Monday, April 6, 2009

St. Petersburg - Санкт Петербург

I must warn you, there will be alot of pictures... and probably more than one post.
Also, I apologize for my lack of knowledge about the things I will post. It really is a shame that I am so ignorant of Russian history, and you might even be embarassed for me. If anyone knows of some good resources, I'd love to hear.
So, six of us went to St. Petersburg. It is a one hour flight from Moscow. Thankfully our Aeroflot pilot seemed to have been sober.
We got to the hotel before check in, and a funny thing happened. When I was trying to give my bag to the bellman - he said something to me that I didn't understand. However, he was speaking in english.... He said to me, "which language do you prefer?" When I answered, "english", he said, "Are you certain?" It was quite funny, and it gave us laughs over the weekend.
So, we find some good Georgian food, and head off to The Hermitage. I really cannot even begin to describe this place. It was the residence of the Russian Tsars on the embankment of the Neva River in the heart of St. Petersburg. There are like 6 buildings, and I know for certain we probably only saw like 20% of the stuff there. I had no idea what a fine collection of western European art was housed here. DaVinci, Monet, Michaelangelo, El Greco, Goya, Rubens to name a few.
Every room was a sight to behold - not even taking into account the art on display. The celings, the floors, the chandeliers... It was never ending... We wandered around in amazement.
So, I will make no attempt to explain each picture here. Probably needs no explanation anyway.
Here is a link to The Hermitage website.
http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/index.html





The horse above was real. It had been stuffed. If you look closely, you can see the line where the skin was cut.











Tomorrow, I will post more pictures - including the Church on Spilled Blood, and general city pictures of SPB.

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