The Nabokov House Museum stands only minutes away from Russia’s famous Saint Isaac’s Cathedral on Bol’shaya Morskaya utlitsa in St Petersburg. The only signs advertising the museum are two small stone cravings that identify the building as Nabokov’s former home. Otherwise, the museum is a hidden literary treasure, available to those that know where to […]
Just outside the walls of the mighty Peter Paul Fortress, on a Neva River beach, is a different kind of architectural grandeur. The Sand Sculpture Festival (Фестиваль песчаных скульптур) takes places every summer here in central St. Petersburg. Each year has a theme; this year (2018) the theme was “World Masterpieces,” and the festival […]
As the spring semester was winding down in St. Petersburg, my fellow classmates and I all wanted to have one last stroll around the city. Luckily for us, SRAS had another idea in mind: a boat tour! Our local coordinator informed us that we’d have an hour tour that would take us around the canals […]
The Museum of Soviet Arcade Games (Музей советских игровых автоматов) is a private museum founded by friends Alexander Stakhanov, Alexander Vugman, and Maxim Pinigin in 2007. Initially this was just thier hobby and they made the restored and working games open only by reservation on Wednesdays. However, the games proved wildly popular. Eventually, they had […]
There is a glaring omission of Russian artistic tradition in Western classrooms. I believe there are a few immediate reasons for this vacancy, the most obvious being the political conflict which has long possessed our two countries. I’ve long believed that the study of Art History is just as useful as a degree in political […]
The Art and Museums Program was a highly fulfilling and engaging experience, combining guided museum tours with independent research. I would recommend this program to any student who is interested in Russian art, culture, and history, and who is not afraid to be a little adventurous. The program will have a lasting effect on my […]
Over the summer of 2011, Aleksandra Yevteyeva studied art at the Hermitage through SRAS’s Art and Museums in Russia program. According to Yevteyeva, the experience was an immeasurably valuable one, which deepened her appreciation for world art. In her own words, it was “a most invigorating and intellectually prosperous process all on its own. [. […]
The easiest way to sum up what I learned the most about in the Art and Museums in Russia program is to give it a single word: organization. This includes both the literal principles of organization in museums and the more figurative organization of ideas. The organization of museums is a very straightforward thing on […]
Saint Petersburg has been called home for several renowned artists and musicians, including figures in classical music. Admirers of Russian opera and orchestra should pay a visit to the apartment museum of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a prolific composer and member of the “Russian Five.” This nationalistic group of 19th century composers, which included Mily Balakirev, Modest […]
