Europe 2006

On Thursday I got to Copenhagen after a very long flight with a group of yapping American teenagers sitting next to me carousing the entire 8 hour flight. Arriving mid-day in the city, I immediately hopped a train and within ten minutes I was in the bustling city center. A beautiful warm day, the city was crowded with lots of very tall people walking on pedestrian walkways packed with thousands. The roads were filled with bike riders (by the way most people in Copenhagen don't lock their bikes!). I walked the city for hours, sat in to watch the soccer match between England and Trinidad and Tabago whilst two German guys and I annoyed the English revilers because we were siding with the Caribbean under dogs (or was it an anti-Brit impulse?). After the game we danced the night away to a very good Danish funk band who played mostly American covers.

I had to get up early Friday morning for the flight to St Petersburg. Made my flight on time and met Jeff and Natasha at the SP airport in the early afternoon. On the plane I sat next to a Persian guy who worked for the Swedish government in Russia advising them on business/University cooperation within a market economy. He was an interesting guy who's family left Iran in 1974 and moved to Upsula, Sweden where he said most people use bikes most of the time. I can just imagine how the Russian academics are reacting to the Persian consultant from Sweden who is telling them how they have been doing everything wrong fo the last 100 years.

We have a charming hotel right in the center of SP on Nvesky Prospect around a 15 minute walk from the Neva river and the Hermitage among many other incredible sights. Quite a walking town, particularly at this time of year, the White Nights-no real darkness-a twilight period for around 3 hours from midnight till three. It takes some getting used to but so far what we have done is sleep for a few hours, go out and repeat.

The first day we walked the main drag, packed with mostly Russians, and looked at some of the incredible churches, 19th century Czarist government buildings and got a feel for the city. The next day we went to the Hermitage. Now I have been to lots of art museums but this experience was unlike anything I was prepared for. At first we were a little underwhelmed, not by the content of the paintings and sculpture but of the conditions of the first few rooms-people being allowed to use flashes on their cameras, masking tape on the windows, lots of sun making its way into the rooms and drafts actually coming in from outside creating conditions that can only be described as dismal for the Monets, Manets, Van Goghs, Rembrandts, Pissaros and numerous other master works that adorn the first rooms as you enter the second floor of the Western European exhibits. As we moved on though the conditions improved and each room unfolded not only examples of the finest in European and Asian art but matched with rooms based on the Vatican, ornate with paintings, vaults and arches, ballrooms the size of a football field filled with massive gold leaf chandeliers and sculpture, case after case of jewelry, vases, statuets and ceramics; libraries, waiting rooms, military honor halls, etc, etc, etc......

I cannot in any way describe the combination of architectural grandeur and depth of collection of this place. I was not prepared for its intensity. I was truly humbled and cursed that we had only allocated 3 1/2 hours for the privilege. Taken overall the experience was undescribely emotional, the highlight for me however, if I had to pick one, were the Flemish and Dutch masters rooms.

The two or three rooms had tens of miniatures which I learned were highly coveted at the time as well as paintings the size of a large Tokyo billboard and everything in between. Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Jacob and many others that I have never heard of represented with still life's, portraits, family portraits, city and natural landscapes that were presented in a way that gave you some insight, just by the representation and selection, the evolution and schools of the region. I have never seen a special exhibit of this quality let alone a standing collection. For this selection of the museum alone the trip would have been worth it.

Jeff and I separated during our visit and I must say that I am glad because it really was an intensely personal experience that both of us seemed to experience during the day.

Looking at St Petersburg one can only ask the question, where did all of this wealth come from and of course we go back to the great political economist Woody Allen in his treatise on the 19th century Russia, Love and Death, when he gazed into the camera and repeated "wheat, wheat, a tremendous amount of wheat." And who actually created all of this grain? One of the world's most beaten and exploited creatures, the Russian serf!

Some of the highlights of this amazing city.

tomorrow we leave for Tallin, Estonia and then on to the largest island in the Baltic, the name which escapes me-more on this later. Today we spent wandering the Peter and Paul fortress and a Mosque that had some of the most beautiful mosaics(?) I have ever seen. They actually welcomed us in and showed us around, quite an experience. I must say I don't think I have ever been in a Mosque before.

We walked the entire way from the city center to the fortress and mosaque but on the way back took the metro. A metro is a metro but I have now seen the mother of all escalator! It felt like it was powered by a steam engine and must have been an 1/8th mile long burrowing down into the depths of the swamp that was St Petersburg and now is one of the most unique places I have ever had the pleasure.

On to Talin!

Monday, 19 June, 2006
At a internet cafe on Nvesky Prospect

Most amazing church I have ever seen. It was built at the spot of the assassination of the Czar in the late 1800's.