Built in the mid-1700s for Peter the Great’s daughter, Elizabeth, the Hermitage was later filled with the art collection of Catherine the Great. The Hermitage’s vast collections of European masterpieces make it one of the world’s top art museums, ranking with the Louvre and the Prado. How does the Hermitage stack up among the world’s top collections of paintings for you? Photos by Trish Feaster, see her blog at The Travelphile.com.
Talking with Russians and ex-pats living in Russia gives you a special insight into an often misunderstood culture. Here are a few examples:
Knowing how much many societies rely on tourism these days for employment and foreign revenue, I told someone, “Requiring a visa for tourists is no good for tourism and your economy.” He responded, “It doesn’t matter. No one cares. Russia has gas and oil and minerals.”
Discussing the struggles of civil liberties under Putin, I was told, “Stability is a passage to democracy.”
I told my Russian friend that many Americans are against government regulations on business. She said, “We live in a world where those who believe that regulations on business are bad are running our society. And we’re learning that capitalism without regulation is as bad as tyranny.” I said that I believe we’re all on parallel tracks toward pluralism and democracy, and some societies are just farther along than others. Another friend responded, “What you said is incompatible with reality.”
When I asked why the oligarchs are allowed to wield so much power, my friend said, “In Russia there is no ‘why’.” In Russia you don’t ask for logic and you don’t ask why. Certain norms are inbred.
They say 16 percent of the work force is in the security field. There’s an obsession with rules and security that goes back to czarist days. Any deviation is considered deviant, in the negative sense. About one in five Russians is a free-minded liberal who wants change (therefore deviant). The amount of deviation that’s acceptable fluctuates from time to time. The range is very wide now. For example, everyday Russians are allowed to travel for practically the first time in history. And people embrace the world through the Internet. I was told, “Religion was the opiate of the masses in the old days, Vodka was the opiate in Soviet times, and today, the Internet is the opiate of the masses.”
The 1970s and 1980s were a time when thought leaders in Russia — cultural icons like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and world-famous scientists like Andrei Sakharov — stood courageously for freedom. Solzhenitsyn’s “Open Letter to Soviet Leaders” inspired me as it inspired millions of Russians in the 1970s. I stumbled upon this monument to Sakharov (who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975), and it rekindled the respect and admiration I have for individuals who stood up to the Kremlin during those dark and difficult years — freedom fighters who softened the ground for the fall of Soviet Communism that would follow a decade or so later. Photo by Trish Feaster, see her blog – The Travelphile.com.
It was fun to be a “temporary local” in a very typical St. Petersburg neighborhood with our friend Steve Caron. With Russia’s new affluence, fun little eateries and pastry shops are opening up right and left. Steve’s joy at the rising vibrancy of his neighborhood was contagious. We had a tasty dinner at a restaurant called Schengen. Schengen is also the name of the treaty that lets most Europeans travel freely within “the Schengen group” of countries. Russians like Schengen because, if they can get to Finland (part of the Schengen group), they can roam all over the Continent. To them, Schengen symbolizes the freedom to travel. Join us as we hop across the street from the Schengen restaurant and into the yummy Cookie Shop.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
While St. Petersburg has lots of earthshaking turnstile sights, simply visiting a neighborhood market is one of the most entertaining and enjoyable experiences a visitor can have. Part of my mission on this visit was to find some good markets that are accessible to tourists and add them to our guidebook chapter on St. Petersburg. Do you have any market memories from towns in the former Soviet Union to share?
Photos by Trish Feaster, The Travelphile.com.
Trish had a beautiful and emotional encounter with this woman and writes about it in an entry titled “Never Judge a Babushka by Her Head Cover” at The Travelphile.com.
Back in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed, the ownership of Russia passed from the state to the people through a well-intended but chaotic system of vouchers for everyone. Of course, aggressive people ended up owning nearly everything and, to a great extent, Russia is now run by a gang of shadowy oligarchs. When Putin came to power he had a meeting with the oligarchs and essentially said, “I’ll let you continue to make money if you stay out of politics.” With this alliance (and the hard lesson taught when a couple of oligarchs who got political were thrown in jail), the oligarchs generally stay out of Putin’s way and he stays out of theirs. The oligarchs have to do a bit of a balancing act in order to keep the public from rising up against them, and they occasionally do good deeds. Just like the Koch brothers fund some high culture in the US, oligarchs in Russia donate to the opera and provide parks like this one, New Holland. It is an oligarch-owned oasis of calm and grassy elegance in the middle of St. Petersburg that fills a former military shipyard. People love it, and it’s a public relations coup for the oligarch. Here’s a brief tour.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.