July 16: Hermitage and Peter and Paul Fortress

Dear Friends and Relatives,

Greetings!  After about 5 good hours of sleep, I woke up at about 4 am and the sun was up--we are that far north.  I decided to finish my blog of yesterday's comings and goings, in order to keep on track.  It took about 2 hours to finish the blog, and then my roommate Judy and I went down for breakfast, which was a varied buffet line--very copious and of excellent quality.  I had three different fruits--apricots, golden raisins, and slices of orange, as well as a 3-minute boiled egg, a piece or currant pastry, yogurt and honey, as well as some bold, authoritative coffee.  Nothing like it all for making the day start out just right.  

Then we went to a lecture room to hear a lady who is a professor of history at a local university talk about the history of St. Petersburg, the change of its name to Petrograd, then to Leningrad, and finally back to St. Petersburg, involving the entire Byzantine machinations leading up to and realizing the goals and putting up with the setbacks of the Revolution.  Fascinating lecture with time-period photographs, and many questions were asked and answered after the lecture.  

After the lecture, we were off to the Hermitage, renowned as one of the world's leading picture galleries.  It is also a treasure house of ancient cultures.  In addition, it is an extension of the Winter Palace, the former residence of the Russian Imperial Family.  It provides a setting of unparalleled opulence.  In all, there are 12 miles of galleries, more than 3,000,000 objects, and 1000 rooms in the Winter Palace alone.  The Hermitage consists of three interlinked buildings--the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, and Large Hermitage.  The present Winter Palace is fourth on that site, and was designed for the Empress Elizabeth in 1754-62.  The color at one time was icy blue, then changed to red from the 19th c. to the Revolution, and finally to its current green, as you see on the title page of my blog.  Eventually it was opened to the public in 1852, and during the post-Revolutionary era, the collection increased threefold, as many valuable private collections were seized by the State, including those of the Stroganovs, Sheremetyevs, and Yusupovs.  In 1948 it incorporated the Impressionist and post-Impressionist collections of Moscow industrialists Shchukin and Morozov.  

The Small Hermitage was built for Catherine the Great and became a repository for her Dutch and Flemish masters, for instance, some amazing Rembrandts, including a luminous painting of his pregnant wife Saskia.  The Large Hermitage had a cycle of important rooms and spaces which we saw: the Jordan Staircase, from which each year, on January 6, the Tsar and his retinue would process down to the Neva for the ceremony of the Blessing of the Waters.  From here as many as 8000 guests would ascend to attend the seasonal inaugural balls.  A preliminary glass of champagne would be taken in the Fore Hall before proceeding to the Hall of St. George and the Nicholas Hall with its massive Corinthian columns and chandeliers, where most of the formal balls took place.  There was the Malachite Palace, where Kerensky's Provisional Government convened for the last time in 1917.  Other halls included the Hall of Field Marshalls, where portraits of military heroes were hung; Peter the Great's Throne Room; the Gallery of 1812, a tribute to the victors of war against Napoleon;  and the Hall of St. George, the most sumptuous room of the Winter Palace, with quadruple-tiered chandeliers.  Paintings included examples by da Vinci, Raphael, and Titian.  

It was all a feast for the eyes and a mind boggling experience, and the crowds were fierce.  After about 2 hours, we were lightheaded and decided to have lunch at the café on the bottom floor.  I had a salmon sandwich and a lemon Schweppes, and then my roommate Judy and I quickly walked to the Church of St. Isaac nearby, designed in 1818 and opened in 1858, pockmarked from the 900-day Siege of Leningrad and still a living memento to the horrors of war.  It is 43,000 sq. ft., holds up to 7000 worshippers, and is considered one of the largest cathedrals in the world.   

Then it was back to the Hermitage to see the Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings by van Gogh, Rousseau, Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Renoir, Matisse, Vlaminck, Derain, Leger, Kandinsky, and special exhibits on Faberge eggs and Art Nouveau pottery and glass.  Things are still very much in transition in this part of the museum, and many rooms have not been hung yet.  Signage was confusing; however, there is no end to the collection's significance.  

From there, we caught our bus once again, which transported us to an island across the river Neva from the Hermitage, called Hare Island.  It is the venue of the Fortress of Peter and Paul, one of the first structures in St. Petersburg.  Peter the Great laid the cornerstone of the earthen fortress in May of 1793, intending it be used to repel a Swedish invasion.  After the Swedes capitulated, the fortress was transformed into a prison in 1718.  Also important is the presence of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.  It is the burial place for most of the tsars, beginning with Peter the Great.  The remains of the last Romanov tsar, Nicholas II, and almost all the members of his family when they were murdered in Ekaterinburg in 1918, have been reinterred here.  The only ones missing are daughter Marie and son Alexei, and once those remains have been found, they will be reinterred here as well.  The church is one of the great monuments and landmarks of St. Petersburg, attracting more than 20,000,000 visitors yearly.  Of great poignancy was a vocal ensemble of five priests, who sang for our crowd some of their liturgical music, heightened by some of the most truly resonant deep-voiced basses I have ever heard.  

After leaving the Peter and Peter and Paul Fortress by bus, we had dinner in a restaurant just down the street from the Church of St. Isaac.  We started with a salad of parsley, lettuce, zucchini, mozzarella, followed by beef stroganoff on mashed potatoes, snd a dessert of glazed pear and ice cream, and a robust cup of Café Americano.  What a day!  Legs tired after about 4 miles of walking, but truly a red-letter day!  Tired and happy, Sylvia