The Hermitage

Today I went back to the Hermitage and took about a million pictures, mostly of the rooms themselves. There are 1,057 halls and rooms, such as this one, which apparently is where the tsar watched TV. You think they could have afforded to buy a sofa and some chairs.



There are two small paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and they draw quite a crowd. They're both covered in glass so it's tough to get a good picture even when you've fought your way to the front.



By contrast, this room wasn't quite as popular. There are only two paintings. A recently restored Rubens, and another which is currently being restored. Every room in the museum has an attendant. I felt sorry for the poor lonely babushka in the back corner.



I suppose I should show some pictures of the artwork, too. This is "Bush" by Vincent Van Gogh:



"Crouching Boy" by Michelango:



"Young Women in the Garden" by Louis Valtat:



A couple more rooms. It's hard to believe that this was actually built to be someone's house. It's good to be the king! (Or tsar, in this case.)







In this last shot you can see how crowded the place gets. This next picture was taken at at 3 p.m.



This is the queue to get in. It goes all the way through the archway in the back and about 100 feet out the other side. The first day I went to the museum I waited in a line about 1/4 this long and it took an hour. So I don't think most of these people will even get in, let alone see anything.

I bought a ticket online for my second trip. For whatever reason it took several days for me to get it, but it was worth it. If you buy your ticket online, you don't have to wait in line. I went in through the exit door and went up to the information desk to ask where to redeem my voucher. The woman came out from behind the desk and personally escorted me to the front of the queue and handed my paperwork to the cashier! And yes, the people in line seemed pretty pissed.

First impressions of Russia

Tsar Nicolas I said of St Petersburg "It is in Russia -- but it is not Russian!" Peter the Great built the city from scratch in just nine years in the early 1700s because Russia was considered a backwater, and he wanted a more modern, more "European" city. The city is, by all accounts, one of the most beautiful in the world.

But it is not Russian. Moscow is Russian. So I'll wait until I get there to form any real impression of the country.

I did a foot tour of the city today with an Aussie couple I met here who were nice enough to invite me along. This is me on the the Neva River, with The State Hermitage Museum in the background. The city is at roughly the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. You can see I was quite comfortable in my shorts and a polo shirt, but it's 11:30 pm and the sun hasn't set yet!



The museum is the centerpiece of St Petersburg and of the world's great art museums, with the largest collection in the world. It's housed partly in the Winter Palace, a place of almost obscene splendor. You can see how big it is. Even at a distance it fills the camera frame, and it's as wide as it is long. I plan to go back and do a more thorough tour because, get this, you can take pictures inside! (For a fee, of course.)

The entry to my hostel is dirty and dingy and a little scary. The hostel itself is on the third floor, and it's wonderful. The girls who work here are friendly (and beautiful!) and speak perfect English. I'm sleeping in an 8-bed dorm room but this is the bathroom:



My hostel bathroom has a jacuzzi!

St Petersburg has produced some of Russia's favorite sons: Vladimir Putin is from here, as were Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoevsky. I can only assume that this place is named after of one of his novels, otherwise it's a pretty lousy name for a restaurant: