Санкт-Петербург/Saint Petersburg, Day 2

I am going to try very very hard this time not to walk you through every moment of my day. Because really, the fact that the moments happened in Petersburg does not make them inherently interesting--but this day was something else.

The second day in Petersburg was a Friday. We woke up, had breakfast, and set out for our excursions—sans bus! It’s the little things. We took the Metro cheerfully and walked to the Hermitage. If you know nothing about Russia, you may not know that this is a Big Deal along the lines of going to the Met in New York or (probably a better comparison) the Louvre in Paris. What is now the main building of the Hermitage was once the Winter Palace of the tsars. We began our tour, led by a really adorable young woman named Ira (Ee-ruh, not Ay-ruh), in big grand rooms that gave you an idea of what the palace looked like when the tsars stayed there. Gradually the rooms turned into big grand rooms filled with art, and then upstairs they became small unassuming rooms filled with art. The best part, in my opinion, was the small unassuming rooms, which held newer art—Impressionist works and modern-era stuff. It was the obligatory St. Petersburg excursion, and I’m glad we went, but I don’t have much to say about it.

We grabbed (a slightly more successful) lunch at a café nearby and then headed across the river to the strangest experience of my life. An alley and a creepy barren courtyard let us to the back entrance to Kunstkamera, subtitled “Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.” Don’t let them fool you. Although most of the museum is occupied with weird “anthropological” exhibits of mannequins dressed up like people from various ethnic groups, what the museum is really all about is the biggest globe in the world, located in the barely-reachable tower of the building, and the 300-year-old, deformed stillborn infants that were the original exhibit of the museum in Peter the Great’s time. I am not kidding. 300-year-old, deformed stillborn infants. In jars. Please refer to the Wikipedia article for more information. It says this sort of collection was “a very typical type of collection in the period.” But it is no longer typical! Why does it still exist? I bet it’s because the curators have no idea how they would go about disposing of the 300-year-old fetuses.

I can’t believe I can say I saw that. To be honest, I wish I couldn’t—it was pretty disturbing. But some of our group really dug it.

Afterwards our younger tour guide dragged us off towards the river to show us “the sphinxes.” We apparently had to see these sphinxes—which turned out to be two small statues by the Neva, given to Russia by France. France apparently has a thing for statue-gifting. A very drunk middle-aged woman was swimming in the river in her underwear and talking to a bunch of young people hanging out on the steps near the Sphinxes. When she left, led by a younger woman, she let out a really excellent, animal howl. She was trashed.

We parted with our guide and Vera and headed to a dock nearby, where a few of the guys in our group were sitting with their feet in the river. Can’t say the Neva’s the cleanest water I’ve ever seen, but we all joined them anyway. The water was ice cold but we were all cheerful, looking out across the river at the beautiful European buildings that line it. Then we found a Baltika stand and indulged in beer and ice cream—some of us more than others. The sky looked threatening, so we dispersed.

A handful of us went and met up with a girl named Beth who was in our first year of Russian class and who has been studying in St. Petersburg for a year. We got potatoes at Kroshka Kartoshka (a potato-hawking chain that seems to be more popular in Moscow), then took a walk and talked. We saw some Ren-fair kids camping near the Petropavlovsky krepost—Beth explained, but I don’t remember why they were there. I heard Beth on the phone and died of envy—her accent is excellent.

Our group split up again and Trever, Kevin, Darcy, and I met up with Costya and Vladimir from the train. They took us to a place that sold beer in plastic liter bottles—whether or you were, uh, dining in or taking it to go. I found that really charming, although admittedly wasteful. The guys led us back to the apartment they were renting for their time in Petersburg, and Sasha, Masha, and Nikita were there. It wasn’t long before a Russian-English game of charades began, which was a lot of fun. Kevin got ahold of Adam and he showed up with Ben, Graham, and Steve in tow.

After the game, we all set out for the river, where we were planning to rent a boat. It immediately was obvious, standing outside the apartment, that the building was a popular place for young people. There were loud groups of people our age standing around and being idiots. Some angry tenant dropped a paket (a form of packaging that some liquids come in at the grocery store) of something from one of the top floors and it landed right in front of me, getting my feet (in sandals) and the bottom of my jeans wet, even splashing up to my shoulder. I was pretty pissed off, but luckily the liquid wasn’t sticky or fragrant. I’m just going to pretend it was water or beer.

We got to the river and each of us paid 400 rubles (about $13) for the boat. We climbed across a few others to get to ours—they were full of people, but ours was empty. It was just for us. Once we were all on board we pulled away from the dock. The buildings along the Neva were illuminated, the bridges were covered with lights, we were all giddy, and the wind was in our hair. I tiptoed to the rear of the boat to savor a moment to myself, riding backwards and watching the buildings and bridges and people rush away from me. Not far into the trip the bridges began to rise, as they do every night to admit big boats, and everyone cheered. We turned down a canal and wound through the center of the city. It was so beautiful. It felt like an eternity. It was one of the best nights of my life.

We got back to the hotel around 3:30 in the morning. The birds were already beginning to sing.

Искусство

Everything looks cooler when it's in Russian. The title of this entry just says, "Art."

Today I saw some Very Important Russian artist's house (Vasnetsov's house), and maybe I should be a little more respectful of the fact that he was Very Important, but--it was not terribly exciting. He produced some neat paintings of fairy tales, sure. But I also had to listen to our guide talk about things like his dining room table. And his oven.

