Archive · Monarchies · Saint Petersburg · Humour
Napoleon Sent Two Letters to Saint Petersburg and Received No Reply
Worse than importunate people are only importunate emperors
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Books · Monarchies · People · Saint Petersburg
Within ten days of Catherine II's accession to the throne, she had invited Denis Diderot to come to Russia
Within ten days of Catherine II's accession to the throne, she had invited Denis Diderot to come to Russia. She even proposed that he move the publication of the "Encyclopédie", which kept running into bans in France, to Riga or Saint Petersburg. But Diderot did not
Archive · Books · Monarchies · Society · Saint Petersburg
"There is no power on earth more absolute than that of the sovereigns of Russia: throughout their empire their will is the only law; obedience the only morality
"There is no power on earth more absolute than that of the sovereigns of Russia: throughout their empire their will is the only law; obedience the only morality. Yet we shall see their pitiable condition, and how their power, having overstepped every limit prescribed to men, has destroyed itself
Aristocracy · Mores · People · Saint Petersburg
The open dinners of Count Alexander Sergeyevich Stroganov were the stuff of legend: his table was prized not only by colleagues and kinsmen but by members of the imperial family and by distinguished foreign guests, such as the painter Vigée Le Brun
The open dinners of Count Alexander Sergeyevich Stroganov were the stuff of legend: his table was prized not only by colleagues and kinsmen but by members of the imperial family and by distinguished foreign guests, such as the painter Vigée Le Brun. At times this influential and wealthy gentleman found
Coming Up · Archive · Architecture · Museums · Saint Petersburg
An exhibition marking the centenary of the incorporation of the Winter Palace into the State Hermitage is devoted to the reconstruction of the Hermitage buildings and its chief architect Alexander Sivkov
An exhibition marking the centenary of the incorporation of the Winter Palace into the State Hermitage is devoted to the reconstruction of the Hermitage buildings and its chief architect Alexander Sivkov. Its unique photographs show the remodelling of the palace interiors, the hidden side of architectural structures, the laying of
Art · Museums · Rome · Saint Petersburg
The strange appearance of the elephants in Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's painting "The Triumph of Manius Curius Dentatus" in the Hermitage is explained by the fact that the artist had never seen the animal and imagined it from written descriptions and eyewi
The strange appearance of the elephants in Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's painting "The Triumph of Manius Curius Dentatus" in the Hermitage is explained by the fact that the artist had never seen the animal and imagined it from written descriptions and eyewitness accounts. With that in mind,
NB! · Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg
Eros Stringing His Bow
Eros stringing his bow. The Hermitage. Roman marble copy of the 2nd century AD after a Greek bronze original of the second half of the 4th century BC.
Art · Education · People · Saint Petersburg · Ethnography
Paintings by Fedot Sychkov (1870-1958), Honoured Art Worker of the RSFSR and People's Artist of the Mordovian ASSR
Sychkov was born into a poor peasant family and finished the three-class zemstvo school in his village. He began to draw in an icon-painting workshop. As so often happens with village artists, having learned his craft from an icon painter in town, Sychkov returned to his native village
Architecture · Books · Monarchies · Society · Saint Petersburg
In 1922 a quatrain by Demyan Bedny was carved on the pedestal of the monument to Alexander III:
My son and my father were executed in their lifetime, And I have reaped the lot of posthumous ignominy: I stand here as a cast-iron scarecrow for a country That has cast off for ever the yoke of autocracy. Literal translation
Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg
Jan Fabre's "Folly Standing on Death", 2016, and Frans Snyders's "Concert of the Birds", 1630-1640
The birds did not believe the owl, which warned them of the hunter's approach, and paid for it with their lives. Fabre looked at the subject of Aesop's fable in his own way. The work was created for the exhibition "Jan Fabre. Knight of Despair
Archaeology · Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg
The Calvatone Victory
The Calvatone Victory. Ancient Roman statue, 2nd century AD. The Hermitage. The inscription VICTORIAE AUG / ANTONINI ET VERI / MARCUS SATRIUS MAIOR records the victory of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus over the barbarians. Until 2019 the sculpture was not exhibited; until the 2010s it lay in storage altogether
NB! · Art · Museums · Saint Petersburg