A Day in the Country

On Saturday I decided to be really adventurous, and I rented a car to drive out into the country. I don't know why driving here is any more adventurous than some of the other places I have driven, but somehow Russian police and Russian drivers seem especially threatening to me. Fortunately I had no problems, though I did drive on some interesting roads. I tried to take pictures of some of the highway that I was driving on, but none of them really turned out well. And don't worry, I only took photos of the road when I was stopped because of traffic. The highway I was on was the main road to Murmansk, a city with about 350,000 people way, way up North, near the Russian border with Norway. The trip from St. Petersburg to Murmansk would be about 1,500 kilometers, all on a two-lane highway, mostly without any lines at all, and full of potholes and covered by a patchwork of different types of pavement. It made for a bumpy ride and would be an unpleasantly long drive Murmansk. It took me more than two hours to drive the 125 kilometers to my destination, Staraya Ladoga.

Staraya Ladoga was founded in 753 and until about 950 was one of the most important trading posts in Eastern Europe. The trade routes through here were pretty extensive; in fact, the oldest Arabian coin found in Europe was discovered in Staraya Ladoga. The Viking Rurik arrived in Staraya Ladoga in 862. His descendents moved to Novgorod and later Kiev, establishing the beginnings of Kievan Rus - the first major Russian state, so Staraya Ladoga is sometimes called Russia's first capital. Now the town is a little village of about 3,000 people and there's not a lot going on, but there are over 100 important archealogical sites in the vicinity, along with a fortress and some 12th century churches, so I thought it might be a nice place to spend the day.

This is the heavily rebuilt 12th century fortress in Staraya Ladoga. It was first rebuilt in the 16th century to accommodate modern weaponry. Clearly, there is also more modern restoration going on, as it was heavily damaged during World War II.

St. George's Church is inside the fortress and was built in the 12th century. There was also a 17th century wooden church in the fortress.

This is an original fresco inside St. George's, painted in 1167.

From the fortress I went to the Monastery of St. Nicholas, which had structures dating from the 12th-19th centuries. In the 12th-13th centuries, Staraya Ladoga apparently had six major churches and 12 operating monasteries. Those numbers are seriously reduced now, and this monastery is one of two in the town. Still not bad for a town with 3,000 people.

It looks like this monastery has had some serious rough times, however, which is not hard to imagine considering a world war and seventy years of official government atheism. The monks seemed hard at work rebuilding and raising money for restoration of the monastery buildings.

A view from outside the walls of the monastery

The main churches inside the monastery walls


From there I went to the Convent of the Assumption. In Russian it is actually still called a monastery, but this was designated specifically as a monastery for women. These grounds were in significantly better shape and had really nice gardens all over. There were still a large number of very run-down buildings, though. Again, I presume these are the result of war and many years of government oppression.

The monastery guard dog

The 12th century Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God. Unfortunately the church was closed and I was not able to go inside.

One of the back gates to the monastery


Many of the other major historical sites of interest are burial mounds, which are scattered all over the town. I stopped at a spot where there are several together on the north side of the village. These mounds date from the 8th and 9th centuries, and it is believed that Rurik himself may have been buried in one of these mounds.

This was a really peaceful spot, and there were a couple families here picnicking. There were flowers growing all over the mounds, and the mounds stand right on top of the bluffs overlooking the river.

Here are a few more photos from around the town.

Nice place for a swim?

Typical Russian wooden houses


I got back to St. Petersburg a little earlier than I thought I would, so I used the car to go out and visit a cathedral that I had been meaning to get to for a while, but is inconveniently located. The Smolny Convent was designed and built by the Italian architect Rastrelli, and the cathedral is supposed to be one of his great masterpieces. Interestingly, the convent was begun so that Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, would be able to take her vows and live there as a nun, because she was not going to be allowed to succeed to the throne. However, Ivan VI was overthrown in a coup d'etat, and Elizabeth decided not to become a nun after all when the throne was offered to her. The royal family continued to fund the construction of the convent, until Catherine the Great got the throne. She wasn't a fan of baroque architecture, so she cut off funding and Rastrelli was not able to build his bell tower or complete the interior of the cathedral. As a result, the interior is disappointing, and it's really just the outside that is worth taking a look at. The cathedral is mainly used for concerts now.

