Excursions

 

The Hermitage

 

 

 

Situated:

Dvortsovaya Ploshad, the palace square

Metro: Nevski Prospekt/Gostini Dvor

Site: www.hermitagemuseum.org

 

General Information:

Opening hours: every day except Mondays from 10h30 to 18h.

Bank holidays: 10h30 to 17h

Temporary exhibitions close at 17h30

 

Description:

Regarding its size the Hermitage may not be the largest museum in the world (The Louvre in Paris holds that status); however it holds the largest collection with over 2.7 million recorded works of art.

It occupies four magnificent buildings of various epochs, the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Old Hermitage and the New Hermitage. The Hermitage also has a fifth building, the Theatre, which cannot be visited but still hosts plays, ballets and classical music concerts.

 

History:

The Hermitage was born from the passion of Catherine the Great (Catherine II) for paintings. She started collecting works in the Winter Palace, a beautiful baroque monument built in 1754 by the Italian Rastrelli on the orders of Peter the Great’s daughter, Elisabeth Petrovna.

Catherine the Great, considered the patron of the Arts, gathered 60% of the European Art collection to be found in the Hermitage today.

The XXth century brings about great changes to the museum: the socialist revolution helps the Hermitage acquire considerable amounts of works of arts “confiscated” from private collections mainly. The museum opens its doors to the general public to show the working classes the “social fracture” of which they were victims. During the Second World War, many works of Art are evacuated to Siberia. The remaining pieces were badly damaged by the bombings and have been restored since.

 

Visit:

It is important to remember that there is no point in trying to visit the entire museum: a saying states that if you look at every work of art for a minute it will take you eight years to visit the entire museum!

So, concentrate on the sections you are very interested in instead of trying to race around the four buildings. If you want to really say you have “visited” the Hermitage, take a whole day to walk around. 

  

The Peter and Paul fortress

 

Information:

Situated on a little Island opposite the Hermitage
Metro: Gorkovskaya (closed due to repair)
Opening hours of the fortress: 11h to 18h, Wednesday 11h to 17h
The sites in the fortress are closed on Wednesdays.

 

History:

The city of St Petersburg was born here. Peter the Great chose this very spot, where the river Neva is at its widest, to start building the fortress of wood and mud in May 1703.
By 1706 the citadel is already rebuilt in bricks, but it took the sweat and blood of 40 000 men to achieve, many of which perished. The ramparts are 20m wide but they are hollow and have never really served to defend the Russians against the Swedish.
The Fortress did however serve a tragic purpose as a somber political prison in which many rebels and innocents were imprisoned tortured and killed.

 Visit:

There are many things to see within the fortress walls, not all of them are interesting however. The two most fascinating are: 

The St Peter St Paul Cathedral

The most remarkable building is the cathedral, with its 122 meter high steeple, the city's highest building after the television tower.

The St Peter Saint Paul cathedral differs from the usual Russian orthodox typed buildings in its baroque style. It holds sculptures and paintings, and its architecture is a mixture of various European styles.

Most of the Romanov family lay in the Cathedral, from Peter the Great to Nicholas II, brought here to rest here with his family in 1998. 

Bastion Troubetskoi

The famous prison situated on the south-west corner of the fortress was home to many political prisoners: Peter the Great's own son, suspected of plotting against his father and tortured to death within its walls, followed by revolutionaries such as the Decembrists and artists considered to be too liberal (of which Dostoevsky, who spent 8 months in the prison), and finally the monarchists themselves, enemies of the revolution. 

 

The Russian Museum

 

 

Situated:

Inzhenernaya ulitsa, 4
Metro: Nevski Prospekt/Gostini Dvor
Site: www.rusmuseum.ru

General Information:

Opening hours: every day except Tuesdays from 10h to 18h
10h to 17h on Mondays

Description:

This splendid neo-classical palace looking out on to the Square of the Arts was built at the request of the Tsar Alexander I by Carlo Rossi for his brother Mikhail, who lived in it his entire life. The Russian Museum on the outside represents the height of classicism, with its Corinthian columns and Roman allegories. The Square of the Arts, a magnificent place in itself, is surrounded by many theatres, a school and the famous Hotel Europe. 

History:

It is however not Alexander I but Alexander III who thinks of transforming of the Palace into a museum of Russian art, and his son, Nicholas II who will carry out the idea at the end of the XIX century. The idea of this transformation was to prove that the city was also interested in Russian and not only European culture, considered to be too largely represented by the Hermitage. The Russian Museum is the largest collection of Russian art in the entire world, from the Russian icons of the XII century to XX century paintings. It will help you to understand, much more than the Hermitage, the entire artistic evolution of Russia. This museum is not only an art lesson but also a history lesson for you will find in it all the famous characters, tsars, ministers, great battles scenes and revolutions of its country.

Visit:

The works of art are in chronological order, which facilitates the visit. You can visit the Russian Museum in an afternoon quite comfortably, provided you do not spend too much time in front of every work.