Snippets & Happenings: Spontaneous Trip to St. Petersburg: Day 3

On our third and last day, Nastya and I went to the Russian Museum of art. Our friend, Pushkin, welcomed us. Apparently, this year the museum is celebrating its 115 year anniversary.

My favorite artist in this museum, which was determined during my last visit here a year and a half ago, is Айвазовский, who painted the following two gorgeous paintings of the turmoils of the sea.

In person, the sea looks incredibly realistic and life-like - breathtaking! (I spent about twenty minutes just looking at these two paintings alone.)

Then, of course, there was the Woman Picking Grapes - my mom's favorite from the Lotto game we have at home, which we bought at this museum many years ago.

This is a small part of the painting The Last Day of Pompeii by Карл Брюллов. Nastya had studied this painting before and told me that this particular couple was her favorite. Turns out that back in those days, brides wore red wedding gowns, not white like today, and also flower wreathes on their heads. (The Russian word веньчать, meaning 'to wed' comes from the same root as the word венок, which is the word for this flower headdress. Interesting connection!!) The man holding up the dying bride, Nastya says, has the most genuinely horrified, grieving look on his face - the most exquisite painting craftsmanship.

As for me, I prefer the more light-hearted paintings, so I really enjoyed Константин Коровин's work. It reminded me of a Russian-version of the French Impressionists.

And of course, we couldn't miss Пётр Первый's icy stare.

Because the Russian Museum isn't that large of a collection, we still had some spare time once we finished enjoying the art, so we decided to walk around and for the last time take in some of the wintery St. Petersburg.

Then we headed to the metro, which I now realize is much further under ground than the metro in Moscow. The escalator ride can take up to a full two minutes!

In this picture, you can't even see the end of it!