THE HERMITAGE

                             Russia's Great Museum

The Hermitage is a St. Petersburg land mark, and its façade is known the world over. I’m sure most people know the Hermitage was Catherine, the Great’s palace and now is a huge wonderful art museum. The contents you just have to see to believe and understand---and they rotate and change on a regular basis. Describing the Hermitage is like trying to describe the Smithsonian. So let me tell you a few things that perhaps you don’t know.

The Winter Palace was built between 1754 and 1762 for Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died before the palace completion and Catherine the Great, her successor, lived in and enjoyed the lovely palace of the czars. It is painted turquoise which was Elizabeth’s favorite color.

Today the Hermitage Museum occupies five buildings on the banks of the Neva River. The largest and best known of the city’s 50 museums, it occupies 1057 rooms that house three million artifacts from the Stone Age to the 20^th century. It houses the largest collection of art and antiquities in the world including 12,000 sculptures, 15,000 paintings, 225,000 works of applied art, and 600,000 drawings and prints. The Hermitage Museum is among the largest and most respected art museums in the world.

It is said that if one spent only a few moments at each display it would take nine years to see it all! Only 3-4 percent of the collection is on display at any one time. Peter the Great started the collection, Catherine the Great added tremendously to it with the purchase of her European collections, and Alexander I relieved Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, of her entire art collection after the French defeat in 1814. The great collection that includes masterpieces by Leonardo de Vinci, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Picasso is housed in 400 of its rooms.

Many of the palace’s impressive interiors have been remodeled, particularly after 1837 when a huge fire destroyed most of the building. The Hermitage is so big it seems overwhelming.

A P.S. to our Hermitage experience

As we entered the museum we checked our day packs as instructed. I removed my small camera and put it in my pocket where it stayed for the entire visit. Remember this.

Then we headed up one of 120 palace staircases. The red-carpeted wide marble staircase reminded us of the one at Wurtzburg Palace. Perfect for my friend and me to practice walking up it the way we learned in Germany. Grasping our pant leg (no skirt) with our left hand, we extended our right elbow at 90 degrees and extended the pinkie finger in the air and with head held high enough to look down our nose we started our ascent. We made it to the top of the long winding staircase before bursting out in giggles, not giving a hoot what anyone watching us thought. Silly, yes but fun!

          As we were about to return to the checkout counter we stopped to       watch 14 men decide how to get a large carriage up the stairs we had originally ascended. It was an interesting exercise as most of them apparently had no idea what they were doing. They used 6-8-inch wide wooden strips for the wheels to ride up on, but they used press-board and every time the carriage got on the strips they broke in half. When this happened the men stood and scratched their heads. It was like watching a comedy skit.We watched in amazement for some time and then finally had to leave.

            Returning to the checkroom we observed the lady behind the counter going through a big black purse that had been checked. She looked up, saw us, closed the bag and returned it to its slot. Unabashed she slowly came to the counter for our tags and  collected our bags. It did not appear that either of our bags had been tampered with, but as we walked away, I said, “I’m sure glad I didn’t leave my camera in my bag!”

St. PETERSBURG,RUSSIA

                          A Lovely City Full of History

            The city, and Russia’s largest seaport, sprawls over 600 square kilometers and 101 separate islands. St. Petersburg, with its 70 canals and 300 bridges, is Russia’s loveliest city. Even though the city is the same latitude as Alaska, the Gulf Stream moderates its winter climate, which tends to be milder than that of Moscow.

            The population of 2 million enjoys 50 museums, 20 theaters and concert halls, 60 stadiums, and 4500 libraries. With 200 monuments and stunning palaces, typically of baroque and neoclassical styles, the city is a museum of architectural beauty. Nicholas I once remarked that St. Petersburg is Russian but is not Russia. Soft northern light twenty-four hours a day in summer contrasts with long foreboding winter nights. Our guide told us, “Once known as Leningrad  its citizens possess a peculiar kind of arrogance and Muscovites consider them snobbish.”

            Described as a city of water bridges and wrought iron railings, the city’s bridges range from a single foot bridge to the high elaborate decorative Palace Draw-Bridge. The bridges have a high degree of ornamentation with statues, towers, obelisks chains and grille rails everywhere. It is said that there are 90 miles of wrought iron railings in the city, often works of art in their own right. In 1932 the first permanent bridge replacing a pontoon bridge was built over the Neva River.

           In 1703 Peter the Great hiked the marshy-mosquito infected island in the Neva River delta. He decided the area was perfect for his future navy and cut two strips of soil, laid them in the shape of a cross declaring here would be his city. He forced Swedish prisoners and Russian destitutes to dredge the area, dig out a system of canals, and lay foundations for the initial structures. Then the czar compelled his subjects to inhabit the place.

            In his European metropolis his first concern was building a fortress. He also wanted to consolidate a major trade route from the Baltic Sea to Russia’s inland waterways. Despite the laborers carrying dirt in their shirts and dropping dead of malaria, scurvy, and starvation the first wooden structures of the new city were erected just five months after the ground breaking. The first structures of fortifications and a church formed the basis for the Peter and Paul Fortress.

In 1710 the imperial family moved to St. Petersburg. Two years later Peter declared St. Petersburg the capital of Russia. The aristocracy and merchant class were more horrified of moving to the uncivilized northern swamp than they were of the loss of power. However, given the choice of losing their heads or relocating, they reluctantly moved to the young city only to learn they were obliged to build large structures at their own expense. In addition 40,000 masons flocked to the city because stone buildings were forbidden to be built anywhere else.

Floods routinely plagued the island and wolves roamed free at night. In 1725 when Peter died, 100,000 people inhabited the city, and 90 percent of Russia’s trade moved through it. Except for Peter’s grandson, Peter II, who moved the imperial court to Moscow for a couple of years before his death from smallpox in 1730; future monarchs remained faithful to Peter’s dream.