Goodbye Mother Russia

Yesterday I went with great anticipation to the Dostoyevsky Museum. Closed for renovation.

              That can make a person sad

Today I went with great anticipation to the Faberge Museum. Couldn't get in. Luckily I saw a few in Moscow.

This Faberge egg has a tiny golden Trans Siberian Railway train that hides inside a globe

So, since I couldn't see any Faberge eggs, I went to the Museum of Anthropology & Ethnography to see dead babies in bottles. Really. 

Peter the Great was a very forward-thinking person. He created this, the oldest museum in Russia, 295 years old this year. In addition to showing Russians what people looked like around the world, he sought to elevate their thinking on a number of matters. One was that malformed babies (referred to as "monsters" at the time) were the result of witchcraft. He wanted to show people that there were medical reasons for these fearsome birth defects. He teamed up with a scientist who had just invented a way to embalm humans & animals in a remarkably lifelike way. He (Peter the Great) sent out a call all around Russia for deformed babies, to the point where he amassed a large collection. They sleep in eternal liquid in jars in St. Petersburg now, in a museum also full of full-scale dioramas of the world's peoples.*

Beautiful diorama figures guard the babies in bottles as they sleep.

Goodbye blinis for breakfast.

Goodbye amazing view out cafe window while eating blinis.

Goodbye more birthday cakes, with god-shaped candles all around the top.

Goodbye women who walk over cobblestones with amazing shoes.

Goodbye willowy Russian girls, & the Russian men who appreciate them.

Goodbye strong Russian women. Russian women can snap you like a matchstick just by looking at you.

Goodbye Russia, big land of big & small beauties.

*Taking photos of these babies is forbidden, so I did not take these. But someone did, because I found these on the web. 

The Blackest, Black Part of Soviet Times

That is what my St. Petersburg guide, Alex, calls the "900 Days," otherwise known as the Siege of Leningrad. Alex's mother was born in 1940 & the siege began in September of 1941, meaning her parents had to try to survive with a baby in an unheated house with virtually no food or water. Her father died as a result of Hitler's occupation, as did 1,000,000 other St. Petersburg residents. Most died of hunger & cold. Rations were cut to one tiny piece of bread per day per person. All the cats, dogs, & birds disappeared from the city, because they were eaten by the desperate.

When you're traveling, history is compressed in a startling way. In the morning, you stroll through a palace more sumptuous than you ever could have dreamed. Your face is suffused in warm reflections from all the gold. An hour later you stand trembling in a memorial to those who died during the 900 Days. The huge bronze statues stand out against the gray sky like silhouettes of something that once was.

Catherine's Modest Little Summer Place

Away from town, in a little hamlet named Pushkin, sits a rococo summer house of surpassing size and lavishness. This is Catherine's Palace, designed by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such a degree of opulence & frothiness that even the palace-smart royals were dumbfounded at what Catherine called its "whipped cream architecture." 

That is to say, this is the reincarnation of Catherine's Palace, as the original was destroyed by the Germans during their occupation of WWII. This restoration has been helped along by fund-raising events in the great ballroom by Elton John in 2001 & a 2005 party with Tina Turner, Sting, Bill Clinton, etc.

Does it lessen the amazement & pleasure of an historic place to know that it's not the original? I guess I'd rather not know.

   A partial side view in a very peculiar December in St. Petersburg. Normally there would be a foot or two of very picturesque snow.

                                                  A ballroom made of gold

   If you get tired of looking at all that gold, just look up; every ceiling is an astonishment of artistry

                             Catherine's casual summer dress (with scepter, of course)

The famous Amber Room, with 13,000 pounds of Amber, gold leaf & mirrors. Before the Germans looted it during WWII, it was considered "The Eighth Wonder of the World." No one knows what happened to the original amber panels. This was rebuilt in 2003.

The Hermitage Is No Place For Hermits

Old Russian royalty were baroque to an astonishing degree. Everything had to be big. Enormous. Monumental. Extravagant. Fearsome. Awe-inspiring. Dripping with opulence.

                                     Just your average palace staircase

                          A huge empty room with nothing but a chandelier is a magical place

                                            The mundane meets the sublime

This is a public space that mere mortals rarely see without hordes of tourists, except for that rare moment in winter when it's just you & your kingdom 

             Another public space seldom seen uncluttered with humans & selfie sticks

                    Michaelangelo's "Crouching Boy"

Judith, very sweet & serene after decapitating a man

                         Museum staff playing volleyball in the courtyard

     The Hermitage art collection is serious business, but there's always time for frivolity 

Birthday Cakes for the Gods

St. Petersburg, Russia is kind of a frilly place. When a person with tremendous power (a Tsar) & vision (based on the new, westernized ideas of The Enlightenment) is flush with the victory of war (with Sweden) & visits Europe a lot in the 1700s, when hardly any of his countrymen have ever been there, the result is a giddy city full of palaces that look like birthday cakes made for the gods.