After returning my car I went home and ate dinner. I went back out around 11:30 and walked down to the banks of the Neva. Saturday was a Russian holiday, that I'm still not quite clear on. Everyone kept telling me it was like prom, except everyone in the country has it on the same day, and school's already out for the summer. Regardless, at 11:45 or so, a big sailboat with scarlet sails was supposed to sail down the river and there would be fireworks. This sounded like something worth seeing, so I joined the crowds in their festivities. Apparently the boat has something to do with some book I had never heard of (it's not Russian), that everyone seemed to think I should know. Something about a guy returning for his lover in a ship with scarlet sails.

Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the photograph above (credit goes instead to wikipedia), because sometime a little after 1:00 am, I was still waiting for this alleged boat. I was so tired I was about to fall over (I had gotten up early) and there were mosquitoes constantly biting me. As I got more and more irritable I became less and less interested in seeing some boat from some book I had never heard of for some holiday that was supposed to be like prom. Looks like it would have been pretty awesome, though.

Here's the picture I took, around 1:15, just before I went home.

Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet

Friday I left work at about 5:30 so that I could go to the Mariinsky Theater to see the ballet Romeo and Juliet. As the Mariinsky Ballet, or Kirov Ballet, as they are generally called outside of Russia, is apparently one of the greatest and most important companies in the world, I figured this was something I needed to do while in St. Petersburg. I thought leaving at 5:30 would give me plenty of time. An hour later I was less than halfway to the theater because of a series of things. First, the bus didn't come for about twenty minutes. Then, after going two stops, the driver announced that the bus I was on was not going to be completing the route, but was stopping at Moskovskiy Voksal, which was only a couple stops away, so I had to get off and wait for another bus to come. Then the traffic was insane because streets were closed all over the place. I watched the minutes tick by, and when the clock hit 6:35 and we still had twenty or thirty minutes to go had traffic been normal, I jumped off the second bus and started to run. The bus route to the theater is not that direct, so I figured with the bus stuck in traffic and me being able to walk a more direct route to the theater I had a chance. Unfortunately I wasn't really dressed for running (shirt and tie, dress pants, and dress shoes). After running several blocks in church shoes I figured I wasn't going to be able to keep up a run the whole way, and my bruised rib was kind of throbbing, so I slowed to a really fast walk. I got to the theater, very sweaty, at 6:59. Good thing. My ticket was really expensive and I did not want to be shut out. It took a little while for me to get comfortable, given my sweaty, tired condition (also because I was sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair), but by the end of the first act I felt pretty good.

If you want to listen to some music while you read the rest of this post, here's a link to the music from the ballet that was the most familiar to me. I didn't expect to know any of the music, so I was happy to find that I did. I really like the way it starts. It will get kind of loud at first, but don't turn down the volume too much because it gets quiet very suddenly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LSxpxjMQ9c
Juliet was danced by Alina Somova and Romeo by Andrian Fadeyev. Since I know almost nothing about ballet I couldn't really be much of a judge, but they looked pretty good to me! Here's kind of an interesting review I read afterwards about Alina Somova. The audience loved it. The clapping went on for FOREVER. One of the things that I noticed in Lithuania, and which apparently also happens here, is that within about ten seconds of beginning to clap everyone starts clapping in unison, so instead of a general noise, people are clapping out a definite beat. I think it's kind of an interesting cultural thing.

The theater itself was very nice too.

After I got tired of clapping I went over to a place where I could get this picture of the hall. You can't quite see my seat in this picture. I was just to the left of the royal box, in the first balcony. It was a really good seat.


I was in a really good mood afterwards, and when I came out of the theater, at about 11:00 pm, it was such a beautiful night I decided to walk all the way home. I ended up taking a ton of pictures on the way. I'm going to share just enough of them so you can imagine what my walk home looked like. It was pretty nice.

