Days 323 to 332 – Mon Sept 21 to Wed Sept 30 – Week 4+ in St. P

Week four brings more lessons at the school, this time ending off with a certificate awarded for my time there (lower intermediate!). We say goodbye and thank you to all of the staff, and take a few more days to explore the city. Pierre does a lot of exploring on his own as well and visits the museum across from the Hermitage (which is not of the Hermitage, but one of a family of Hermitage museums - confusing) to check out the exhibits - as always, it's very large, very impressive.

Together we travel to Peterhof and make a point to hunt down each of the fountains that sound interesting - a few are activated by trick rocks. You walk by it, accidentally triggering a sensor, and a few seconds later it goes off. It doesn't really catch tourists unaware since the spots are pretty popular and the soaked stones and screaming kids give it away. During my last visit, these trick fountains were covered in tiny children running around in their bathing suits - their parents had brought them to the park to enjoy the fountains and cool off from the summer heat.

This time, it's teenagers who can't get enough of it. They walk past us, dripping with water as they head away to meet their school groups or as they head back to the trick fountain for another dousing. The inside of the palace itself is smaller than I remember, and very oddly organized. There are two rooms where we are not allowed to stop and look - we are shuffled through by the "gatekeeper" before we realize this, and then aren't allowed to walk back through the room to look. Pierre sneaks back in anyway and does his best to look until he's done looking. The gatekeeper is not amused.

Within St. P, we take time to see the Yusupov Palace, which is infamous for being the place where Prince Yusupov tried to kill (several times in a row) Rasputin before he finally succeeded. The house of one of the only former private residence that we visit, and it's beautiful, from top to bottom. It was not destroyed during the war and was kept in pretty good shape during the Soviet years, and so it's all original work, and not a reconstruction. The wealth of the family is pretty obvious in every detail (including the miniature Baroque-type theater in the basement, complete with tiny orchestra pit) - they might have been even wealthier than the Tsar's family at the time. The place is a bit more bare-bones than it was during its glory years (the art collection of paintings and tapestries now belongs to the Hermitage) but the detailing that couldn't be removed - the woodwork, the plaster work and carvings - are really impressive. (there's a site with great photos of the interior here)

After a few false starts (closed for renos and holidays), we finally visit the Zoological Museum and get to see the collection of mummified mammoth carcasses:


They're one of the many really unique things that only St. P seems to have, which is why we've been so stubborn about trying to make it to the museum. The mammoths (4 in total) are a little leathery but in good shape - the rest of the exhibit is good, but some of the displays are a bit bizarre. What's best described as Vultures Eating Man's Best Friend is a personal favourite...


...as well as the displays of house pets...

...though the cat mummies behind the stuffed house cats are pretty cool.


We have a few final visit with our hosts, Tatiana and Viktor and later get together with Sergey and his friend Grigor for drinks at Loft Proekt Etazhi - a series of galleries and restaurants hosted in what used to be a bread factory (as far as I know). It's a suitably funky last night for the arty city of St. P. At the end of the night, we head home for the last time, and do some final packing.