Museums

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I admit I have been wrong in neglecting museums during almost all of my trips. I should have visited at least a couple of museums while I was, for instance, in European cities. Moreover, I have neglected all museums in Saint Petersburg except the Hermitage, visiting none except it since 2007. It’s time to catch up with them. This piece will include information about several museums in Petersburg I visited in April. I made a careful selection of the museums, representing an immense variety of topics, if one thinks of it, and hope that readers will want to visit them on their own. In May, I hope to add some more museums. I will not accompany all of the photos with explanations. It will be food for thought. I will also translate only some of the Russian captions in them.



The museum I began with is the Russian Museum of Ethnography. Its collections include about 500 000 authentic things and photos related to the traditional culture of 158 peoples living in Russia and neighbouring countries of Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia, from the end of the XVIII century till nowadays. I have mixed feelings after visiting it. We all know what ethnography is, and, while most of the items in any museum are old and might be difficult to find in real everyday life, I could not but feel an urge to visit the Yakuts, the Mordva, the Udmurts, and many others of the showcased nations. Actually, it might be possible to find people limit very similarly to the things seen in this museum. I’d certainly like to visit a genuine Mari or Bashkir village, for example, see their rites and traditions, but I dislike taking photos of people. They might be capricious, you know, and be shy because of various reasons (I have seen girls enrage at the sight of a camera), so I have long ago decided to take no photos of people.



The museum turned out smaller than I anticipated, but I was fully satisfied with the exhibitions. Then it turned out that I missed its second section. It seemed the other half of the building was under renovation (some boards were put up there), I did not hesitate long but simply went home. I returned to that portion later.



On the first visit, I began with the hall dedicated to the peoples of the North-West and Baltics. It was very well lit, as compared to the other halls, so good photos were taken. There were heaps of adornments, clothes, household items, boats, festival masks, photos, musical instruments. Then I proceeded through several sections featuring items related to Russian folk: wooden house carvings, house interior, metal working and foundry, farming; the museum exhibitions are arranged by different topics. The three next sections were on the second floor: 1) peoples of the Caucasus; 2) peoples of the Volga Region and the Ural Region (most interesting to me because I come from a town very close to both of them; 3) peoples of Siberia and Far East. I saw hunter’s equipment, skis, interior of a tent, amulets. There are entries about reindeer herders on this site; I am not sure whether I’ll ever go to Chukotka or Yakutia, but it’s all quite feasible.



Then I visited the Military & Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps situated near the Peter and Paul Fortress in a huge building, with a vast selection of military vehicles displayed for free in its yard. I am a fan of military equipment so this museum was a huge treat. But of, course, almost anything in such a museum invokes the idea of death, pain, suffering, and any other negative emotion. On the other side, there’s the feeling of protection, something like pride; it’s all history and cannot be put aside or forgotten. Plenty of cannons, rifles, other weapons, a richly decorated coach, knights’ suits of armour. I saw long halls dedicated to Russian Army during the Great Patriotic War. A huge array of items pertained to signal corps (radio equipment). Finally, there were rockets and two samples of liquid propellant engines. Then I went outside and inspected all the outdoor vehicles (all of the same colour, to note).





Next, I visited the Museum of the History of Religion – that’s so much mental food, embracing such different cultures, presenting the different world outlooks: beliefs of Africa, Russian northern peoples, Ancient Greece, Egypt, Judaism, with every religion having its own distinctive artistic manifestation. For instance, with the Orthodox, it is crosses and icons. In the Orthodox hall, an attendant came to me and explained about a very important cross which I photographed without any idea of its being under renovation for twenty years and people coming from different countries just to see it.



There were all in all two items that settled in my mind for long. The picture of Danse macabre – a huge revelation, I do not remember hearing about it earlier. Dance of Death (Danse Macabre in French), is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: the dead or personified Deathsummons representatives to dance along to the grave: a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer, to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life. How damned good is the thing – in the end, there is Death, as sure as Sun in the sky (though the Sun in the sky will also join its Danse in a certain amount of time).



I paid little attention to the India and China exhibitions, because I can go to these countries in person and see all true to life. I read a lot about Buddhism during my second year in the institute, I have studies the Hindi language (it was the second foreign language after English, I started studying it in 2002, all on my own: we’ll return to the topic after I visit India).



Next comes Islam, with its Quran and ligatures – there’s a photo of a picture of Noah’s Arc made of wood with craftily carved letters making up the image. I hope to dwell more on Islam when I visit the Arab countries; I think the very nature of Arabic alphabet makes it possible to draw so beautifully.



On the final floor, I scrutinized a large picture of Judgment Day (Russia, XVIII c.). This is the second item rooted firmly in my mind. With devils baking and torturing sinners in the bottom of the canvas, saints and the God on top, this image makes a person think, if not about religion, but about the meaning of life for sure. And, of course, the Danse Macabre and this Judgment Day can be placed under a single category. In the same hall were children’s religious paintings.





On the next day I returned to the Museum of Ethnography to see the ethnography of Central Asia, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Moldovans, Jews. I could not keep from thinking that so much of those things could be met in real life far away in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan etc, but, given the current lack of opportunity to go to Central Asia, the museum stirred my emotions and provided an impetus for earning money. Another item that rendered a profound impression on me, were markers for the reading of Torah, having small palms and a pointing finger on their end. Torah, briefly, is the holiest book within Judaism (the hall was dedicated to the life and customs of Russian Jews).



A small separate hall featured excellent items made of amber (the Baltics are rich in it) and ivory. After the museum, I had a bite in Sbarro on Nevsky Prospect and then took a metro (one station) to Gorkovskaya to the Museum of Russia’s Political History – a highly recommended, very modern, multimedia-packed museum (music, video, lighting) that in no small extent surpassed my expectations. Many, if not all, of the inscriptions and comments to exhibits are in two languages. The Revolution of 1917, Soviet authority, propaganda, placards, excerpts from documents, Lenin’s images, even copybooks with portraits of political persons from the 1920-ies, Stalin, the deportation of peoples...



I remember a placard where a small caricature man with a tie with American stars and stripes shouts out the words “Peace”, “Defence”, and “Disarmament”, sitting in the back pocket, containing a gun, of a huge man in military uniform, bending over the map of Europe and planning military bases close to Russian (then USSR) borders. The title of the picture is “Phrases and… Bases”. Drawn while the Soviet Union still existed, this placard, to my mind, displays the true nature of the Alliance. It’s not defence, because an alliance with so many countries can hardly have TRUE enemies except the Martians and other extraterrestrial bandits, if one takes into account their budgets, economic strength, and technology level. A separately taken small or a medium country anywhere in the world has nothing to counteract them. This is sad.



A separate hall was dedicated to art and music (singers-songwriters). There was a room decorated as a “boiler-house” with a table next to metal pipes, a little lamp and a printing machine, many books – many songwriters created under such conditions, away from unwanted eyes.



Another remarkable hall was dedicated to sports hall (in commemoration of Sochi Olympic Games), with placards, champion’s cups, and even placards in the English language dealing with boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow. They say sports is outside politics, what do you think?



The museum is simply overloaded with items: the Civil War, two displays comprising fragments of various posters and newspaper articles related to political and social events in recent history (perestroika, glasnost, development of democracy), the War of 1941-1945, stones from Kolyma camps…





My next destination was the Naval Museum where, however, many sections were under renovation. I managed to see old cannons, various shooting appliances and, most interestingly, various models of cruisers, ships, submarines from different countries, marine equipment (compasses, nauropemeters, sextants, diving equipment).





To finish this entry, let us return to the topics of Danse Macabre and War. I visited the Memorial Museum of Blockade and Defense of Leningrad. 872 days of fight against Death. About 700,000 persons died of hunger. The city did not surrender. The museum leaves a depressing impression. You just have to see the “food” exhibits: cakes of saltbush with offals fried on motor oil, joiner’s glue for cooking jelly, belts, 22 kinds of meals were cooked from PARTS OF A WEAVING LOOM. 200 or 125 grams of bread per day. Try to live on that for a week, or a month, or 872 days, under permanent bombardments. People died anywhere, anytime, kept diaries hoping to live at least one more day.

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