When you are woken by a symphony of different alarms, you know what time it is when you’re on the SPARK study tour. It is 7:45, time to get up and eat your breakfast. The first observation we made was that we were missing one of our roommates. After retracing last night’s events we came to the conclusion he might have gotten lucky.
Remembering yesterday’s breakfast, none of us was looking forward to this one. Luckily we got something different: according to some a huge improvement, to others another disappointment. The breakfast consisted of cold, sweet, rice porridge and a piece of cake. With breakfast over, we started walking towards the Hermitage. After passing by some marvelously designed churches and governmental buildings we reached the massive museum.
The Hermitage has a big square and an obelisk in front of it. On this square there where multiple characters of your favourite cartoons, including the zebra of Madagascar and the bunny of Zoöpolis. There were also people walking around in 18th century getup and a multitude of living statues. After a short briefing we walked the last few steps to enter the Hermitage.
Featuring several grand entrances, halls, ballroom floors and different galleries from the time it was inhabited as a palace, the Hermitage covers multiple acres.
The gatehouse we used as entrance, leading to the central courtyard, had two gateways that were both several meters wide and high. In the courtyard there was an old oak trees providing shadow for those who where standing in the queue. Although there were hundreds of people queued up in several lines, we only had to wait for around twenty to thirty minutes before we could enter. Visitors in front of the column where let through in small groups, with the exception us since we where let through as one group. Inside we experienced a bit of Russian efficiency: six ticket offices, of which three where dedicated to our queue. Even though we had a signed letter from our university stating we where all students, they had to check all our individual campus cards!
With this out of the way, we passed through a metal detector to enter the museum. Somewhere between being let through into the building and passing the metal detector the group splintered and I was now with two others. We were free to roam the museum on our own, so we did. In the first room we had a choice: stay on the ground floor or follow the staircase upstairs to a ceiling of the greatest grandeur I’ve only ever seen in English countryside manors. We chose to follow the staircase upstairs, hoping to see more of these elaborate designs. The ceiling had a depiction of multiple men and women, of which one I remember being Cupid. All of the carvings decorating this ceiling, which was everywhere except the few squared meters that wasn’t painted, were covered in gold leaf.
Looking at our map, we found out we could go to French culture, to the temporary exposition of modern art, Dutch masters or palace interiors. We agreed unanimously that we didn’t come here for modern art. So we chose one of the other two directions at random. It turned out that multiple groups of tourists chose the same direction (Palace interiors) around the same time. Now we had to shuffle slowly while enjoying a tour guide explaining all the wonderful creations and decorations that were present in the next few halls. A big advantage we had over the Chinese, Korean and Japanese groups surrounding us was our height: We could see everything since we where all two heads taller than the tallest of their groups. After three rooms we came to the conclusion that although we where able to learn a lot about the different pieces of art, we decided that being told what Tsar had build by whom was not what we where interested in. Thus we waved our guides and circumstantial travel companions goodbye and left, hoping to see everything before we had to leave the Hermitage for the next part of the SPARK program.
Touring our way though different galleries we saw ancient masters, tapestries, vases, medieval armours, weapons and a large cage containing a golden peacock and owl. Not only the peacock and owl, but everything in the cage was covered in gold. This beautiful object was in fact a clock! There was a video playing next to the whole automaton showing what it did when wound up every hour. Moving past another grand stairway we noticed, while squirming past another group tour, that a vase was labeled with some Russian text, the English translations was simply “vase”.
Now we found this weird: no explanation from what period, make or crafter the vase was. So we started to pay a bit more attention. Passing through several more galleries containing Dutch masters such as Potter, Rubens and Rembrandt, we saw various vases labelled exactly the same way.
We then visited the galleries that where filled with ancient statues from Greece. Some missing fingers others their “nose” while one statue in particular, that of Ares, had a little support for his special part, probably to lessen the chance of it breaking. No vases in this stairway.
Having finished our walk between the paintings we took another look at the map. The decision fell on Russian culture, a quieter part of the Hermitage. The paintings of Tsars and their families, diverse tapestries and modern Russian art wasn’t on the path of guided tours.
We then arrived in an area of clockworks, desks, paintings, silverware and porcelain. We wondered who had the lovely job at the end of the day and before opening to wind up the several hundreds of clock mechanisms spread throughout the Hermitage. While pondering what this man or woman would call his or her job, we found a unique exhibit. There was a vase with a description that read “Green vase with handles shaped like female heads.” We were perplexed to have found such a vase. It must be clear that this vase was a special piece in their collection.
After having walked through all of the rooms on Russian culture, we enjoyed walking through several pieces of Greek art, after which we got to the Persian and Mongolian eras. Having not much time left and almost having seen everything we decided to rush through the prehistoric era and go to the SPARK meeting point.
We revoked our decision and started back towards the exhibition after we heard about the human mummy. Having been informed by a sign that the mummy had been tattooed we spend the rest of our time trying to discover the tattoos on the body.
With only fifteen minutes left and not having had lunch yet, we decided to make haste towards a small cafe. There was a small buffet and a serving lady that wasn’t able to speak English. Afterwards we joined up with the group right on time where Stijn was telling his adventures of the previous night.
– Dirk Buijvoets
Disclaimer: we do not encourage our participants to deviate from the planned schedule. In fact, we hope that we won’t have to split up a day report like this again on our study tour.
– The SPARK Committee