Watching ice-hockey in Moscow
People, q_i and I went to Russia. We came back yesterday from Saint Petersberg - the sun was shining, but all the flights to Kiev were cancelled.
This post, though, is about small, stunning moments of beauty in a country I loved.
Due warning: I don't like photographs, I didn't take a camera, so don't please don't expect anything great on the image front. Please assume all planes and trains were fine, there was coffee when needed (pistachio latte in GUM, espresso in the Hermitage), many books, sadly very little snow, and much cake. Few Tsars, but while I managed to drag q_i to far too many Great Patriotic War memorials, we failed on her Saint Petersberg railway museum (closed) and she did not manage to bring back a Russian Navy sailor, with uniform or without.
I was quite relieved. Passport control would have been interesting.
We started early, in Moscow, with the Romanov Boyars House, mica windows and tiled stoves, and although the English Court was closed we still wandered around the outside. That's the house from Dunnett's The Ringed Castle, built for the Muscovoy Company in the sxteenth century. Here, for the first time, cloakrooms and plastic overshoes (such a good idea) and early manuscripts and books as a matter of course. St Basil's brought us onto Red Square, the cathedral utterly charming with its painted ceilings and unexpected light, medieval brickwork and sonorous sound system - massive pots embedded in the walls. These worked. Unexpectedly, in the tiny, ornate inner chapel, a quartet of Georgian singers, grave and beautiful.
Afterwards, I had to admit I'd walked right past Lenin's mauseoleum without even noticing. But the State Historical Museum with its Viking cathedral doors and glorious medieval tableware was superb - there's only so long I can stare at flints (Prehistory? Not my thing) but a hall full of Novgorod furniture and armour was mesmerising, and there were plastercasts of the Assyrian reliefs from the BM, my favourite palace decoration of any period.
That night there was ice-hockey from Sochi (I have the clipping from the Moscow Times with its handy summary of Hockey Russian) and a military serial on TNG which we followed in all its many episodes, specular staged shoot-outs and hospital visits - seriously, what was it with the white coats? (If anyone knows what this is called, q_i wants DVDs!)
Next day, we negotiated the Kremlin, the spectacular armoury ( tazlet, you'd love it) with its Turkish and German state armour, its English and Flemish guns - a sixteenth century eight-shot hunting gun, dueling pistols, horse trappings - the diplomatic silver epergnes, state carriages so heavy with gilt it'd be astonishing if they moved, and a sixteenth century carriage, a gift from James VI of Scotland (I of England), the first I've ever seen. I think we managed three cathedrals before fleeing, overcome by saints, down to the gardens. Here, we tried for the State Archaeological Museum, but it was closed, so we wandered down to Arbatskaya instead, because I'd wanted to see New Arbat since Kapitan Amerika. Then back to find Dom Knigi's House of Books unexpectedly surrounded by a medieval street fair of costume and skill-testing. (I bought here Leningrad, Seige and Symphony, and read it on the way to and in Saint Petersberg: I'd have brought the book with me if it had been out in PB in the UK.)
In the morning, the Great Patriotic War Museum, its massive plaza lit by the early morning sun. That's the towers of Moscow State University on the horizon, one of Moscow's Seven Sisters.
We'd accidentally managed to turn up on a day when there were several bands and many people in uniform, celebrating (we think) something to do with the first world war - but, oh, the band uniforms were gorgeous.
And from there back to Arbatskaya, and then down over a beautiful pedestrian bridge (not on my map!) to Gorky Park. Back via the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, with its excellent cafe and Brueghels and gorgeous Egyptian tomb portraits, more fun than the two in the Getty Villa although a little more battered.
That night we left for Saint Petersberg on the Grand Express, along the old Trans-Siberian railway line. I'll just leave that there.
Saint Petersberg meant the Arctic and Antarctic Museum, with its miniature dioramas and CCCP certificates, Polar Heros of the Soviet Union and relics of long-gone expeditions. They have wood from the Terim, one of Scott's sledges, a pair of boots from Shackleton's first expedition, so many books I couldn't read and would love to - and the friendliest museum attendents in Russia. But after tht we took advantage of the gorgeous day and wandered past the Admiralty and over the frozen Neva, around the island of the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul with its absolutely crazy sunbathers, and to the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood where I found, in the souvenir market outside the Field of Mars, the bust of Lenin I had promised communist Ben B in thanks for passport posting and retrieval services. Capitalism, comrades, has set root with some force among the sellers of tourist paraphenalia. But the canals were stunning in the evening light, and we walked back via the Winter Canal and the Alexander Plaza, so beautiful.
In the morning, the Victory Monument, stark and stunning, with the constant tick of the metronome, Leningrad's heart, the sound of wartime radio, underscoring the simplicity of both monument and museum.
