Hermitage I

This complex was built after Peter the Great’s death by his daughters: Czarina Elizabeth and Czarina Catherine II. The complex involves their winter palace and annex buildings (boy is this an understatement) to house their artwork collection. The whole complex is the Hermitage Museum, and the artwork sections dwarf the living quarters, which is called the winter palace.

The whole complex contains over 3,000,000 pieces of art. Someone figured out that if you wanted to look at each piece for half a minute, you’d spend 10 years, assuming that you did not stop to eat or sleep.

The Hermitage has: 2 of the 10 existing Da Vinci’s, 26 Rembrandts, Rafael, Monet, Renoir, Matisse, van Gogh, Gauguin.

They had 3 rooms where we were not permitted to take photos. (I was surprised that they allowed photos almost everywhere…but avoid flash on paintings.) These rooms had painting the Russians took from the Nazi’s after WWII. If there is a descendant’s claim within 50 years, the paints must be returned. I suspect they do not want photos so that it does not help possible claims to be made.

I cannot possibly capture this place in text or photos. I’ll have 3 sections of photos and add some text, but it was way too big and over-the-top to capture it in this simple blog.

The scale of this structure is hard to comprehend. Our guide told us after the tour that we had walked over 2 miles within the building…and we never went outside! There are over 1000 rooms and over 100 stair cases. And a “room” can mean a room that is 100 feet long, 50 feet wide and 30 feet tall.

One passenger offered the observation that if Bill Gates and Warren Buffett decided to pool their entire assets and buy the Hermitage, they would not have sufficient capital. I had to think about that for a while, but I think they may be correct.

Photos:

1) Exterior shot from across the Neva River. I did not even capture the whole width of one side.

2) One of 3 entryway stair cases. This gives you a sense of the scale.

3) This “jar” is from a single piece of lapis. Kathleen has a piece of lapis for a necklace piece.