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A brief
tour of historic and cultural St. Petersburg in Russia
St.
Petersburg is one of those cities that gets into your blood – a fascinating
city with remarkable architecture, culture and history on offer. In the
architecture, Art Nouveau, Rococo and Baroque are in evidence throughout.
The ballet, theatre and music are all an integral part of the culture of
the city.
Exeter
International will take you on an exclusive tour of the fascinating city
of St.
Petersburg and below are just some of the highlights which come highly
recommended, including Faberge eggs, mad monks and butterflies.
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The Faberge
Museum, St. Petersburg
The new
Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg hosts the world’s largest Faberge collection.
Among
the amazingly beautiful objects in the museum are objects d’art created
by
Carl Faberge for Tsars Alexander III and his son Nicholas II.
In
the museum there are nine Imperial eggs (the only museum to beat this is
the Kremlin's Armoury that hosts 10), five non-Imperial Faberge eggs and
around 4,000 other pieces created by Faberge and his fellow master craftsmen
and women in pre-revolutionary Russia.
The
work is exquisite and definitely worth the visit. |
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| Photo
Michael
E. Johnston/CC BY-NC 2.0 |
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Photo
Michael
E. Johnston/CC BY-NC 2.0 |
Yusupov
Palace and the Murder of the “Mad Monk” Grigory Rasputin
| The
Yusupov Palace is where Prince Felix Yusupov finally managed to kill the
un-killable “mad monk” Grigory Rasputin.
Well
worth a visit in its own right, the palace is a beautiful place with gorgeous
and opulent rooms on display, which can be toured with an audio guide at
your own pace.
However,
there is one area of the Palace that has to be seen separately at an extra
small charge, and tickets are only on sale after 5 p.m. The Rasputin exhibit
is literally in the basement where he was murdered. It took several attempts
by the Prince to finally reach the goal of killing Rasputin who he poisoned
and then threw into an icy canal.
If
you haven’t heard about him before, it is probably a good idea to read
up on Grigory
Rasputin before visiting the palace.
While
a little on the cheesy side, this part of the tour comes highly recommended,
along with the creepy looking wax mannequins on display. You have to watch
a short movie in Russian (with no sub-titles) before heading down into
the basement.
However,
normally a tour guide is on hand to assist those who cannot speak the lingo
by explaining what the various wall labels in the basement mean. |
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Photo
Grigory Rasputin by Karl
Bulla/Public Domain
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Nabokov's Butterflies
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Vladimir Nabokov, the well
known author of “Lolita” and “Pale Fire” was not just a skillful writer,
but also an active collector of butterflies.
Nabokov has gained posthumous
respect for his scientific research into these fascinating insects and
his home has been turned into the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg.
Nabokov has been collecting
butterflies since the age of six and it became an obsession with him. While
not all his fascinating collections still exist, some of the exhibits are
located in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Harvard
and Cornell Museums, the Zoological Museum in Lausanne and the Nabokov
Museum on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg, the place he was
born in 1899.
Fans of Nabokov’s literature
will recognize the house from regular appearances in his books. |
| Photo
by Alex
Bakharev/Public Domain |
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