2019 Russia #16

July 9, 2015 – The Hermitage.

The Hermitage! We’re tremendously excited to be visiting one of the premier art museums on the planet. We have a tour booked with the ‘Skip The Line’ people, and our group is nice and cosy with just the six of us.

After a leisurely breakfast in the apartment, it’s time to stroll down to the Alexandre Column in Palace Square, where we will meet our guide.  Spoiler Alert!  Do not, under any circumstances, go to the Hermitage on a Tuesday.  (This is Tuesday.)  The museum is closed on Sunday and Monday, it is July, and there are ravening hordes of tourists beating on the doors, wanting to Get In!  Our skip-the-line tickets bought us 40 minutes in the skip-the-line line, which admittedly was better than the poor people waiting in the other lines who may still be out there for all I know.  Did I mention it was starting to rain?  Really, really rain?  We endure these hardships and indignities so that you don’t have to.  Please leave a suitable donation at the door on your way out.

Peter the Great built his Winter Palace along the Neva River in the early 18th century, and Catherine the Great turned it into a more-or-less art gallery during her reign.  So the Winter Palace and the Hermitage were more or less the same thing, or not, or both. Opinions vary.  Now it’s an art museum, and a pretty incredible one.  When the museum outgrew the original Winter Palace, they just bought (or took) the building next door and bolted it on. This happened several times until it reached its present size, which is big.  It’s also bewildering; after a couple of hours in the place, I didn’t have the foggiest idea where I was or where I’d been or how to get back there to take another look! Take a bottle of water.

By 10 am, it was a crush. When one of our tour group asked our guide if it was always like this, she responded, “No, it’s usually fairly quiet. But it’s always like this on a Tuesday, as it’s been closed for three days.” Urk. So, take note. Don’t come here on a Tuesday if you have other options!

Note: To view photos full-size, right-click on the image and select ‘open image in new tab’.

The ‘Didn’t-Skip-The-Line’ line. These people may still be here. Note the buses on the right.

The entry hall.

Astonishing parquets in some of these rooms.

Just another boring old hallway.

It must have been hard to walk on this stuff.

An inner courtyard.

A periodic reminder that the knight didn’t ALWAYS slay the dragon.

This was all done with small pieces of tile. A mosaic.

Golden peacocks!

Marquetry, or wood inlay.

I have not included photos of paintings, as there are literally thousands, and I wouldn’t know where to start. I HAVE included some of the statuary, as it was easier to access than the rooms with paintings, which were a crush of visitors.

Voltaire.

Passageways between the former palaces.

A hall containing silverware and lacquerware.

Vase? Clock? Chandeliere? I think they’re just showing off.

That’s a pretty busy altar.

And then something very unexpected. There was a stairwell leading down a half-floor to a separate room, which was unusual as pretty much everything else was laid out as a series of interconnecting passageways. And it turned out to be an exhibit of a fifth-century BC grave, a Scythian nobleman (we presume) who had been laid to rest in his barrow, complete with wagon, horses, etc. Apparently, you CAN take it with you.

A mask for his horse, with elk antlers. Must have been pretty impressive!

The saddle. No stirrups, as they weren’t invented for at least another thousand years.

A wall hanging.

Modern imaging revealed that he had tattoos. The one curled around his shoulder was a tiger.

Interestingly, goods found in the grave were from Central Asia and China, indicating ancient trade routes.

The wagon he was buried in. No one should have to walk to their destiny.

By now it was early afternoon, Debbie and I were both famished, and there IS a coffee shop in the building. So off we went to get some lunch. The room was crammed full of people of course, but we eventually secured a table, plugged in our cameras, and stood in line for thirty minutes to get some food. Rested and reprovisioned, we stood up to head out for another round, and – found out that our feet were so sore that we just wanted to go back to our room and put them up on something soft.

The Hermitage is a marvelous experience. Do yourself a favor and visit on a Wednesday or Thursday if possible. Take an extra battery for your camera, or look for one of the limited number of plug-ins at the cafe. And by all means get a guide and do the Skip-The-Line. Have fun!

Our happy crew at the end of the tour.