The fast modern Sapsan train whisked us from Moscow to St Petersburg at 200km/hr. We arrived refreshed andready to do battle on the Metro again. After one false start we changed trains and arrived at our downtown hotel. St Petersburg was in a festive mood – we often found ourselves surrounded by drunken sailors (no change here I here you say!). Eventually we discovered that it was Russian Navy Day – where ex- and current-Navy personnel celebrate their contribution to the nation.
We picked up a walking tour that took us through the extensive palaces, churches and historical facades. In general, Catherine the Great and Peter the Great had done an amazing job in building a fine city based on the big 18th and 19th century European cities of the time.
The Hermitage is the icing on the top – originally the Winter Palace, it is huge and overwhelming. Although the nobles had built up a reasonable art collection, the main collectors were the Soviets – pre- and post-war. As an indication of the size of the collection, 1 million paintings were evacuated from the city during the siege of St Petersburg (Stalingrad) by the Nazis during World War II.
The collection grew after this with the confiscation of paintings from Germany – and other “benefactors ” within Russia. As at the Louvre in Paris, it amazes me why some of the smallest and mediocre paintings by popular artists like Da Vinci and Reubins attract all the crowds – we couldn’t even get close to Da Vincis Madonna and Child, but the rest of the thousands of paintings were largely ignored by the masses. It must just be good marketing by these guys.