"That way to the Malachite Room!" The elderly museum attendant is helpfully pointing down the corridor – when we seem to be lost in the maze of St Petersburg's Winter Palace. It is 10.40 AM: the Hermitage Museum has just opened, and we have already hurried past the most famous room in the palace with its green Malachite columns, stopping briefly for a photo.
It is the Silk Road section that we are looking for and we are planning to spend as many hours there as we like. Luckily, the attendant lady knows her museum well and can advise us about left and right turns and finally, steps down to about 20 rooms of Central Asian treasures. And treasures there are!
We have been dreaming about a visit to the St. Petersburg Hermitage for years. Whatever archaeological site or a museum we visited in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, or Turkmenistan, for work or privately, the most spectacular objects and wall paintings – were almost always said to be in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.
Early November is not exactly a pleasant time to travel to St Petersburg, one of the northernmost Russian cities. We arrive from the airport at night in a cold drizzle. Natalya, who knows very few English words but is expert at explaining things in simple Russian, shows us into our rented flat near Nevsky Boulevard.
During the next days we work our way through our list of St. Petersburg must-sees: The Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood with its art deco murals is an impressive start, even though the colourful onion domes suffer from the rainy weather and some scaffolding. For the Russian Museum next door we have to queue for over an hour in the cold, but the paintings (and some decorative arts) are worth it.
Not only did we then spend a full day in the Hermitage Museum – after several hours among the treasures of Nisa, Bactria and Toprak Qala, from Varakhsha and Penjikent, we could still at least glimpse into the main galleries with their amazing collections of European paintings.
The (separate) Hermitage Storage Facility was an absolute highlight of the trip. With a collection of approximately 3 Mio items, the Hermitage Museum belongs to the largest museums in the world – and not even the huge Winter Palace can accommodate all those treasures, let alone make them accessible. The new storage facilities built over the last decades (and more are to come!) combine scientifically adequate storage rooms with restoration workshops and at least some opportunities for visitors to see objects that are not on permanent display. Luckily we could arrange a guided tour in English on the spot (usually you should pre-arrange these tours), and it was quite marvellous. We particularly liked the door of Gur Emir Mausoleum in Samarkand, the Russian icons, and the Tsarist coaches and sledges.
With so much to see and little time, we combined two museums for modern art in one day: the Marble Palace – built by Catherine the Great for one of her lovers – today houses a collection of (Western) modern art donated by German art patron Peter Ludwig. The afternoon was barely enough for the Russian modern art at the Erarta Museum – you could easily spend the whole day there and delve into Russian contemporary art, which is not so often seen outside of Russia.
In between, we visited a number of other museums, some historical places, the major churches and convents such as the Alexander Nevsky Monastery with its graveyards of famous artists, the Smolny Cathedral and St. Isaak's Cathedral, had Georgian and Dagestani (!) food, and walked around the city to discover a couple of bronze statues of Lenin and Marx …
Six days in winter was by far not enough to explore the wonders of St. Petersburg in spite of our total commitment. We will have to come back …
Note: We were not sponsored in any way or received money or other benefits for and during our trip to St. Petersburg. All expenses were fully paid by ourselves.
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