The view up the Moika Canal to St. Isaac's Cathedral

The Mariinskiy Palace

A view of the Admiralty

A rollerblading gang in palace square. People here rollerblade all the time, it seems, but this was the first gang of rollerbladers I had come across.

A view of palace square

Art students

Church of the Savior on Blood

By the time I took this last picture I was almost home and it was almost midnight. As I was walking up to this spot I noticed a familiar looking man looking at me. We both looked at each other a couple times, and as I was taking this picture he came and stood next to me to take a picture too. I realized it was Brother Kosak. He's from Germany and was the coordinator for the church seminary and institute programs in the Baltics and some other parts of Eastern Europe while I was on my mission. I had met him several times when he was in Lithuania. He had thought I looked familiar, and he and his wife, who was with him, thought I looked like a member of the church, probably because I was wearing a white shirt and tie and had a backpack on. Not many people over here are sporting that look. It was fun to talk to him for a little while. He's now the head of seminary and institute for all of the Europe East Area, so he lives in Moscow now, and he informed me that there is an Institute building in St. Petersburg, not far from my apartment. I don't know why I haven't been able to find this out from people at church that I've talked to, but I'm excited to start participating in Institute. It will be a great way to meet some people that I can start doing things with, practicing my Russian with, and will provide me with a support network, which is always nice. It was a great way to end of the day. I went to bed feeling very happy.

Appeal to Justice

On Wednesday I finally got to attend Russian court. It was an interesting experience, despite the fact that our actual time in the court room only lasted about three minutes. It turns out that the equivalent of our court of appeals is right around the corner from my apartment (it took me less than two minutes to walk there), and I was able to go with Dasha, the head lawyer from the organization that I am working for.

The Russian Ministry of Justice filed a complaint against our organization and another associated group, claiming that they had both violated the laws governing the structure and activities of NGOs. Both organizations have already won the suits in the trial court and the Ministry of Justice filed an appeal. The other organization has already successfully won the appeal as well, and Wednesday was finally my organization's court date.

I met Dasha outside the building at 11:30 and we went in. The first interesting thing was that the power was out all over the building, so we were walking around in the dark. The oral arguments were scheduled for noon, so we found the chamber where they were supposed to happen and had a seat on a bench in the hallway, along with a bunch of other people. Dasha informed that we may be sitting in the hall all day - she says she has sometimes waited four or five hours past her scheduled time. I looked at the schedule, and the judges in that chamber had eighteen appeals to hear that day, which seems like a lot, so I can imagine how they could get behind schedule. At noon the bailiff came out and announced the judges were going on a break, which also helped me understand how they could get behind schedule, though I imagine they need some breaks when they're hearing so many arguments.

We finally were invited into the chambers about 1:30. There were three judges, just like in a US Court of Appeals, two women and one man. It was a small room with the judges sitting on a raised platform at the front, a table at which both lawyers could sit, a few benches crowded into the back, and a cell along one side. The head judge told the lawyer from the Ministry of Justice that there was a problem with the complaint that had been submitted - it had been written from the incorrect person/perspective. I'm not 100% sure what that means, but that's what I understood him to say, and that was what Dasha said afterwards too. Something along the lines of the complaint was purportedly coming from someone that did not have the authority to file the complaint. So the attorney for the Ministry of Justice needed to amend the complaint and refile. And that was that. I look forward to going again. Hopefully when some arguments are made. Dasha says she usually goes to court about once a week, so I think I will try to go with her every week.

Remember when I talked about Chizhik Pyzhik, the little bird statute that helps students get through unhappy love affairs and around on public transport without tickets? If not, see
http://fromrussiawithlove-loren.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-wish.html

I took a picture the other night of people making wishes. There is always a crowd around this little area dropping change into the canal, hoping it will stay on chizhik pyzhik's little ledge.

