Wandering in the Steps of Catherine the Great: A Visit to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg, October 2002

Dear Friends and Family:

My day off in St. Petersburg (or St. Pete as it is known to locals) was both wonderful and fascinating. At the conference yesterday, I met a lovely English woman, Anne, and we agreed to spend the day being tourists in St. Pete. Our first stop was the Hermitage Museum.

Anne had arrived early and secured a spot at the front of the line, but when I arrived, she suggested we give up our place and start the day by walking across the bridge on the Neva River and looking at Catherine the Great’s winter palace (which houses the Hermitage) from across the river. I had left home on a warm autumn day and had to force myself to recognize that I was leaving for Russia in winter and needed more than a light jacket. I compromised on a spring raincoat.

But this was October in St. Pete and temperatures were just below freezing. Anne was dressed in a black lambskin coat with hat, gloves and boots. All I had was an unlined raincoat, a down jacket, and a Liberty scarf. It wasn’t much for a day of light snow and I cursed myself for not realizing that October weather in northern Russia might be more like Montreal than San Francisco.

Once into the Hermitage, we found cash registers with masses of people pushing and shoving to reach the wicket. Anne and I split up to see which line would move faster and finally we were able to buy our tickets. Anne paid the additional $4 to be allowed to take photographs but I figured that no one would ever ask to see the ticket and decided to take the risk of illegal photography. We searched out the nice ladies in the cloak room to leave our coats and finally tried to enter.

Anne had brought the Lonely Planet guidebook to St. Pete and had mapped out a route that took us immediately to the Reubens, past the Van Dykes, through some others of less interest to me, and then to a room of Matisses, another of Gauguins, a few Picassos, and more. Along the way, I took a photo of one of a security guards sleeping in her chair next to a painting and another of a Russian sailor looking at paintings. The signs below the paintings talked of their liberation from the German collectors, as if such paintings had internationally recognized human rights.

We had started viewing at 11:00 am and at 3:00 pm, it was finally time to find the internet café in the museum. I had told Anne that two hours was generally my limit for museums, but even after four hours, I was interested to see if the next room might be as fascinating as the one before. Just a couple of more rooms and it was time to see something of St. Pete. And yes, no one had asked to see Anne’s ticket allowing us to take photos.

Once outside, I negotiated with Anne to let me carry the heavy museum book that she had bought. I explained that I was looking for ways to stay warm and carrying a heavy book in my backpack would help me. She said that it was most creative excuse for doing something nice, but it was the truth and the book caused my body heat to rise a little.

We inadvertently walked into St. Isaac’s cathedral and then wandered through the church as we admired the wooden carvings on doors that looked like they had not been used in some years. Outside we climbed to the top of the Colonnade. Signs (and Anne’s guidebook) suggested that we were not to take pictures from the top. Security was the issue cited, as if tourist photos of the layout of the city’s streets posed a national security risk. The security guard in her little guard-house watched but didn’t complain as I stood on the ledge to take panoramic photos of St. Pete.

Anne and I then walked through the back streets of St. Pete, looking for the Church of Spilled Blood, which was actually called Church of the Blood of our Savior. I object to paying to visit a church and particularly where the price for foreigners is five times that of local residents. We wandered past the ineffective security guard who never asked for tickets. The church looked like a mosque, covered with blue and gold paintings to the ceiling. In many ways, the mosques of Istanbul are more attractive with abstract writing rather than the pictures of Jesus Christ and his disciples. But the paintings in the Church of Blood clearly told important religious stories.

Tea and apple-strudel back in the drafty tea-room of the Hotel Grand Europe and it was time for Anne to return to her own hotel and a soothing massage. For me, I put together some ideas in preparation for next week’s meetings. By the time I was finished, the hotel’s gym had closed and I was forced to choose between jogging in the cold and using the stairs of the hotel’s emergency exits for exercise. It raised the concern of the hotel’s security guards, who informed me in Russian that I was not to go above the fifth floor. (He looked upset, said “Pet” and spread his fingers wide to indicate the number five.) For the next 15 minutes, the hotel’s security officer kept checking on me. It seemed that he didn’t believe that someone might choose to run up and down hotel stairs as a form of exercise.

And now, I have finished my dinner of salmon and mashed potatoes and it is time to come to a close on this lovely day in St. Pete. Tomorrow night I will be back in Moscow.

You may have seen in the newspapers that one of the governors from Russia’s far eastern regions was shot yesterday in what was thought to be a contract killing. It was in a nice residential area in Moscow. Apparently he was trying to clean up corruption in what is a notoriously corrupt region. Also there was car bomb near one of the metro stations in south-west Moscow. Neither area is near my hotel or my meetings. But both incidents make me feel unsettled, particularly after a day of dealing with ineffective security guards.

But then there is wandering sniper in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and America is not entirely safe either.

Sue