Our final morning in St Petersburg included breakfast at the hotel again (this time they had rice for breakfast, another first for me) and we then headed out to the Hermitage Museum. You had to pay extra to take photos inside the museum so Col France agreed to take photos for all of us and therefore I only have exterior shots as of now.
Housed in the Winter Palace, the Hermitage has a massive collection of art and artifacts and is one of the most famous museums in the world. The museum itself is huge and there isn’t enough room for everything in the collection. There was everything imaginable: Russian art, European art (from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Romantic, Impressionist, Modern), sculptures (from ancient to modern), glasswear, period furniture from the time of Alexander II, tapestries, and art and artifacts from around the world including Assyria, Babylon, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Siberia, and the Caucus region. Some of my favourites included:
-A photo exhibit of Annie Liebowitz that spanned from 1988-2005. It included both photos or herself and family as well as the celebrities she photographed. There were (among others) photos of Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Jonny Depp, Demi Moore (the famous nude pregnancy one), Bruce Willis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Clinton, George Bush and his National Security team (including Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and Tom Ridge), Scarlett Johannsen, Nicole Kidman, and David Beckham.
-An exhibit of sculptures and sketches from Henry Moore. My favourite part of that was the sketches made of the Tube bomb shelters. There were pretty abstract but they definitely showed the emotions of the shelter sleepers and the Tube bomb shelters.
-There was a room with sculptures but I didn’t pay attention to the sculptures because the walls were full of frescos that talked about the “history of ancient art.”
-I always love Impressionist paintings, Monet is my favourite, so I loved those exhibits. There were a surprising number of Matisse paintings, ton of Gaugin, and lots of Picasso. They’re always so fascinating to look at, even if you don’t understand exactly what it was they were trying to paint or what the purpose of each piece was.
We wandered through the museum for almost 4 hours and still didn’t see everything. The one thing I didn’t like about the museum was the layout. First of all it was really confusing to get around and we got lost several times despite having the floorplan map constantly open. Additionally, there didn’t seem to be any chronological organization of the artwork. With the exception of the Impressionist period onward, everything was just kind of meshed together regardless of the period it came from. But those complaints were absolutely minor and the whole museum experience was incredible.
We had to leave the museum with enough time to get back to the hotel, get our stuff, and get to the train station for our train to Suzdal. The station from which we left is called Moscow train station because all the trains go in the direction of Moscow. In Moscow there is an identical station called St Petersburg staion, for the same reason. The two stations are supposedly identical but the Moscow station (in St Petersburg) has a statue of Peter the Great whereas the St Petersburg station (in Moscow, yes confusing I know) has one of Lenin.
While waiting for the train we went to the supermarket and I asked Masha for some recommendations on particularly Russian snack foods. She recommended two that were both really good. The first were “potatoe pancakes” (not like latkes at all) that were essentially potato tortillas. The second recommendation was a corn flavoured snack food. Now just go with me here. Think puffy cheetohs (or bamba for the Israelis among you) but flavoured like frosted cheerios (a sweet, corny/oaty taste). They were really good, everyone loved them except Col France.
Our train left at 5:20pm and we are getting off the train at 4:50am. We are in Carriage 14 and there are still lots of carriages after ours (probably about 20 in total). Our compartment is, shall we say, cosy. Its about 315 feet in total volume (about 5’ wide, 7’ long, 9’ high) and is meant to house 4 people. It does this by having two benches that fold down into beds, two beds up above, and a small table that folds away to make room for the beds. There are communal toilets, sinks, and faucets, communal electric outlets, and a communal dining hall. The dining car had a bar area as well as a seating area with tables for 4 people. The food selection was severely limited (lots of meat and potatoes) but there was no shortage of drinks options! The menu had tons of options for beer, wine, and especially vodka. We chatted with Masha, did some work on our travel journals/blogs/thesis (yeah I know, real fun stuff) and then called it a night before our early wake-up in Suzdal!
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