When you feel cold and stony and lonely in your heart,
Come to the stairs of Hermitage to join a real art.
Without bread and water, without any rest,
Atlantis hold the sky on their mighty hands.
À. Gorodnitsky
The square in front of the Winter Palace takes the same place in Petersburg as the Charles' bridge in Prague or Mile Museum in New-York: no visitor can pass it out. Unlike the Senate square and the Stock Exchange square the Palace Square is not so open to winds from the Neva-river, so it is attractive any time. 
The Alexander's column in the centre of the square was designed by Auguste Montferrand. For two years hundreds of stonemasons were working up a granite monolith on the square delivered from Vyborg. Opened on August 30, 1834 in honour to Alexander I the monument is purposefully higher than a Vendome column in Paris built in honour to Bonaparte's victories. Both Alexander and Vendome columns are a paraphrase of the Traian column in Rome. As we know the column is not dug into the earth and it is not fixed on the foundation. It stands exceptionally due to precise calculations and its own weight. A legend says that a box of champagne was buried in the basis of the column so that it stands eternally without exposing to inclination or immersion.
There is an angel's figure with a cross on the peak of the column. The celestial's face possesses a portrait resemblance of Alexander I. This figure is again slightly higher than Napoleon on the Vendome column. The angel tramples a snake symbolising a defeated enemy.
The Winter Palace – the main residence of the Russian Emperors – was ordered by Elizaveta Petrovna to Rastrelli. It is the fifth stone Emperors' Palace on the Neva and the second one built by F. Rastrelli (the previous one was built for Anna Ioanovna). Beginning from the times of Peter I the Emperors kept expanding and improving their permanent habitation destroying the previous and building a new Palace. Elizabeth had not lived to see the building was completed. Peter III was the first who entered the Winter Palace. And only Catherine the Great, a founder of the Hermitage museum situated here nowadays, started to develop it.
The majority of people give the name 'Hermitage' to the Winter Palace, which is not correct. However most visitors enter the museum through the Jordan entrance of the former tsar's residence. The private evenings inside the Palace where only confidants could be present were called hermitage (‘shelter for recluses' in French). In 1768 the Small Hermitage (Maly Hermitage) was completely assigned for such meetings. The Empress guests were contemplating a collection of works of art which began from 225 paintings belonged to Berlin banker Gotskovsky who paid a credit granted by the Russian court this way. Catherine II and her successors including Nikolay I always tried to expand Hermitage collection purchasing not only new paintings and sculptures but engravings, draws, cameos, goods made up of glass, porcelain, bronze as well. An archaeological collection was also significant. 
Marble footsteps of the luxurious Jordan staircase are leading to front halls of the Winter Palace (the staircase was restored after a fire in 1837 according to the original design of F. Rastrelli built the Palace in 1757-1762). From its upper site you can go straight to the suite with the windows facing the Neva river usually occupied with temporary exhibitions. In the end of the suite there is a Malachite room; its decoration designed by A. Brullov enchantingly combines deep green mineral with abundant gilding and mirrors. Besides it there is a Small Dining-room where the Provisional government had meetings in 1917 and where they were arrested on the night of October 26. Turning left from the Jordan staircase and passing by the Field-Marshal hall (with the Elizabeth's gilded carriage) you go to the Peter's hall first (Petrovsky zal, architect A. Montferrand), then – to the Heraldic hall (Gerbovy zal, architect V. Stasov) and after it passing by the Gallery of 1812 closed for restoration you reach the Throne Georgian hall (Georgievsky zal, restored by Stasov, designed by J. Quarenghi). Later on you may choose according to your preferences – classical art, archaeology, modern art – it's just impossible to explain everything performed in the Hermitage, no matter how long our walk is because in this case it has to last for years… 
However your impression of the Hermitage will remain incomplete if you don't visit a restaurant with the same name 'Ermitajny' (Hermitage). The entrance to the restaurant is situated in the General Staff Arch combining two long buildings which accommodate the General Staff, the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Arch is decorated on top with the Victory chariot and figures of two warriors symbolising the power of Russia in honour of the victory in the war of 1812. 
If you are slightly bored with the imperial luxury and solemnity, it's time to go to 'NEP' restaurant in order to experience a different luxury – a secret luxury of the 20-s of the twentieth century, magnificent feasts of postrevolutionary financiers and underground millionaires. Briefly: 'NEP' – is a small voyage to the past, an opportunity to feel like a true bourgeois in a good sense of this word. The interior of the building and all accessories were sorted out according to the fashion of those times taken from the pictures found in archives. Not only images, furniture, atmosphere has been managed to reconstitute but also music tenderly loved by our proletarian bourgeoisie. 'NEP' has its own professional cabaret with a classical red stage. And a cuisine is exactly bourgeois here.
|
