Art

Time for the inevitable cultural tour of museums, the first, The Russian Museum, was my favourite. It's dark landscapes awed and inspired and I strolled through with Ivan, my wacky, intelligent host. The prize of favourite work here went to Victor Vanetsov with his piece, A Russian Knight at the Crossway. Other artists that made the Brown shorlist (Granny get your art books out!) included Feodor Vasiliev (Morning), Ivan Aivazovsky (The 9th Wave), Nikolay Dubovskoy (Calm Before The Storm), Konstantin Bogaevsky (Ships. Evening Sun) and especially Nikolai Roerich with his masterpiece, The Waiting One.

Next day, next museum. Some little green shack named the Hermitage was on the horizon. You need more than the half a day I set aside, however after getting in free due to Ivan's quick flash of his out of date student card I wasn't too miffed. All I had to do now was bypass face control with my Russian ticket (tourist tickets = 500 roubles, Russian citizen ticket = 50 roubles, Russian student = 0 roubles) by looking Russian. I drew close and set my lips to a miserable grimace and my eyes to the thousand yard stare that so many comrades here have developed. This seemed to do the trick and I was soon waltzing round the lavish interior of arguably Europe's finest collection, chilling with my main men Picasso and Michelangelo, not to mention being bowled over by von Hess' sprawling battle scenes. I have a list of other artists whose work I found palatable, but surprisingly not as many as the previous day.

Ivan, a fellow film lover finished my day in grand style by finishing our day in perfect style and Dom Kino, the English Speaking (Cyrillic subtitles) cinema for a Closer (bother) Be Kind, Rewind (don't) double header. The following 2 days were my last in the fine city and I settled down to finishing off sites I had not seen and words I had not read. It was then I received the thrum of SMS against my leg...