New Neighborhood

On Tuesday I decided to head over to the Mariinskiy Theater after work so that I could pick up my ticket for the ballet the following Friday. I also wanted to test out my bus route from work to the theater so I knew how long the trip would take me. After all the money I spent on my ticket I didn't want to be late.

First I stopped into the famous Mariinskiy Theater, which is supposed to house some of the greatest ballet in the world.

While ballet isn't really my thing, I figured it was something I should definitely experience while in St. Petersburg. More on that in a different entry.

Since I was already over in the area, I figured I would walk around and see some of the sites. I should say, the theater is not super conveniently located. It's pretty far from any metro stops and the bus route over there is somewhat circuitous, so it's not a neighborhood I plan to frequent.

One of the main sites in the area is the St. Nicholas cathedral.

There was a service going on inside, so I enjoyed spending about twenty minutes listening to the music. This church is really a two in one. The worship space on the ground level, which is used for regular services, has a very low ceiling, which makes it feel very intimate and a little cave-like. The second level, which was closed, is apparently a much lighter space and is only used for weddings and special services.

There were more churches on my walk. I had seen the first one from a distance several times when I was staying in my hostel, so I was glad to finally see it up close. I also bought a cherry filled pancake from a little stand right outside. It was delicious, but incredibly hot.



The Griboedov Canal winds around in that area, as do several others. The Griboedov is especially pleasant, though, because there are a lot of trees and footbridges. It felt like a peaceful haven in all the busyness.

Tsarskoye Selo

Since Monday was a holiday (the holiday had been Saturday, but everyone had Monday off) I decided I should take advantage of the day and try to hit one of my destinations that is a little ways outside the city. I decided to go to Tsarskoye Selo, which is a town about thirty kilometers south of St. Petersburg where the imperial family had some of their palaces. I knew the main palace was only open to individual visitors from 12-2, so I tried to time my visit accordingly. I left home a little before 10, went to the train station to take one of the local suburban trains, got to the town and took a local bus up to the palace and park. Unfortunately the bus driver was not announcing stops and there were no visible names on the stops, so I ended up overshooting my destination and had to walk back a little ways. I ended up getting there around 11:45 and promptly started standing in line. I stood in line for about two hours before I was finally let into the building, but I had a book with me to read so it wasn't too bad. I'll tell you what, though, as we got toward the front of the line people started to PUSH! I was worried somebody was going to get trampled. Good thing I'm not too easy to push around, at least physically.

The Catherine Palace was designed by Rastrelli and built for Elizabeth, who named the palace for her mother Catherine I. It's a pretty impressive structure. You can really only see about 1/3 of the facade in this picture, but I couldn't get far enough away to capture the whole thing.

The tour was expensive and a little disappointing. Don't worry, though, we all got to wear these really cool things on our feet.

Also, don't worry, the tour guide (who was mean and spoke REALLY quickly) was wearing super spiky heels and didn't have these on her feet.

Most of the interior of the palace was pretty much destroyed during the war, so they only have about twenty rooms open. They were very beautiful and there was lots of gold. The rest of the building is still being restored. One of my favorite things inside, though, were these blue and white tiled stoves that they had in every room. Also, the walls in this room were entirely covered with individual paintings.

The highlight of the trip was actually walking around the gardens. They were huge, beautiful, and varied. It was a nice place to spend the afternoon.

This is looking back toward the palace up the main path leading into the gardens.

Looking towards the grotto. The interior walls were originally decorated with more than 250,000 shells. The building was finished in 1749, but apparently all the shell stuff took well into the 1770s.

Just chillin'.

This is the building Elizabeth had built for intimate dinner parties. For occasions when the dining room just wasn't good enough, I guess.

A view over the pond to the Turkish baths. There were two other bath houses on the grounds, but I thought these looked the coolest.

This park runs right into another huge park that surrounds the Alexander Palace, which had a lot of scaffolding up, so I didn't bother with a picture. It was pretty fancy looking though.

I ended up wandering around in the parks until about six, when my feet were really tired and my bruised leg was feeling pretty sore. I ended up catching a marshrutka back to town and headed home for dinner and an early bedtime.