The really good part of the day was meeting up with Anya at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Okay, tangent here: FREAKING EVERYTHING is named for Pushkin. There are two Pushkin museums (one of them is Pushkin-related, so I guess that's okay, but he didn't actually live there), a Pushkin metro station, Pushkin street, and a Pushkin cafe. Wikipedia tells me that there's a planet and a crater on the moon named after him, but those things aren't in Moscow so I guess they don't count. But the people who named them--probably in Moscow. They're obsessed with him here. Why is this relevant? Because the museum I went to today is a visual arts museum. And it's named after a writer. This makes absolutely no sense.

Anyway, the reason we went to the museum--they have a HUGE Picasso exhibition going on until late May. There are 240 pieces, and it was wonderful. The painting at the top was one of my favorites. The exhibition seemed to focus a bit on Picasso's involvement with Russia and the ways in which he was inspired by Russia--I hadn't known that he had worked with the Russian ballet. He designed, I believe, the set and costumes for a show (at least one? I don't know). Darcy told me that the dancers performed to Satie (I didn't take the time to read the information on the walls, because I could only understand some of the Russian and the other language was French, which Darcy can read). What a show! Hearing Satie and seeing Picasso. I can't imagine. I really would like to have lived in the early 20th century.

More

I apologize for the infrequent posting. Due to personal life stuff (unrelated to my stay here) and political news from America, I have been tired and a little down, especially when I have free time. So my blog is taking a hit. I've been feeling much better, though, so I'll do my best to post regularly again now.

Today, we went on an excursion to the old Tretyakov art gallery. I'll be honest--it was pretty boring. I just can't dig pre-20th century art. I understand why others do and I can see why it's good, but it's never been my thing. We took a guided tour, which made it worse, and it was led by an employee of the museum who spoke fine English but interjected a high-pitched "Yes?" into her speech about every 30 seconds. I started a count, but I stopped at 67, about halfway through the tour, because I was tired of paying attention. After the tour a few of us realized that there were rooms of early 20th c. art that she had totally skipped, and I'm glad we found them. Modern-era art is some of my favorite. I loved this piece by Filipp Malyavin (click for the whole thing):

There is a new Tretyakov elsewhere which houses avant-garde 20th and 21st c. art, but we won't be taking an excursion there as a group, so I'll have to make time to go one of these weekends.

After the museum, some of us went to a restaurant called Ёлки-Палки--which is pronounced Yolki-Palki. Yeah. It was aptly described by someone at the table as a Russian Cracker Barrel, although it's certainly more expensive. I ended up shelling out about $20, which is entirely normal for Moscow. It wasn't the food that got me, but the juice. I had two TINY TINY glasses of grapefruit juice which ended up costing me about $6. Unfortunately, just drinking water wouldn't have been much cheaper, as the water was 120 rubles ($4). You can't get tap water here (because you shouldn't drink the tap water), only bottled. This is probably why people drink so much beer here--it's cheaper than or comparable to anything else.

From Yolki-Palki we walked to a park that had been recommended to us by the woman who organizes our excursions. She said there was a very interesting sculpture there, and she was right. It's called "Children are the victims of adult vices" (click title for Wikipedia article) sculpted by Mikhail Shemyakin. I think its greatest value for foreigners is the insight it provides into the values of Russian society--though it was very controversial when it came out, according to Wikipedia, and so of course it's not representative of all Russians. Still, artists don't make art outside of society's influence.

Covering some impressive distance, all things considered, Darcy and I led the group over to a great little place Anya showed us on Sunday. It's called, I kid you not, Beard Papa's. It is a Japanese cream puff place. They sell only cream puffs (and not even much of a variety), and I only know it's Japanese because the women behind the counter say thank-you in Japanese and because Anya told us it is. Wikipedia, however, confirms this. But the thing is--the cream puffs are heavenly. They're not the little melon-ball-sized ones you get from the grocery store. I hate those, and the stuff inside is too light and weird. I won't try to describe how awesome the cream puffs from Beard Papa's are, but if you ever come to Moscow please do swing by metro station Kropotkinskaya (not the most attractive name, I know) and hit up this tiny, inexplicable little bakery. Their website indicates that there are about a billion in California and one on the Upper West Side in New York and some in other US locations, but it just wouldn't be the same as eating a really good cream puff at a Japanese bakery with an English name in Russia.

Before being introduced to Beard Papa's on Sunday, Darcy and I met Anya at Arbatskaya to head over to Old Arbat, a pedestrian-only street, where they were holding a Flash Mob event. People had been told to wear bright colors and blow bubbles starting at 2:00 in the afternoon. We didn't get there until 4, but man, people were still going strong. There weren't a ton of bubbles then, but the excitement included:

1. Young kids, maybe junior high- and high school-age, playing a traditional Russian game in a huge group
2. Girls and some guys carrying signs that said, "Free hugs!" and sometimes, "Kiss me!"
3. A guy doing yoga-like poses on his hands, feet, and head on top of broken glass. We left when he picked up a meter-long nail-like thing that he was apparently going to swallow.
4. A drum circle
5. A quartet of young woman, probably from the music academy, playing classical music
6. Hilarious costumes and skimpy clothing in celebration of the spring weather
7. People actually smiling, even laughing and screaming and singing and dancing

That last one is a big deal in a place like Moscow. Smiling for no reason in public, especially at complete strangers, is practically verboten. This morning when I was thinking of depressing things while waiting for our group to assemble in the metro station, our excursion guide looked at me and said, "You already look like real Russians!"

The whole Arbat experience felt like recharging.

Edited to add: Still loving my host family. Grisha just came in with a glass of freshly-made grapefruit juice.