                                               Powder blue is a popular color

             This is more Moscow-style, but nevertheless takes up quite a bit of real estate

  Many of these palaces (now apartments & office buildings) are yellow. This was Tsar Peter the Great's acknowledgement that the sun rarely appeared & spots of yellow could be a relief the 290 days a year that are gray, gray, gray.

                                     Lots of smiling angels in St. Petersburg 

These pastel colors are likely most evident in summer, when the sun deigns to make a lazy appearance the other 75 days a year. In winter, these birthday cakes look a little stale, like they stayed at the party too long.

  St. Petersburg is called "The Venice of the North" for its canals, bridges & European architecture.

                                 This building is pink when the sun shows up

This woman seems annoyed it's overcast yet again

       A black building fits right in with the winter ambiance. 

Still, my hotel, with the extravagant name of The Magestic Boutique Hotel Deluxe, is quite decorative & on the main drag, for $43/night.

                                         A little cafe/bar right in the lobby

                                            My room, muted colors but velvet & suede & gold

My very progressive & daring glass bathroom, right in the bedroom. Hint: one does not necessarily expect to encounter a very clean, completely invisible bathroom door. One could, let's just say theoretically, give oneself a nasty crack by smartly meeting such a door with one's forehead. How do I know this? Ask not.

Perceptions of Soviet Times

Disclaimer 1: I was one of the generation of American school children who hid under their desks as a safety drill due to the clear & present danger that the Soviet Union was about to bomb or nuke us. What do I remember of that? Pervasive, incomprehensible fear, dirty knees, & an astounding amount of chewing gum adhered to the bottom of the desk. There was an archeology of time under there...ancient gray calcified chewing gum with a thumbprint in the center...jaunty daubs of recent pink gum, black tar blobs from the adventurous few who chewed black jack licorice gum. 

Disclaimer 2: My knowledge of Soviet Times (as it seems to be called here in Russia) is extremely limited. Therefore I offer no political, sociocultural, military, or historical commentary. Only a story I heard.

My lovely Moscow guide Olga was born in a middle-sized town outside Moscow. She is of an age where she remembers very clearly being a child raised in Soviet Times, before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. She is a student of history & culture & a very thoughtful person as well, so her observations go beyond the personal. 

                             These are some of Olga's keepsakes that mean so much to her

Olga says that, from a Russian point of view, Soviet Times were extremely peaceful & happy times. Everyone was equal & provided for equally. A Party leader's child went to same schools, wore the same clothes, vacationed in the same places, ate the same food, received the same free medical care, lived in the same free State-provided apartments, & believed in the same Good of the People. To work was the highest social order. Chemists & cowhands, firefighters & farmers, schoolteachers & seamstresses -- all lived on the same plane, which was one of safety, security, freedom from fear, & most of all, a strong & joyful belief that all they did was in service of a New World, a better world. There was a lot of laughing & dancing & eating. These beliefs were glorified in the artwork of the Moscow Metro system underground hallways.

Her description of those times has a wistful quality. She does not use the word "communism." I'm sure she has her reasons. She speaks of the five terrible years after 1991...of mass starvation, economic confusion & chaos, complete loss being taken care of. I guess it would be as if you had an all-powerful, much-loved daddy who always took care of everything suddenly say "You're on your own kid. Good luck with that." 

She also speaks of a long period of shame after that about being Russian, shame because the eyes of a world could now see the Oz behind the curtain.

I sit at Olga's table for a beautiful, traditional Russian meal she & her husband have prepared for me. Because it is Thanksgiving in America, she bakes a pumpkin pie. This is not regular fare for Russians. There are shadows everywhere -- the girl under the schooldesk...the girl in her state-sponsored life.

                                           Olga's living room

                                                        And kitchen

                                 Red caviar & rich country bread are a treat

I wish Putin & Obama & Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey & Bashar al-Assad of Syria could sit at Olga's table to eat red caviar & pickle soup & country black bread & pelmeni dumplings &  pickled cabbage & mushroom & onion salad & a pumpkin pie made of sheer cross-national love. Call me a sap, but I believe in the power of Olga's pumpkin pie.