That afternoon, to Pushkin (Tsarkoe Selo) with the best tour-guide ever, Alexander, so happy to be guiding in winter when we had many of the rooms empty for his small party of French and English speaking tourists, so slyly ironic about many, many things. In all honesty, half the reason I wanted to go was because my beloved Professor Jack was so excited that I'd have the chance to see the Amber Room, but having got there, the place was beautiful. Not so much the breath-taking, extravagent excess of the rooms of the palace, but the surrounding gardens and the work that went into the post-GPW/WW2 restoration. And finally, unovis' silver birches, these found just outside the gardens.
The next day - and the next - the Hermitage.
I'm glad I can map read.
Also I have to tell you that the internet cafe in the Hermitage sells the most delicious cakes, but that the bookshop is not brilliant. (Maybe I should put that on Trip Advisor? I'd totally be up for a four month sort-the-place-out secondment - Hermitage, please e-mail for details.) Have some random artefacts:
Here is a late Nineteen Century gentleman's smoking boudoir, for tazlet, and a tenth century Causcaus cauldron, because it really is, and a fantastical dog from somewhere near the Black Sea, again C10th. There are many, many more photographs of arrows with cuniform inscritions - lots of arrows - and Hittite iron and Russian art deco furniture and views from the Winter Palace and a chandelier and a picture of the Osprey Books in the shop for the very helpful Chris of Osprey Books, pictures of tiles and pottery and swords from the Golden Horde and Turkish armour and Iranian flasks and German lustreware and... and... (paintings...yes. But, I am so sorry, painting people, I do like artefacts just a little better.) And also, the C9th-C10th Altai of Southern Siberia.
Five rooms, Six monographs, in Russian. People, I am in love. The fabric preservation. The wood. The horses. The decoration, the felts, the harnesses -
I have many, many photographs, all equally dim in the low light. But lest you think the Altai are all about shamanistic ritual and carved wood ornament of startling and violent beauty, fantastical antler head-dresses and full-body tattoos and vast round-hut emplacements, chariots and swords, there is also softer art:
I could talk for a very long time about the Altai, but I'll probably write them instead.
People, we had an amazing time, and I feel so very lucky to have seen just this very small part of the country, and incredibly grateful to my parents, because this was my much-delayed fourtieth birthday present. And already today I've been looking up where to go next. But I also have to tell you that yesterday, when we flew out of Saint Petersberg, after I'd seen the cancelled Kiev flights and picked up an English language newspaper, I was looking out of the window as we left.
You can still see the shell-holes in the fields around Saint Petersberg.
This post, though, is about small, stunning moments of beauty in a country I loved.
Due warning: I don't like photographs, I didn't take a camera, so don't please don't expect anything great on the image front. Please assume all planes and trains were fine, there was coffee when needed (pistachio latte in GUM, espresso in the Hermitage), many books, sadly very little snow, and much cake. Few Tsars, but while I managed to drag q_i to far too many Great Patriotic War memorials, we failed on her Saint Petersberg railway museum (closed) and she did not manage to bring back a Russian Navy sailor, with uniform or without.
I was quite relieved. Passport control would have been interesting.
We started early, in Moscow, with the Romanov Boyars House, mica windows and tiled stoves, and although the English Court was closed we still wandered around the outside. That's the house from Dunnett's The Ringed Castle, built for the Muscovoy Company in the sxteenth century. Here, for the first time, cloakrooms and plastic overshoes (such a good idea) and early manuscripts and books as a matter of course. St Basil's brought us onto Red Square, the cathedral utterly charming with its painted ceilings and unexpected light, medieval brickwork and sonorous sound system - massive pots embedded in the walls. These worked. Unexpectedly, in the tiny, ornate inner chapel, a quartet of Georgian singers, grave and beautiful.
Afterwards, I had to admit I'd walked right past Lenin's mauseoleum without even noticing. But the State Historical Museum with its Viking cathedral doors and glorious medieval tableware was superb - there's only so long I can stare at flints (Prehistory? Not my thing) but a hall full of Novgorod furniture and armour was mesmerising, and there were plastercasts of the Assyrian reliefs from the BM, my favourite palace decoration of any period.
That night there was ice-hockey from Sochi (I have the clipping from the Moscow Times with its handy summary of Hockey Russian) and a military serial on TNG which we followed in all its many episodes, specular staged shoot-outs and hospital visits - seriously, what was it with the white coats? (If anyone knows what this is called, q_i wants DVDs!)
Next day, we negotiated the Kremlin, the spectacular armoury ( tazlet, you'd love it) with its Turkish and German state armour, its English and Flemish guns - a sixteenth century eight-shot hunting gun, dueling pistols, horse trappings - the diplomatic silver epergnes, state carriages so heavy with gilt it'd be astonishing if they moved, and a sixteenth century carriage, a gift from James VI of Scotland (I of England), the first I've ever seen. I think we managed three cathedrals before fleeing, overcome by saints, down to the gardens. Here, we tried for the State Archaeological Museum, but it was closed, so we wandered down to Arbatskaya instead, because I'd wanted to see New Arbat since Kapitan Amerika. Then back to find Dom Knigi's House of Books unexpectedly surrounded by a medieval street fair of costume and skill-testing. (I bought here Leningrad, Seige and Symphony, and read it on the way to and in Saint Petersberg: I'd have brought the book with me if it had been out in PB in the UK.)
In the morning, the Great Patriotic War Museum, its massive plaza lit by the early morning sun. That's the towers of Moscow State University on the horizon, one of Moscow's Seven Sisters.
We'd accidentally managed to turn up on a day when there were several bands and many people in uniform, celebrating (we think) something to do with the first world war - but, oh, the band uniforms were gorgeous.
And from there back to Arbatskaya, and then down over a beautiful pedestrian bridge (not on my map!) to Gorky Park. Back via the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, with its excellent cafe and Brueghels and gorgeous Egyptian tomb portraits, more fun than the two in the Getty Villa although a little more battered.
That night we left for Saint Petersberg on the Grand Express, along the old Trans-Siberian railway line. I'll just leave that there.
Saint Petersberg meant the Arctic and Antarctic Museum, with its miniature dioramas and CCCP certificates, Polar Heros of the Soviet Union and relics of long-gone expeditions. They have wood from the Terim, one of Scott's sledges, a pair of boots from Shackleton's first expedition, so many books I couldn't read and would love to - and the friendliest museum attendents in Russia. But after tht we took advantage of the gorgeous day and wandered past the Admiralty and over the frozen Neva, around the island of the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul with its absolutely crazy sunbathers, and to the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood where I found, in the souvenir market outside the Field of Mars, the bust of Lenin I had promised communist Ben B in thanks for passport posting and retrieval services. Capitalism, comrades, has set root with some force among the sellers of tourist paraphenalia. But the canals were stunning in the evening light, and we walked back via the Winter Canal and the Alexander Plaza, so beautiful.
In the morning, the Victory Monument, stark and stunning, with the constant tick of the metronome, Leningrad's heart, the sound of wartime radio, underscoring the simplicity of both monument and museum.
That afternoon, to Pushkin (Tsarkoe Selo) with the best tour-guide ever, Alexander, so happy to be guiding in winter when we had many of the rooms empty for his small party of French and English speaking tourists, so slyly ironic about many, many things. In all honesty, half the reason I wanted to go was because my beloved Professor Jack was so excited that I'd have the chance to see the Amber Room, but having got there, the place was beautiful. Not so much the breath-taking, extravagent excess of the rooms of the palace, but the surrounding gardens and the work that went into the post-GPW/WW2 restoration. And finally, unovis' silver birches, these found just outside the gardens.
The next day - and the next - the Hermitage.
I'm glad I can map read.
Also I have to tell you that the internet cafe in the Hermitage sells the most delicious cakes, but that the bookshop is not brilliant. (Maybe I should put that on Trip Advisor? I'd totally be up for a four month sort-the-place-out secondment - Hermitage, please e-mail for details.) Have some random artefacts:
Here is a late Nineteen Century gentleman's smoking boudoir, for tazlet, and a tenth century Causcaus cauldron, because it really is, and a fantastical dog from somewhere near the Black Sea, again C10th. There are many, many more photographs of arrows with cuniform inscritions - lots of arrows - and Hittite iron and Russian art deco furniture and views from the Winter Palace and a chandelier and a picture of the Osprey Books in the shop for the very helpful Chris of Osprey Books, pictures of tiles and pottery and swords from the Golden Horde and Turkish armour and Iranian flasks and German lustreware and... and... (paintings...yes. But, I am so sorry, painting people, I do like artefacts just a little better.) And also, the C9th-C10th Altai of Southern Siberia.
Five rooms, Six monographs, in Russian. People, I am in love. The fabric preservation. The wood. The horses. The decoration, the felts, the harnesses -
I have many, many photographs, all equally dim in the low light. But lest you think the Altai are all about shamanistic ritual and carved wood ornament of startling and violent beauty, fantastical antler head-dresses and full-body tattoos and vast round-hut emplacements, chariots and swords, there is also softer art:
I could talk for a very long time about the Altai, but I'll probably write them instead.
People, we had an amazing time, and I feel so very lucky to have seen just this very small part of the country, and incredibly grateful to my parents, because this was my much-delayed fourtieth birthday present. And already today I've been looking up where to go next. But I also have to tell you that yesterday, when we flew out of Saint Petersberg, after I'd seen the cancelled Kiev flights and picked up an English language newspaper, I was looking out of the window as we left.
You can still see the shell-holes in the fields around Saint Petersberg.