Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
The morning began with a tour of Dostoevsky’s apartment. The tour was alright but I’m not sure I enjoyed it the most out of our group. I’ve never read anything that Dostoevsky wrote and he owned many apartments scattered across the city so it wasn’t very interesting looking at his stuff for me. After the apartment we headed to a Russian food market that was really interesting. I am still very curious as to how a country with such a cold climate can have such an abundance of fruits and vegetables. They were selling all sorts of veggies, fruits, nuts, pickles, cheeses, candies, and meats. The meat section was very entertaining, I say my first whole cow tongue laid out in an open air meat counter. I’m not really sure what the regulations are in Russian for selling food because on my walk home from the metro there are many people selling meats and cheeses out of the trunks of their cars, so possibly no real regulation. Anyway back to St. Petersburg, I gave a couple of my friends and my professor a lesson on the different cuts and which are better. Whenever I share farm knowledge most people think it’s pretty funny, they never would have guessed that “meat judging” was a real activity.
After the market we went to the Russian Art Museum. The first half of the tour was really good. The second half of the museum was the modern part, which is what our tour guide taught at one of the local universities. I’m not a very big fan of modern art to begin with so having a tour guide that discussed each picture in depth wasn’t exactly my definition of a good time. The same tour guide which is another good friend of the Kollman’s took us to an artist’s studio after the museum. They studied together in college. Most of what the artist is painting now is too modern for my taste and mostly consist of shapes with various textures. However, at some point in the 90’s he had a “Equine” collection that was just breathtaking. At the end of his talk about being an artist he showed us some of his sketches. There was this beautiful picture of a horse but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it because it was pretty pricey and I don’t see myself collecting Russian art anytime in the future. A couple other students did buy sketches though so it was a successful evening.
Day 6—St. Petersburg
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
I started my morning with a GASP! SNOW… the first real snow I’ve seen in Russia! Thursday was an early morning but totally worth it! We started at 9am, which for college students is like 5am in the real world. We took an hour long bus ride to outside of St. Petersburg to see a palace built by Elizabeth I and added on later by Catherine the Great and other Russian leaders. When we got off the bus we of course frolicked in the snow and all temporarily reverted back to our childhoods. One funny thing was this small street band consisting of 4 brass instruments. I know a trumpet and tuba for sure and them maybe a baritone but that’s not important. What is important is that when were walking to the palace they were standing on a street corner and upon realizing they were American they played the star spangled banner, when the saints go marching in, and some confederate army tune. It was really a surreal moment to hear a Russian band play the star spangled banner in the snow in the middle of the Russian country. Well at least I thought it was pretty funny.
The palace has been restored to it’s original grandiose nature but only after many years of work and a lot of money. During the siege of Leningrad, during WWII, the Nazi’s used this beautiful palace for barracks. When they left they set off a huge air bomb in the middle of the palace destroying most of the rooms and burning what was left after they had looted. So almost everything is a restoration. However some pieces were originals. The elderly women who worked in the palace when the Nazi’s were taking it over were packing up pieces as fighting was taking place at the other end of the palace. It must have been quite a sight to see these women trying to save a sense of national pride. Also this is the palace where the famous Amber room is. It was quite an impressive room, however they would not let us take any pictures of this room because of some sort of chemical reaction that takes place within the stones. Please look up the myths that surround the Amber room if you get a chance it’s quite an interesting story. The Russian’s certainly had a thing for gold, which our tour guide constantly reminded us of, “if it looks like gold, then it IS gold.” Everything is covered in gold leaf. SEE PIC BELOW:
After that palace we went to Paul I’s palace which was pretty much trumped by Elizabeth’s but still really beautiful in it’s own right.
That evening we attended the ballet to see the performance of Don Quixote!!! Just like in Moscow we all got really dressed up in our formal wear. However this time was more fun because we were staying in a hotel together instead of home stays spread across the city so some of us girls got ready together and had champagne prior to going. It was a really special to get to bond with the girls in my group. Here in Moscow there are 18 Stanford students but in places like Oxford there are closer to 40 Stanford students. On the boys from the Oxford program said he didn’t even know everyone in his programs name!!! I think and hope that several of us from this trip will remain close friends forever. The ballet was really awesome! It was such a beautiful performance and really quite funny! To keep in line with being furthered cultured that evening, us already cultured Americans chose to eat at the always classy fine dining establishment that is Carl’s Jr. Moscow has Burger king and McDonalds but St. Petersburg has the only Carl’s Jr in Russia. Even though it wasn’t first class dining the company I kept was and so the dinner was more than excellent.
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