Petersburg, and by the time I left, I was handily able to decipher street signs, restaurant and store signs, subway station names, and so forth. Absolutely necessary and a minor investment of time.
My second day in St. Petersburg was to be my Hermitage day. With all the fears about the G-8 conference mucking things up for the tourists, I resolved to go there as fast as possible. First let me start with my hostel. Sleeping there is not luxurious, although net time and bottled water are cheaper there than anywhere else. The air circulation in the rooms are terrible, 5 people to a room (But no bunk beds so at least it feels spacious. Breakfast is served from 8-10am. Since I can't fall asleep after I wake up at 6 am (Usually in a pool of sweat), I roll around for a while until I summon the strength to rise from bed and take a shower (Since there is no hot water, three of the women's showers on the ground floor (I am on the 3rd) have a generator, so I have to make the long walk down, followed by the long walk back up, but the showers are refreshing after sleeping a night in the St. Petersburg hostel!
Breakfast follows - an impossible to peel hard boiled egg, a slice of dull cheese, decent tea, instant coffee (I avoided), a vile drink the Russians at the hostel generously call "Juice", stale baguette, and bowls of some Sugary O cereal that is really not worth the discussion. It makes me want to get out, which I do, heading down to Ploschad Vossitania, about 8 mins walk from my hostel to catch the #7 tram (I will later realize this could have been picked up 1 minute away from my hostel! The #7 follows Nevskiy Prospect, the major shopping street, all the way to the palace embankment, site of the Winter Palace, also known as the Hermitage. The palace square is enormous, and across from some imposing government buildings, all no more than 3 stories in height (There really are no skyscrapers in St.Petersburg, everything is horizontally big). I notice some NBC crews busily scooting around setting up chairs not far from the Obelisk in the center of the square.
I line up at 10am for the 10:30 starting time, when the museum opens, everyone runs through the main courtyard, and it's a feeding frenzy at the ticket booth. It's 20 mins. later before I get in. I start up the Jordan staircase and I'm instantly transported into a world of unparalleled royal opulence. Catherine's architects designed a building to reflect superb taste in art, coupled with a sense of worldly experience, whatever is not wholly original has some basis in other great architectural works. Take the Raphael Loggias, for example (Why do I keep thinking of Robert Loggias!). This is a series of 19 archways, beautifully painted onto canvas and laid over multi-leveled walls and archways. It is meant as a replica of the Loggias in the Vatican apartments and the effect is striking! The detail is intricate and varied, there is little exact repetition.
The architecture is stunning but the collection is equal to its space, and every period and artist seems to be represented! Picasso, Rodin, Gaugin, Monet, 2 DaVincis (Davinci only painted 14 paintings on canvas in his lifetime), Rembrandt, and more. Just when I think there's no Van Gogh, I turn a corner and there he is. No Dali, but it wouldn't fit in anyways. I spend 4 1/2 hours in the museum, finding some odd temporary exhibits (including Quebec artist Riopelle, The 10 commandments printed on a bound book made from Matzah?).
I wander, get lost a couple of times, make decisions as to what to see and what not to see (They say if you spend 10 seconds on each item in the Hermitage you'll be there for 17 years!). A few years ago I saw a film called RUSSIAN ARK, a movie all shot in one single take that moves through the Hermitage for 98 minutes, culminating in a spectacular dance sequence. I made a little effort at the end to find this ballroom, and the old Baboushkas that watch the rooms were confused at first with what I was asking, but eventually, one of them said Sakhurov, referring to the film's director! Apparently it was the room we were standing in, a big room, but it looked bigger in the movie! Now that I've been to the Hermitage I can't wait to watch the film again.
Eventually I am exhausted and I leave the Hermitage to get lunch. Out in Palace Square, my first celebrity sighting, Matt Lauer is doing a remote unit live from St.Petersburg in anticipation of the G8. I watch him tape a few minutes, snap some pictures. He asks if there's any Americans at one point, and I meekly shout out "I'm Canadian", which he either doesn't hear or care about. I don't feel like stalking an NBC morning show host, so I move on to Pushka Inn, which I've heard is inexpensive and has good traditional Russian food, and I order a plate of Pelmeny (Beef dumplings) and a glass of Mors (Cranberry Juice). The night before I had Kvas with dinner, Kvas is another traditional fermented (But Non-alcoholic) Barley drink. It wasn't the kind of thing I'd drink more than once. But the Mors was nice, and the Pelmeny was excellent, dripping with melted butter. I just walk around for a while after this. I find St. Petersburg to be a very hard city to figure out for Overground public transit, although the Subways are easy. I decide that a nice low impact activity is a canal tour, so I walk down Nevskiy Prospect (I have a hard time getting anywhere else!) to Anichkov Most(Bridge), and hop on a boat tour. The tour guide gives the commentary in Russian only (There are no English tour boats as far as I know), but the ride is nice, we go right out onto the Neva River, crossing over to the Peter and Paul Fortress on the other side, and passing the NEVA fountain in mid river and the imposing old buildings on Vasilevsky island. After the boat ride, I head to a different neighbourhood North of Nevskiy Prospect where I've heard of a good Vegetarian restaurant. It takes 30 minutes to walk there, but it is good, and dirt cheap, I get a big serving of Spinach Lasagna with several salads and a Pepsi Max for 188 rubles, which is about $8 Canadian!
Afterwards, I wander back to Nevskiy Prospect, and wander into a Kitschy Bar-Restaurant called Propaganda, which is designed like an old bomb shelter and has Soviet era posters on the walls. I figure this is a good place to order a caviar plate and a shot of Vodka. It ends up costing 3 times as much as dinner, but the experience is worthwhile, as the Vodka is very smooth and I get to sample 3 different caviars,Black, White and Red. All are delicious and the presentation, in Oyster shells, is nice. Unfortunately, the toast I am given to eat the caviar on is soggy from too much butter. Walking bak to the hostel along Nevskiy prospect, I stop at another Internet cafe to blog some more, not realizing how late it's getting (It's 11:30pm but still light out!)
I arrive back in my hostel just after 1 am. All the other beds in my room are occupied, and everyone looks like they're sitting up reading and waiting for me! (I know this is not the case) However, upon my return, everyone is ready for bed so I shut the lights to recharge for another day in St.Petersburg.
My second day in St. Petersburg was to be my Hermitage day. With all the fears about the G-8 conference mucking things up for the tourists, I resolved to go there as fast as possible. First let me start with my hostel. Sleeping there is not luxurious, although net time and bottled water are cheaper there than anywhere else. The air circulation in the rooms are terrible, 5 people to a room (But no bunk beds so at least it feels spacious. Breakfast is served from 8-10am. Since I can't fall asleep after I wake up at 6 am (Usually in a pool of sweat), I roll around for a while until I summon the strength to rise from bed and take a shower (Since there is no hot water, three of the women's showers on the ground floor (I am on the 3rd) have a generator, so I have to make the long walk down, followed by the long walk back up, but the showers are refreshing after sleeping a night in the St. Petersburg hostel!
Breakfast follows - an impossible to peel hard boiled egg, a slice of dull cheese, decent tea, instant coffee (I avoided), a vile drink the Russians at the hostel generously call "Juice", stale baguette, and bowls of some Sugary O cereal that is really not worth the discussion. It makes me want to get out, which I do, heading down to Ploschad Vossitania, about 8 mins walk from my hostel to catch the #7 tram (I will later realize this could have been picked up 1 minute away from my hostel! The #7 follows Nevskiy Prospect, the major shopping street, all the way to the palace embankment, site of the Winter Palace, also known as the Hermitage. The palace square is enormous, and across from some imposing government buildings, all no more than 3 stories in height (There really are no skyscrapers in St.Petersburg, everything is horizontally big). I notice some NBC crews busily scooting around setting up chairs not far from the Obelisk in the center of the square.
I line up at 10am for the 10:30 starting time, when the museum opens, everyone runs through the main courtyard, and it's a feeding frenzy at the ticket booth. It's 20 mins. later before I get in. I start up the Jordan staircase and I'm instantly transported into a world of unparalleled royal opulence. Catherine's architects designed a building to reflect superb taste in art, coupled with a sense of worldly experience, whatever is not wholly original has some basis in other great architectural works. Take the Raphael Loggias, for example (Why do I keep thinking of Robert Loggias!). This is a series of 19 archways, beautifully painted onto canvas and laid over multi-leveled walls and archways. It is meant as a replica of the Loggias in the Vatican apartments and the effect is striking! The detail is intricate and varied, there is little exact repetition.
