Saint Petersburg - The Parnassian (Page 16)

Books · Monarchies · People · Saint Petersburg

Elizaveta Petrovna, as is well known, though a daughter of Peter the Great, was born out of wedlock, like her elder sisters Ekaterina Petrovna and Anna Petrovna: all of them were born to Catherine before the wedding in 1712 and were considered "legitimate

Elizaveta Petrovna, as is well known, though a daughter of Peter the Great, was born out of wedlock, like her elder sisters Ekaterina Petrovna and Anna Petrovna: all of them were born to Catherine before the wedding in 1712 and were considered "legitimated by marriage". Elizaveta had no

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Society · Saint Petersburg

Nicholas II before the Two Chambers of the State Duma, Winter Palace, 1906

Art · Monarchies · Museums · Saint Petersburg

Imperial Parade of the Finland Regiment of the Life Guards, Boris Kustodiev, 1906

Imperial Parade of the Finland Regiment of the Life Guards, Boris Kustodiev, 1906. Hermitage collection. The painting was commissioned by the Finland Regiment of the Life Guards on the occasion of Nicholas II's visit to the regiment and the presentation to it of its colonel-in-chief, the

Art · Museums · Heritage · Saint Petersburg

By Various Estimates, El Greco's Surviving Painted Oeuvre Today Comprises Between 137 and 300 Pictures

By various estimates, El Greco's surviving painted oeuvre today comprises between 137 and 300 pictures. Russian museums hold only 5 canvases by El Greco: 3 in the Hermitage, 1 in Nizhny Novgorod and 1 in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The first El Greco picture purchased

Faith · Art · Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg

Happy Epiphany!

Second half of the 17th century, icon “The Baptism of Christ” from the festal tier, Russian Museum collection

Archive · Art · Monarchies · Saint Petersburg

Depiction of the Great Firework Displayed in Saint Petersburg on the Evening of the New Year 1755 upon the River Neva Before the Winter House of Her Imperial Majesty

The explanatory sheet states that the great firework was given in honour of Her Imperial Majesty Elizabeth I, Autocrat of All the Russias, and in token of the most humble and most zealous congratulations on the entry into the new year from all the loyal subjects of the Russian Empire.

Faith · Books · Monarchies · Saint Petersburg

Originally, Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "Christmas Eve" was held up by the censors, because among the dramatis personae there was a tsaritsa (in Gogol's tale, Catherine II), and at that time members of the House of Romanov were forbidden to appear on the oper

Originally, Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "Christmas Eve" was held up by the censors, because among the dramatis personae there was a tsaritsa (in Gogol's tale, Catherine II), and at that time members of the House of Romanov were forbidden to appear on the operatic stage.

Coming Up · Moscow · Observations · Pop Culture · Reportage · Saint Petersburg · Humour

In a world after some irreversible catastrophe, only one Oleg Kikimora remains: a thinker shaped like a bun, wrinkled as a dried fig, who lives in a deadly bog and arranges his existence under the dictatorship of aggressive flora and…

To keep boredom at bay, Oleg Kikimora sets up his own radio station, SPGS, and with his broadcasts shatters the silence of a nature reserve in hiding, lit only by smoky skies and the occasional saluting meteorite. The radio's programme consists of conversations with subscribers, for instance an

Museums · Saint Petersburg · Ethnography · Humour

Our museum deals with the culture and way of life of the peoples of the world, and therefore does NOT display the freaks, dwarfs, giants and other monsters who amused the grandees of the eighteenth century

The essence of Peter's cabinet of curiosities, in a few sentences on the doors of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera), where the notice hung at least into the 1980s. The museum administration's message is clear enough, but one could still

Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · Saint Petersburg

"It is remarkable that in a country where white lead and rouge were in universal use among ladies, where a woman will not approach a window to beg alms without rouge, where in the very language the word red is an expression of outstanding beauty and where

Mademoiselle Vorontsova, known in marriage as Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, was the closest friend of Catherine the Great, director of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences and one of the best-educated women of her time. Among the unofficial recollections of Dashkova there is an episode about her marriage that

Art · Society · Saint Petersburg

But you did not perish in vain: what you have sown will sprout

The Decembrists. Leningrad Porcelain Factory, 1925, and we are still waiting for the shoots

Archaeology · Architecture · The East · Observations · Heritage · Society · Saint Petersburg

As for Vladimir Putin's speech today at the Cultural Forum in Saint Petersburg, besides his remark about transformers, I noticed the quotation to the effect that "cultural figures build bridges between peoples – this is a mission…

Let me remind you that terrorists blew up the arch, reconstructed by the French in the 1930s, in 2015. In April this year a visualisation of the Russian project for restoring the monument was presented at the Hermitage Theatre; it was developed at the Centre for Rescue Archaeology together with