One Down; Lots of Ups

I realized that when I gave my whole description of the subway system here a couple days ago I neglected to tell you what the tread on the escalators was like. Here you go.

That is a mark on my shin. How did it get there you ask? By diving head first down the escalator into the subway.

I had quite the trip to church this morning. As I hurried, in my effort to make sure I wasn't late (I needn't have worried - I was twenty minutes early; it's apparently impossible to consistently predict travel times here) I moved at a brisk pace down the subway escalator. It's still not clear to me exactly what happened, but somehow I tripped, stumbled, fought to grab the handrail, and went down head first. My entire body went airborne. Then I hit the escalator hard, flat out, arms stretched in front of me, and umbrella flying down a good distance away from me. That mark on my shin is one of many similar marks on my legs (especially knees), hips, chest, and arms. Fortunately it was 9:00 am on a Sunday morning, so the escalator wasn't crowded, because based on how close I got to the guy that was in front of me, I estimate that through the course of my fall I traveled about thirty feet down. In case it's not clear what I mean - I slid on my stomach down the escalator for about thirty feet. It was insane and I thought I might die. I'm now walking with a very decided limp and my entire body is sore, especially where I landed on the steps on my chest. Also, I felt like a fool.

On the upside, I had a great day at church. I talked to some interesting people and felt really good about my progress with the language, and to top it off Elder Perry, one of the twelve apostles, was at church and spoke today. There was a district wide meeting and first Elder and Sister Senkans (who are from Latvia, so that was fun for me too, since they were from my mission) and then Elder and Sister Perry spoke. I felt like I definitely learned from the things that they had to say and felt like I also received some personal inspiration and testimony affirmation that I really needed.

After church I had plans to go visit a monastery in the city, but I was actually in enough pain that I didn't really feel up to spending the day walking around. It took most of what I had to get myself home, so I've spent the rest of the day lounging and feeling sore. This makes me feel like a little bit of a baby, especially when I think about my friend Todd, who just completed a marathon after breaking his big toe on mile 16. But, in my defense, I don't think I've ever had a fall like this in my life and it really was a little crazy. Also, I feel like at some point in my life, and perhaps not that long ago, I would have been able to shake it off better than I am. While I was able to hop up, act like everything was fine when the guy I had almost rammed into asked if I was okay, and get to church with no problem, my entire body is now completely sore and my muscles feel really tense. Does this mean I'm getting old? I feel like I'm still too young to feel so achy.

P.S. Just in case you're interested, I don't want you to miss the other two posts I put up this evening as well. Three in one day! A bit much, maybe.

Искусство

Today was my day to go to the Hermitage. It was supposed to rain today, so I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to spend the day at a museum. There are going to be a lot of photos in this post.

I don't think I've ever been to a museum where it was so clear that the building was on display as much as the paintings. But the buildings are pretty astounding. The museum is actually housed in five or six buildings, though there are three main ones, which are all connected on the second floor, which is where I spent my day. These include the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, and the Large Hermitage. Here are some pictures I took of the rooms themselves.

This is the room where the museum's Da Vincis are on display.


This is a replica of the Raphael loggias at the Vatican. After visiting there, Catherine the Great liked the loggias so much, she had some done for herself. Nice souvenir.


All the red fabric on the walls in this room was made by Cartier in Paris.

That is gilt you see on the walls and ceiling. This was essentially a room that was 95% covered in gold.

My pictures really don't do the rooms justice. It was beautiful, and everything was over the top. As I walked around I just kept thinking that it really was not surprising that there was such a violent revolution in the end. I'd be pretty mad at my leaders too, if this was the way they were living while I lived in a shack. Obviously many of the rooms are used to hang pieces, but some, like the gilt one, are not, as the room and the art would be competing. They've done a nice job of displaying both the buildings and the collection.