The architecture is stunning but the collection is equal to its space, and every period and artist seems to be represented! Picasso, Rodin, Gaugin, Monet, 2 DaVincis (Davinci only painted 14 paintings on canvas in his lifetime), Rembrandt, and more. Just when I think there's no Van Gogh, I turn a corner and there he is. No Dali, but it wouldn't fit in anyways. I spend 4 1/2 hours in the museum, finding some odd temporary exhibits (including Quebec artist Riopelle, The 10 commandments printed on a bound book made from Matzah?).
I wander, get lost a couple of times, make decisions as to what to see and what not to see (They say if you spend 10 seconds on each item in the Hermitage you'll be there for 17 years!). A few years ago I saw a film called RUSSIAN ARK, a movie all shot in one single take that moves through the Hermitage for 98 minutes, culminating in a spectacular dance sequence. I made a little effort at the end to find this ballroom, and the old Baboushkas that watch the rooms were confused at first with what I was asking, but eventually, one of them said Sakhurov, referring to the film's director! Apparently it was the room we were standing in, a big room, but it looked bigger in the movie! Now that I've been to the Hermitage I can't wait to watch the film again.
Eventually I am exhausted and I leave the Hermitage to get lunch. Out in Palace Square, my first celebrity sighting, Matt Lauer is doing a remote unit live from St.Petersburg in anticipation of the G8. I watch him tape a few minutes, snap some pictures. He asks if there's any Americans at one point, and I meekly shout out "I'm Canadian", which he either doesn't hear or care about. I don't feel like stalking an NBC morning show host, so I move on to Pushka Inn, which I've heard is inexpensive and has good traditional Russian food, and I order a plate of Pelmeny (Beef dumplings) and a glass of Mors (Cranberry Juice). The night before I had Kvas with dinner, Kvas is another traditional fermented (But Non-alcoholic) Barley drink. It wasn't the kind of thing I'd drink more than once. But the Mors was nice, and the Pelmeny was excellent, dripping with melted butter. I just walk around for a while after this. I find St. Petersburg to be a very hard city to figure out for Overground public transit, although the Subways are easy. I decide that a nice low impact activity is a canal tour, so I walk down Nevskiy Prospect (I have a hard time getting anywhere else!) to Anichkov Most(Bridge), and hop on a boat tour. The tour guide gives the commentary in Russian only (There are no English tour boats as far as I know), but the ride is nice, we go right out onto the Neva River, crossing over to the Peter and Paul Fortress on the other side, and passing the NEVA fountain in mid river and the imposing old buildings on Vasilevsky island. After the boat ride, I head to a different neighbourhood North of Nevskiy Prospect where I've heard of a good Vegetarian restaurant. It takes 30 minutes to walk there, but it is good, and dirt cheap, I get a big serving of Spinach Lasagna with several salads and a Pepsi Max for 188 rubles, which is about $8 Canadian!
Afterwards, I wander back to Nevskiy Prospect, and wander into a Kitschy Bar-Restaurant called Propaganda, which is designed like an old bomb shelter and has Soviet era posters on the walls. I figure this is a good place to order a caviar plate and a shot of Vodka. It ends up costing 3 times as much as dinner, but the experience is worthwhile, as the Vodka is very smooth and I get to sample 3 different caviars,Black, White and Red. All are delicious and the presentation, in Oyster shells, is nice. Unfortunately, the toast I am given to eat the caviar on is soggy from too much butter. Walking bak to the hostel along Nevskiy prospect, I stop at another Internet cafe to blog some more, not realizing how late it's getting (It's 11:30pm but still light out!)
I arrive back in my hostel just after 1 am. All the other beds in my room are occupied, and everyone looks like they're sitting up reading and waiting for me! (I know this is not the case) However, upon my return, everyone is ready for bed so I shut the lights to recharge for another day in St.Petersburg.
posted by Steven at 9:36 AM
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