St. Petersburg, Russia – 09/05

(Michelle) We went out today with Rebecca and Dan to check out some of the local sites. The first stop was the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera). An odd little museum that starts off talking about Eskimos, Native Americans (neither the Eskimo or Native American exhibits had any English), some African Tribes (translated fully in English), and some other rooms like that. Then you walk into the main exhibit of the museum, at least I assume it is the main exhibit as it was part of the original museum created by Peter the Great in 1714. It is a room of crazy deformed things, embalmed forever so we can all see the preserved freaks that Peter spent much time studying. A lot of two headed fetuses, both human and animal, and other odd items included. Peter worked with Dutch doctors to try to get the message out that “freaks” weren’t so abnormal.

Keeping the focus on dead historical bodies, we moved on to the Peter and Paul Cathedral, to see the final resting place of nearly all of the pre-revolutionary Russian Tsars (with the exception of Peter II and Ivan VI). The cathedral is actually in the Peter and Paul Fortress with other activities, but unfortunately they are all closed on Wednesdays.

We also took a stroll through the Summer Garden (the Garden outside the Summer Palace), looked at a market outside of the “Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood” and we went into the Kazan Cathedral. Compared to The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, the Kazan Cathedral is not spectacular in the same sense, but it is still a church that holds mass and we arrived just before the 6 pm mass. Women cover their head in the Russian Orthodox church, so I headed towards the rear to stay out of sight. The thing that struck me in this church was that there were no seats… Since this was the only church we actually went into in Russia, I am not sure if it the standing business was common (yes it’s the norm, TJ comment). There was also a lot of singing, but not singing like I am used to in recent US Catholic churches. There is no separate choir, but the mass is sung by the priest. I have heard a priest sing before (almost always off key), but generally it was only for certain specific parts of the mass. We only stayed for about 10 minutes, but he was singing in a rather monotone fashion the whole time.

(TJ) The Kunstkamera should be a must see on any tour of St. Petersburg, it was what I imagine it would be like to go to Barnum and Baily’s house of freaks. I was pretty surprised that these pickled things had kept for so long. Apparently it’s a secret embalming formula that has been lost to time. Russians have a talent when it comes to preserving dead things and putting them on public display. The curiosity room also had some rarities such as unicorn horns, mermaids and alien bodies (just kidding). There was also a room devoted to Peter the Great. It had various outfits and some of his personal effects. I think he had trained in the Netherlands as a shipwright so we saw his carpentry kit and also saw some metal that he had forged since he also trained as a blacksmith. They also had his death mask which was interesting to compare to the various portraits and movies. The anthropology portion of the museum was also very interesting. The display’s on Eskimo’s other Indians was impressive and very old. I’m not sure how they got all this Eskimo and Indian garb and tools and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know. They had all sorts Eskimo harpoons made of whale bone, capes made of seals, rain ponchos that were almost clear made from what I have no idea and the Eskimos themselves (don’t worry they were manaquins not stuffed Eskimos). The only complaint for this portion was that it was all in Russian, how dare they!, we could only make hypothesis on what some of the stranger items were used for. Actually, my other complaint is the pricing structure, foreigners pay double the local price, so it was like $10 to go in. It was worth it, but $5 would have been better.

Later in the day everyone wanted to see the Church of the spilled blood that I had already seen (attached is a picture of us in front of the spilled blood church). It was still cool to look at the second time around. On our way back we stopped at the Kazan Cathedral. This church was built to honor Russia’s victory over Napolean. I’d call the church rather dark. On the walls are bejeweled portraits of Christ, disciples and saints. Most people buy candles and walk around the church lighting candles and praying to these pictures. Despite it being built to honor the victory the only thing that I could find in the church that related to the victory were the captured battle standards that were in one corner of the church that have probably been there for 190 years.