The Hermitage collection includes over 3 million pieces, which means only about five to ten percent of the collection is ever on display at a given time. Catherine the Great, who was apparently an avid art collector really began the collection. There is a story that she convinced the grandson of the first British prime minister to give her fifteen paintings of her choice from the Walpole collection, which was supposed to become the foundation of Britain's national gallery, in exchange for a portrait of herself. She chose fifteen Van Dycks. And apparently got away with it. However, after the Russian Revolution, the collection more than tripled in size, as the state nationalized all of the private collections in Russia. There are also a number of rooms, that have apparently been a special exhibition since about 1995 when they were first opened, full of paintings by Monet, Degas, Renoir, Picasso, Cezanne, and Matisse that the Red Army looted from German collections at the end of World War II. Most of these had never been publicly displayed until 1995 when they were first shown here. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of those paintings. There was some controversy about whether they should be returned to Germany or not, but it appears Russia has decided to hold onto them.

I'm posting pictures of some of my favorite things that I saw, with the caveat that these are the things that I saw that I was also able to get a decent picture of. There were plenty of other remarkable pieces and lots of pieces that I loved that I'm not posting a picture of here. In addition to these there were pieces by Da Vinci, Raphael, a Michelangelo sculpture, countless works by Poussin, Titian, Veronese, Van Dyck, Rubens, Seurat, El Greco and on and on. The French 19th-20th century collection is especially huge. The paintings here also only represent one of MANY works by each artist. It really was an amazing place to spend the day.

Descent from the Cross - Rembrandt
I had to take this picture at an angle so there wouldn't be too much of a glare. This was one painting out of two HUGE rooms dedicated to Rembrandt. The other really standout piece was The Prodigal Son (my photo of that one is not so great). I remember talking about this painting in Humanities as an example of chiaroscuro. It is interesting to look at the painting and think about the sources of the light and how the light is cast on the people around the cross. It was a pretty stunning thing to see in person, and caught me by surprise, as I didn't know it was here at all.

The Childhood of Christ - Gerrit von Hontorst
I have no idea who this artist is. I had never heard of him before, but I loved this depiction of Christ as a child, working with Joseph and learning his trade. I appreciate the use of light in what is essentially a dark canvas. It is interesting to think about Christ's childhood, since we know so little about it. I found myself thinking about D&C 93, and Christ continuing "from grace to grace, until he received a fullness," just as we "shall receive of his fullness" and "receive grace for grace."

The Birth of St. John the Baptist - Tintoretto
I've just really liked Tintoretto ever since I went to Venice and saw so much of his work, especially in the Doge's Palace. Nothing deep to say here.

Haystack at Giverny - Monet

Thatched Cottages - Van Gogh
This is perhaps one of my favorite paintings by Van Gogh that I have ever seen, and I'm not sure what it is about it. Maybe it's just because I really like green?

Eternal Spring - Rodin
One of six or seven Rodin sculptures. Several of them, like this one, I thought were very cool just because of the way they seemed to rise out of the marble so naturally. I liked that he hadn't taken away the base of the rock, but just chiseled out the figures from it.

Infant (Nativity) - Gaugin
I'm generally not a fan of Gaugin. This was again, one of probably thirty paintings by him. This one jumped out at me. What I think I especially like is that in the background, there is what looks like a small nativity. This painting seems to reflect the individual miracle of every child born and connects each person with the miracle of Christ's birth. It seems to emphasize the importance of the individual in a way that I thought was very profound.

Music
Dance - both by Matisse
These next two are massive paintings. I knew they were going to be there before I went, but didn't necessarily expect to love them, but seeing them in person was very cool. They're about eight and a half feet tall and almost thirteen feet wide. They hang opposite each other, and I liked that effect - the feeling that the dancers are responding to the musicians. "Dance" ended up being one of my favorite pieces of the day.


Friendship - Picasso
I just liked it. There were other Picassos there that I also really loved, especially one called "Two Sisters."

It was a long, but rewarding day at the museum.

After going home to rest my tired legs for a little bit, I went back to the same place as the night before to watch the US and England play. This is a picture I snapped on my way. What does it look like at 1030 pm where you are? Because here it looks like this: