The Hermitage

Before I wade into our visit to the Hermitage, I realize you must be wondering about the taxi situation - such a major part of our Moscow experience. Well, taxis, or rather the cost of cab rides, is not such a big issue here. Everything is half the price of Moscow - meals in restaurants, entry into museums, and taxis. Indeed, the reason why I haven't mentioned the t-word since we've been in St Petersburg is because the rides seem so cheap. However, we were still being 'done'. And this is how we found out.

On leaving the Mariinsky and Onegin, Dimitri organized a taxi back to the hotel. He informed us it would cost 250 roubles - about £6. As we were driving home our unusually chatty driver asked us if Dimitri was an old friend or we had just run into him outside the theatre... When it came time to pay I handed over a 500 rouble note, which our charming cabby immediately pocketed. Hmmm... My hand still extended for the change, he dipped into his little baggy and produced, very reluctantly, 250 roubles. You see, he was hoping he could charge us the usual tourist rate, which is, on average, double the real cost. Even in lovely St. Petersburg.

Another little gem I meant to mention in the previous blog was Valery Gergiev. We had been talking to Dimitri about the glorious music coming from the pit during Onegin,which provoked a comment about the west's love affair with the conductor, Gergiev. Dimitri shook his head, explaining that there were many equally great, if not greater, conductors in Russia, and we had had the priviledge of hearing one of them that night - Boris Gruzin. We had actually met Mr Gruzin in one of the intervals, and he was clearly flabbergasted to find three ballet dancers who were also opera enthusiasts. Usually the twain do not meet; artistes of the ballet and opera rarely appreciate each others virtues.

Our call next morning was for 11 o'clock by the concierge's desk. There we were to meet the rest of the group going to the Hermitage.

A little word here about tour guides. From the outset Sue had been trying to persuade us to invest in a guided tour but Gail and I were resistant: seeing untidy groups of people being led around museums by a bolshy, noisy person waving a stick, was not our idea of fun. But we relented for the Hermitage, and how grateful we were. Our guide, Ria, turned out to be funny, informative, efficient and not at all noisy and bolshy.

At the concierge's desk we discovered our gang of three had morphed into a six with the addition of a pair of Israeli grandparents and their thirteen-year-old grandson. We felt a pang of sympathy for the young man who was clearly as pleased to be doing a tour of an ancient building as he would be about the prospect of a double-maths lesson. Actually, I think he'd rather be doing the maths. We only managed to garner the name Cassif, which meant we spent four hours with this charming family not knowing whether they were Mr, Mrs and Master Cassif or Cassif was the Christian name of the grandfather. (Forename would probably be more appropriate - I've become accustomed to this term through filling out so many immigration forms.) So, we were either being very rude or over polite. We'll never know.

Anyway, the Hermitage and a short history lesson.






The Hermitage, or to give it its full title, The State Hermitage Museum, is spread over five palaces set in magnificent style on the banks of the River Neva. The Old Hermitage, originally the Winter Palace, was built in 1754 and became the home of Russian Emperors, including Catherine the Great, right through to Tsar Nicholas II - the last Tsar. The Small Hermitage was built ten years ten years later in 1764, although the use of the word small has to be understood in the context of a building the size and scale of the Palace of Versailles. You start to see why revolution was inevitable. Such obscene wealth has a limited appeal to the common man.

The Hermitage is not just a fabulous collection of art and artefacts; the palaces have to be seen and awed at for themselves. Room upon room of glittering chandeliers, velvet-covered walls embroidered with silver thread, slabs of malachite, jasper and lapis-lazulite, even a peacock clock made entirely of gold whose feathers splay out when the hour is struck. (This event happens once a month now.) We took a separate tour of The Gold Room with another guide who may have been around at the time of the revolution, such was her knowledge of the period and her age. I have run out of superlatives and hyperbole, I'm afraid. You'll just have to go see it all for yourselves.

Much to our amusement and enlightenment, Cassif turned out to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Russian history, so much so that he occasionally took over the tour. "Russia is a very young country. Migrating tartars populated the land just over a thousand years ago."  Our guide, Ria, was gracious in the extreme and continually thanked him for his input but I wondered if her nails were secretly digging into her palm. (If you ever find your way to this blog, Cassif, know that we appreciated you.)

I can't leave the Hermitage without mentioning the paintings: its collections are among the greatest in the world - especially those of the Dutch and Flemish masters - and having spent some time arguing about which collection we should be sure to visit the three of us ended up seeing our personal favourites - Caravaggio for Gail, Monet for Sue and Rembrandt for me.

We spent a little over four hours in the museum and not wishing to break the pattern of the trip, Gail and I set off in the direction of the hotel while Sue and Lonely Planet headed for the sights. Crossing the road in front of the Astoria, who should we run into - no, not Jill and Norman - but Galina. She walked back to the Petro Palace with us, pressing us to come back to St Petersburg in the late spring when the white nights allow you to walk around this beautiful city as if it were four in the afternoon. "And the blossoms..."

Our evening was to be spent with Xander, and one of his favourite restaurants - Terassa. This restaurant benefits from a panoramic view of the city but it also has seriously good food. Sue and I went for aubergine parmigiani while Gail and Xander had a spicy beef stir-fry.

St Petersburg is experiencing something of an Indian Summer and we walked back to the hotel along Nevsy Prospect in balmy temperatures. It seemed as though all of the city was out enjoying summer's last hurrah. Passing an entrance to the underground rail, Gail asked Xander if it would be worth taking a peek since Moscow's metro stations are practically works of art. "Absolutely not!" he replied, "Going into the metro here is like descending into an underground missile silo...". The only minus to the city I can report at this stage. As you can probably tell, we are in love with St. Petersburg; we are in love with Dimitri and Galina and Xander.

Night-night.