On beautiful, sunny days in St. Petersburg, many Russians head to the beautiful shaded areas of the city, such as three popular parks and gardens that make up a trifecta just off Nevsky Prospekt. These gardens and parks are Mikhailovsky Garden (Михайловский сад), Field of Mars (Марсово поле/Marsovo Polye), and The Summer Garden (Летний сад/Letnii Sad), all originally […]
If someone asks you to describe “Russian,” the first images that probably come to mind include burly Cossacks, round babushkas with head coverings, matryoshkas, etc. While these depictions partially represent Russia, the country includes a variety of ethnic groups (and one included many, many, more before the fall of the USSR). The interaction of these […]
Although it has been more than 20 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there are still traces of its legacy throughout St. Petersburg, whether it is an old emblem on a building or a sign referring to Leningrad, St. Petersburg’s former Soviet name. One such remnant is the Kirov Museum, dedicated to the life of Sergei […]
Art and Museums in Russia, a program of The School of Russian and Asian Studies, has given me some amazing opportunities in the past two weeks. The official program itself stops at nothing to expose students to as much of St. Petersburg’s art, architecture, and culture as possible. But when I asked program director Elena […]
The paradox of studying abroad is that so much is at your fingertips, yet there’s never enough time to see it all. But what if you could see all of Russia in one day? Now you can with a visit to The Grand Maket Rossiya (The Grand Layout of Russia), a museum based around a […]
New Holland / Новая Голландия Embankment of the Admiralteskiy Canal, 2 Metro Admiralteskaya Open daily from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. After returning from his travels abroad to Holland and a stint studying shipbuilding there, Peter the Great decided to establish a little bit of Holland in his own country. Conceived as a military port […]
Stirka 26 Kazanskaya Ulitsa / Sennaya Ploshad metro Coffee stop. Art space. Performance venue. Hipster haunt. Laundromat to the stars (and commoners alike). Stirka somehow manages to be all these things. Stirka, full name “Café-Laundromat ‘Stirka’ 40 Degrees,” began as a project by Anke Nowottne, who created the spot as her graduation project from the […]
There’s a lot to be said about the highly political, oftentimes tenuous relationship between artists and art galleries throughout the Modern age. It can be argued that this ambivalent relationship has its origins at the founding of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris in 1648. For centuries, an artist’s reputation was vaulted […]
St. Petersburg has always been Russia’s “window to the West.” At the time of its construction in the eighteenth century, Peter the Great envisioned a city encompassing the greatest architectural achievements of Western Europe: the romantic island-canal systems of Venice and Amsterdam, luxurious baroque architecture, and a court rivaling that of the French in power […]
