July 27, 2013

July 27, 2013

Our tour has a late start this morning; it is a good thing because we woke way later than normal.  It was still bright at midnight last night and we stayed up way too long.  These long days are tough on the body.

Our tour took us to the Hermitage today.  The Hermitage was the winter palace of Czar Catherine the Great.  It is now one of the world's greatest art museums.  Wow.  It is hard to describe this place.  It is a serious two-fer.  You could walk around and just admire the rooms of this winter palace of the absolute monarchs of the Russian empire, the largest on the earth.  Each room is spectacular and decorated in some slightly different over the top fashion.  The Russians first of all were into gold, I guess because Russia has gold in abundance.  Russia is also rich in minerals.  Many of the rooms are decorated by color of precious stones;  There is a green room with malachite, a blue room with lapis lazuli, and a purple room with rhodonite.  The rooms are mostly empty.  I can’t imagine what they would look like furnished.

The museum can be visited a second time ignoring the rooms but just looking at the artwork.  The Hermitage has the largest art collection in the world.  Even the Louvre is smaller although it has more famous pieces. Our guide said it would be 22 miles to walk the museum one time. To think this was the private collection of the czars.  What a drain on the economy the czars must have been.  And this is not to mention all the other lesser royals and nobles.  No wonder the people revolted.  Too bad Lenin and Socialism hijacked the revolution overthrowing the monarchy.

We got a guided tour of the Hermitage highlights which mainly focused on the most fabulous palace rooms and the best of the Renaissance paintings.  Aimee and I walked the other floors and I was astounded to see how many of the other art periods were also represented.  The Hermitage has dozens of Henri Matisses from the early 20th century. Clearly even the last czar, Nicholas II, was an avid art buyer till the bitter end. The czars really believed they were chosen by God to rule. In the end we did this museum little justice.  You really need to spend a couple hours per section. Unfortunately we don't have weeks to spare.  

  

After the Hermitage we boarded the bus for a trip fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg to the little town of Pushkin.  Its former name was Tsarskoye Selo or Tsar's village. This town was the location of the Czar's summer home. The "little" cottage is known as Catherine's Palace. It is a grand, over the top, palace like the rest we have seen. Most of it has been extensively reconstructed. It suffered mightily during WWII. St Petersburg was besieged for three long years by the German army. The front line ran near this palace. Hitler thought he could starve St. Petersburg into surrender, but he underestimated the ability of the Russians to endure suffering.