St. Petersburg - The Hermitage

Tuesday, 25 September 2018

We took the optional, all-day tour of the Hermitage museums. For openers, we got to enter an hour early and had a relatively uncrowded tour. We also got to see two other Hermitage sites. It was a good choice. We had a great day, but barely scratched the surface of this enormous museum.

We started in the main Hermitage museum, which is really five inter-connected buildings -- the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Large (Old) Hermitage, and the Winter Palace of Peter I and Hermitage Theater. The photo above shows (as best I can) the Main (or Jordan) Staircase, which is the current entry point to the collections.

Especially near the beginning of the tour, the rooms were the art. This is the Armorial Hall, one of the immense formal state rooms in the Hermitage.

The Pavilion Hall holds the amazing Peacock Clock that has been keeping time for over 225 years. The full mechanism is on display on Wednesdays (we missed by one day), but you can find some amazing videos of it in action on the internet.

The wooden floors themselves are amazing works of art -- finely patterned parquet. I guess that's why the US company we bought our parquet compass rose from is called Czar Floors. This floor was in the Small Throne Room.

There are a number of long galleries/arcades/loggias in the Hermitage. From left: Rafael Loggia (a replica of one in the Vatican); Gallery of the History of Ancient Paintings; the Hall of Twenty Columns.

The State Staircase was used by visiting dignitaries during the time of the tsars.

The exterior of the Hermitage/Winter Palace as seen from Palace Square.

After two hours (a very short tour!) in the main Hermitage buildings, we crossed Palace Square to the East Wing of the General Staff Bulding. This side of the building was given to the Hermitage by the Russian government and has been renovated into a modern art museum, and houses the Hermitage's French Impressionist collection.

A sculpture of Victory in her chariot is over the portal between the two wings of the General Staff Building.

A panoramic view of Palace Square. The Hermitage is on the left and the General Staff Building is on the right. The Alexander Column is in the middle.

The 47-m (157 ft) high Alexander Column is topped by an angel.

After lunch, we visited the Hermitage restoration center and repository on the north side of St. Petersburg. This impressive building is new - and difficult to photograph because of construction fences surrounding it. We saw a lot of interesting and impressive artifacts here (garments, furniture, diplomatic gifts, and carriages) that are rotated through climate-controlled showcases. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed.

Mandrogi

Monday, 24 September 2018

After having been bombed and burned into oblivion during World War II, the small village of Mandrogi on the Svir River was resurrected in 1996 by a St. Petersburg businessman as a tourist destination between Kizhi and St. Petersburg. It's authentic in a Disneyland way. There are a hotel, guest houses, restaurants, lots of handicrafts, and a few private residences -- all built as an idealized Russian village. A small zoo is accessible by a short ferry ride (maybe 200 ft) for a fee.

The Svir River connects Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga and the scenery is mostly forest. The trees were just beginning to change to their fall colors.

The decorated gable of a building for craftsmen and their wares.

The Vodka Museum boasts well over 2000 bottles of (what else?) vodka.

Mandrogi affords plenty of opportunities to purchase high-quality Russian souvenirs, handicrafts, and art.

Some of the workshops are in old restored buildings. The doors can be very short!

A private residence. Mandrogi is becoming a week-end getaway for wealthy urbanites. There's even a helipad.

Most of the village is still heavily wooded.

Back on board the ship, we were treated to another afternoon rainbow.

Our afternoon "excursion" was on board. Executive Chef Leonidas gave us a tour of the serving kitchen. (The cooking kitchen, two decks down, is off-limits to passengers for health and sanitation reasons.)

And to finish the day, we had a nice sunset.

Kizhi

Sunday, 23 September 2018

Our morning "excursion" was to the ship's bridge. When we're traveling rivers, canals, and shallow lakes, the navigation requires the complete attention of the crew, but on deep water Lake Onega, the ship could be put on autopilot and we could have a visit.

Several of these hovercraft plied the waters between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

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The Kizhi logo is based on the name in Cyrillic: Кижи

Kizhi is a small island in Lake Onega that has been turned into an open-air museum of wooden buildings transported and refurbished from across Karelia (the part of Russia next to Finland). This was our favorite stop on the trip.

A typical farmhouse. The ground level is a barn, while the two upper floors are living areas and workshops.

Logs in the farmhouse. I liked the highly visible rings and the five-pointed "star" where limbs had come off when the tree was young.

Inside the farmhouse a woman was working on traditional embroidery. What makes this embroidery distinct is that the back looks exactly like the front -- there is no "backside".

The Chapel of the Archangel Michael.

A bell ringer played about every half hour.

The summer church was still being restored. Complete restoration will take about another two years.

The domes above the winter church.

The iconostasis in the winter church.

The weather was cool and blustery with some short rain showers.

The rain may have been an annoyance, but it did give us a nice rainbow.

As we were leaving we got to see the bigger picture that is difficult to get when you are close to the structures. This is the summer church and bell tower.

The complete Kizhi Pogost (rural church and graveyard); this area is a UNESCO World Heritage site. From left: summer church, bell tower, winter church.

The farmhouse as seen from the water.

We'd love to return to Kizhi. Since this visit was in the afternoon and very late in the tourist season, a lot of the buildings were shut down, and we didn't have enough time to walk the whole island. It would be a great place to spend the entire day.

On the Volga-Baltic Waterway

Saturday, 22 September 2018

We're following the Volga-Baltic Waterway now. In addition to the visit to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (previous post), we had a school visit in the town of Kirillov, and then re-joined the ship in the small village of Goritsy.

A high school math classroom in Kirillov.

Pretty wooden houses were common in the villages of this part of Russia. This one was in Goritsy.

Local crafts and souvenirs were for sale every place we came ashore. In Goritsy, I was able to watch a woman making lace, a specialty of the region.

As we entered Beloye Ozero (White Lake), there was another flooded and abandoned church, Christmas Church at Krokhino.

As we passed by, it became clear that this wasn't just a bell tower, but a complete church (in ruins).

The lake is so shallow here that our ship's wake became waves of breakers as they neared the shore.

The breakers became even more impressive as we traveled down the lake shore.

Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery

Saturday, 22 September 2018

The Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, on the shore of Lake Siverskoye, was one of the largest in Europe. It dates back about 600 years; during the Soviet era it was a museum. Monks returned to the monastery in 1998, but most of the grounds are open to the public as a museum.

The walkway between the Kazan Tower gate (17th century) in the outer wall and the Holy Gates that enter the original monastery.

All of the trees along this passage were numbered.

The dome of St. John Lestvichnik Church, which is in the Holy Gates.

The bell tower.

The Assumption Cathedral.

Side churches near the Assumption Cathedral.

St. Euphemius Church.

One of the towers along the outer fortress wall.

Walking back to the Kazan Gate.

The angel atop the Kazan Tower.