Viking Homelands: St Petersburg Hermitage I (9/4/2018)

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

View from the stateroom

Ah, we have arrived in Russia! When we disembark for our optional shore excursion, we must first go through passport control. There we also show our shore excursion ticket to prove that we will return to the ship and not go wandering off into the country to gather intelligence. (We could have applied for a visa for extra money, and then we would have been able to go off on our own.)
A motor coach takes us to the famous Hermitage Museum, and we arrive even earlier than the special opening time for Viking tours.

Конногвардейский манеж/Horse Guards Riding Hall/"The Manege"
(1804-1807, by Giacomo Quarenghi in Neo-Classical style) was used
after the Russian Revolution (1917) as a garage for the People's
Commissariat for Internal Affairs, and now an exhibition hall

I do not know why it is translated into English as the Manege, which is a phonetic translation of the Russian word. The Manege has statues of the twin sons of Zeus reining in horses that were copied from the Quirinale Palace in Rome. The Orthodox Synod did not like the nudes and they were removed, to be replaced in 1954.

Адмиралтейство/The Admiralty (1806, by Andrei Zakharov
in Neo-Classical style) with a tall gilded spire, was built
on the site of a fortified shipyard, and is now the HQ
of the Военно-морского флота России/Russian Navy

Дворцовая площадь/Palace Square (1819,
by Carlo Rossi) with the Алекса́ндровская коло́нна/
Alexander Column (1930-1834, by Auguste de Montferrand)
to commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleon in 1812,
topped by the angel of Victory (by Boris Orlovsky)

The Alexander Column (47 m/154' tall) is carved from a single piece of red granite that was transported from Finland on a specially-designed barge. It was erected in 1832 by 3,000 men without the use of machinery, and is fixed in position by only its own weight. The area all around the column is free of buildings, perhaps in the case it ever fell. By now there is confidence it will not fall.

NE half of the monumentally immense Здание Главного штаба/
General Staff Building (1820-1830, by Carlo Rossi) initially
housed various ministries of the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union,
but as of this year it is an annex to the Hermitage Museum

SE half of the General Staff Building was the headquarters of the Armed
Forces of the Russian Empire, and now of the Western Military District

The frontage of the semi-circular façade of the General Staff Building is 580 m/1903' or just over a third of a mile long.

In the center of the General Staff Building is the Arch of the General Staff
(1828), a monument to the Patriotic War of 1812, which during Soviet times
was called the Arch of the Red Army; note it is three consecutive arches 

Now for the main event, the palace on Palace Square!

Kent & Tamiko at the Зимний дворец/Winter Palace (1754-1762,
by Francesco Rastrelli in Russian Baroque style), which was
built for Tsarina Elizabeth as the official residence of Russian monarchs

We learned that although Carlo Rossi and Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli were born in Italy, they moved to Russia during childhood, and are considered Russian architects.

The Palace Square entrance portal to the Winter Palace

The Winter Palace has been painted different colors, yellow in the 18C and red in the 19C. After World War II it was painted in the standard green with white trim used by the Soviets for Baroque buildings.

To the west of the Winter Palace is the addition called the
Small Hermitage (1764-1766, by the architect Yuri Velten)
used as the private apartments of Catherine the Great
and to house her growing art collection

On the River Neva side is another pavilion (1767-1769 the architect Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe) which was connected by the Hanging Gardens corridors to complete the Small Hermitage.

Beyond the Small Hermitage is the New Hermitage (1842-1851,
by Leo von Klenze in Historicism style); behind this building on the
River Neva is the Great Hermitage (1771-1787, by Yuri Velten)

Okay, the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Great Hermitage, the New Hermitage, along with the Hermitage theater, comprise the State Hermitage Museum. The museum is considered to have been founded in 1764 when Catherine the Great acquired a large art collection and commissioned the Small Hermitage for its display. As her collection grew, she added the Great Hermitage, and her successors continued to add both art and buildings. In the last few years, the State Museum has expanded to include half the General Staff Building and the Menshikov Palace, as well as a storage facility.

One last building on Palace Square is the Guards Corps Headquarters
(1837-1843, by Alexander Brullov)...

...that shows how the buildings were constructed (KSS)

A street vendor had Trump-Putin and Minion Matryoshka dolls

The gates of the Winter Palace with the
double-headed eagle, which in black was a symbol
of the Russian Empire (1721-1917)

Winter Palace courtyard with animal sculptures
in Russian colors of the flag (KSS)

Ideas of Stone (2010, by Giuseppe Penone),
an artificial tree holding large stones

The Jordan Staircase (1762, by Francesco Rastrelli)
is where imperial family would observe the Epiphany
celebration of Christ's baptism in the "Jordan"/Neva River

For some reason we had to go up the stairs, through a door opened by an attendant, down a corridor, down some stairs, passing all kinds of historic artifacts.

Buddha's hands, relics from a tomb

We seemed to enter through a vault door to see the Gold Room(s). We had a tour by a curator who spoke Russian, as our guide admirably translated the information. No photos in the Gold Rooms, where there was some extremely intricate goldwork. It seems the Greeks were early experts in this art, but we saw examples from 7C BCE to the 19C CE.
Now to the State Rooms, remembering to look at ceiling and floors!

Rotunda Hall (by Auguste Montferrand)

The Blackamoor Dining Room with 17C busts of Moors (KSS)

A vase of malachite, copper carbonate hydroxide
mineral used as an ornamental stone or gemstone,
in the Malachite Room (KSS)

The Malachite Room (1839, by Alexander Brullov)
with an infinity mirror effect

Over 2.2 tons of malachite from the Ural Mountains were used in the Malachite Room.

Malachite Room flooring

The Malachite Room is where the Provisional Government convened (after the February Revolution that led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II), having their last meeting on 10/24/1917.

The clock on the mantle in the Small Dining Room
is stopped at the time of the arrest of the
Provisional Government members on 10/25/1917
in the wake of the October Revolution of the
Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin

Hall of Peter the Great or the
Small Throne Room (1833) with a copy of
1731 silver-gilt English throne (KSS)

Small Throne Room flooring

Armorial Hall (1839) where the chandeliers
are engraved with the coats of arms
of all the Russian provinces

Armorial Hall torchère

War of 1812 Gallery (1826, by Carlo Rossi) contains 322 portraits
(by George Dawe) of the generals in the war that defeated Napoleon,
with the portrait of Tsar Alexander I at the end of the hall (KSS)

Not all generals were still alive to sit for their
portraits, so their frames are lined with green silk

St George Hall or Large Throne Room (1787-1795,
by Giacomo Quarenghi, 1840s rebuilt by Vasily Stasov) (KSS)

Large Throne Room flooring of 16 varieties of wood

Large Throne Room chandelier and ceiling

The principal imperial throne (1731, by
Nicholas Clausen for Tsarina Anna Ioannovna) (KSS)

The Hanging Garden of Catherine the Great
is in the center of the Small Hermitage

Peacock Pavilion (1850s, by
Andrei Stakenschneider in
French Renaissance style)

Peacock Clock (1777, by James Cox) with a twirling
peacock and crowing rooster, but not at this time

The floor mosaic is a copy from the Roman Bath of Otricoli

Fountain of Tears (of the Harem), a copy
from the Bakhchisarai Palace in the Crimea

A painting that is a actually a mosaic in the Peacock Pavilion

The Peacock Pavilion had several examples of tabletop
Commesso/Florentine mosaics using shaped pieces of inlaid gemstones;
a section of Apollo and the Muses (1873)

The Hermitage Museum had become progressively more crowded, especially as we entered the galleries for art.
Next: St Petersburg Hermitage II.