This past week was filled with a whirlwind of events, from visiting the Hermitage and a scavenger hunt around the city to the 72nd Anniversary of the Siege of Leningrad (known is Petersburg as "Blockada Leningrada") and the annual "Scarlet Sails" festival for graduating high school students. This will likely be a long blog post but bear with me a little.
On Wednesday, our program completed our first true excursion, which was to the Hermitage.
In case you don't know, the Hermitage was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and was opened to the public in 1852. It's one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, and contains precious paintings and other pieces of artwork by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rafael, Rembrandt, and more. It's also the site of the famous "Amber Room" and is made with slabs of white marble that were converted into perfect pillars or giant pieces fashioned out of pure gold.
Of everything that was in the Hermitage that I had a chance to see, my favorite exhibit was probably the "War of 1812" gallery which displayed hundreds of portraits of officers who served in the war. It was probably my favorite room because I read Tolstoy's "War and Peace,"to which the war served as a backdrop.
Then on Saturday, we had another excursion where we took a tour visiting major sites from the Siege of Leningrad. Saturday marked the 72nd anniversary of "Operation Barbarossa," which was the Nazi Germany invasion of the Soviet Union. Three months later, the Wehrmacht would lay a siege on Leningrad that would last for almost 900 days. Hundreds of thousands of Russians died in that siege, many from starvation.
Many Russians were buried in mass graves in an area that would later become known as "Piskarevskoye Cemetary," where a giant statue of the mother of Russian and an eternal flame overlook the grave mounds. To mark the 72nd anniversary, numerous wreaths were placed around the statue in a manner reminiscent to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Visiting the cemetery was a profound experience because it showed just how much the citizens of Petersburg/Leningrad suffered during the war, and how Russia continues to commemorate the memories of those who perished in the siege.
On a somewhat lighter note, Sunday night, the day after the 72nd anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Petersburg had its giant festival "Scarlet Sails".
The tradition started at the end of World War II when several Leningrad schools united to celebrate the end of the school year with the symbolism of the popular 1922 children's book Scarlet Sails by Alexander Grin, which is the story of two young lovers.
The main event, preceded by a series of concerts and other events, is a lights and pyrotechnics show (fire and fireworks) that highly the old, wooden frigate Standart, as it sails down the Neva river with its majestic scarlet sails.
If you click on the video link above, you'll see just how amazing and impressive a celebration it is.
Be prepared for next week's blog post as I'll be visiting Novgorod, Petergof, and the Tsars' village at Pushkin, St. Petersburg. Also, later this week, I'll recap the scavenger hunt that saw me and every other city travel around the city.
Have a great week!
Josh
On Wednesday, our program completed our first true excursion, which was to the Hermitage.
In case you don't know, the Hermitage was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and was opened to the public in 1852. It's one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, and contains precious paintings and other pieces of artwork by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rafael, Rembrandt, and more. It's also the site of the famous "Amber Room" and is made with slabs of white marble that were converted into perfect pillars or giant pieces fashioned out of pure gold.
Of everything that was in the Hermitage that I had a chance to see, my favorite exhibit was probably the "War of 1812" gallery which displayed hundreds of portraits of officers who served in the war. It was probably my favorite room because I read Tolstoy's "War and Peace,"to which the war served as a backdrop.
Then on Saturday, we had another excursion where we took a tour visiting major sites from the Siege of Leningrad. Saturday marked the 72nd anniversary of "Operation Barbarossa," which was the Nazi Germany invasion of the Soviet Union. Three months later, the Wehrmacht would lay a siege on Leningrad that would last for almost 900 days. Hundreds of thousands of Russians died in that siege, many from starvation.
Many Russians were buried in mass graves in an area that would later become known as "Piskarevskoye Cemetary," where a giant statue of the mother of Russian and an eternal flame overlook the grave mounds. To mark the 72nd anniversary, numerous wreaths were placed around the statue in a manner reminiscent to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
Visiting the cemetery was a profound experience because it showed just how much the citizens of Petersburg/Leningrad suffered during the war, and how Russia continues to commemorate the memories of those who perished in the siege.
On a somewhat lighter note, Sunday night, the day after the 72nd anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Petersburg had its giant festival "Scarlet Sails".
The tradition started at the end of World War II when several Leningrad schools united to celebrate the end of the school year with the symbolism of the popular 1922 children's book Scarlet Sails by Alexander Grin, which is the story of two young lovers.
The main event, preceded by a series of concerts and other events, is a lights and pyrotechnics show (fire and fireworks) that highly the old, wooden frigate Standart, as it sails down the Neva river with its majestic scarlet sails.
If you click on the video link above, you'll see just how amazing and impressive a celebration it is.
Be prepared for next week's blog post as I'll be visiting Novgorod, Petergof, and the Tsars' village at Pushkin, St. Petersburg. Also, later this week, I'll recap the scavenger hunt that saw me and every other city travel around the city.
Have a great week!
Josh
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