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Russia Visit 2009
Saturday in Moscow
Swan Lake as performed by the Sixth Form
Swan Lake as performed by the Sixth Form
Friday: arrival in Moscow with a 2 hour trip through grinding Moscow traffic during rush hour. Similar to London at the same time but drivers have no regard whatsoever that traffic lanes exist!
Checked into Hotel Cosmos which is on the north side of Moscow with amazing views over the city with the trade centre just below. It is a soviet era hotel with architecture and service to match. Enough said...but perfectly adequate as we were not planning to be within its precincts that often!

Saturday: tour of Moscow including Red Square, GUM store and New Maiden Convent famous for:
1. place where Tchaikovsky derived inspiration to write Swan Lake
2. place where various tsars incarcerated wives/daughters/sisters etc who had become surplus to requirements
3. cemetery containing graves of some very eminent Russians including Chekhov, Stanislavski and Khrushchev. Very interesting.
Saturday afternoon was spent in the Tretyakov Gallery which houses a vast collection of Russian art from medieval icons to 20thC.
We should have gone bowling at the hotel that evening but person we booked with an hour earlier denied any knowledge and let all his friends in instead, none of whom paid as far as we could see! However, with no language skills there was little we could do. The girls were fine as they were tired so we trooped over to the 24h mini-mart which seemed to them just as entertaining. They had to stock up with food for the overnight train the following evening in any case!

Sunday Morning in Moscow
Upper Sixth at The Kremlin
Upper Sixth at The Kremlin
St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, GUM Store (loo stop!) and finally Kremlin visit including The Armoury which contains a tremendous collection of costumes, thrones, carriages, gold, silver and of course the world's biggest collection of Faberge eggs; again the girls were hooked. We made a short tour around the outside and visited one of the many cathedrals within the Kremlin curtillage where we learnt about Russian Orthodox church architecture.
Upper Sixth historians enjoying lunch
Upper Sixth historians enjoying lunch
Sunday Afternoon in Moscow
In the afternoon we split into two groups. The U6 historians were guests of U6 historian Tanya and her mother who managed to get us tickets to see the Diamond Fund in the Kremlin; this is a very impressive collection of the most exquisite jewellery amassed by various tsars, nobles over the years and more recent items. It felt like the sort of place James Bond would find himself getting into a spot of bother! Afterwards we were taken to lunch in a fantastic restaurant just off Red Square where we celebrated Tanya's 18th birthday. Thank you!
Just one of several stunning Moscow Metro stations
Just one of several stunning Moscow Metro stations
The rest of the Sixth Form went souvenir shopping with Miss Jeans and Miss Potter and the two guides where they bought the ubiquitous dolls. We reconvened at the Cosmos, checked out and went on a Moscow Metro tour where we visited about 6 stations, each one different but all celebrating the glories of socialism! As Stalin said 'the people cannot live in palaces but they can travel in them' and he was right as many stations are built from marble, decorated with works of art and are lit by crystal chandeliers. Trains arrive one every minute! We then repaired to Red Square, beautifully illuminated with St Basil's cathedral seeming to float and the giant ruby red stars atop The Kremlin glowing in the black sky
Red Square by night; very cold but very beautiful!
Red Square by night; very cold but very beautiful!
Red Square by Night
After our Metro tour we spent our last hour in Red Square soaking up the atmosphere and taking lots of pictures. We then boarded the train which would speed us through the night over 800 kms to St Petersburg.
The Smolny Institute
The Smolny Institute
Monday Morning: Arrival in St Petersburg
Monday: arrived in St Petersburg at 07.45 to be met by the glamorous Tanya who was our guide 2 years ago.Despite being tired and largely feeling unkempt there was a huge appreciation that we had arrived in a city which looked more orderly, clean and beautiful than Moscow. When we turned a corner in the coach and caught sight of The Winter palace for the first time, there was an audible intake of breath...this has to be one of the most impressive man-made structures in the world, especially seen for the first time.
the Lower Sixth look hapy after a decent breakfast!
the Lower Sixth look hapy after a decent breakfast!
Better than Breakfast at Tiffany's: Hotel Pribaltiyskaya!
But the BEST part was yet to come; our arrival at the Hotel Pribaltiyskaya which had undergone a total refurbishment since 2007 and is now really quite swish. From the outside it is an unattractive,grey, charmless Soviet era concrete monolith but inside it is all terrazzo and sparkle ( Russians seem to have a penchant for bling!). and the breakfast...I cannot describe how good that first buffet breakfast was.
Dinner at the Nikolaevsky Palace
Dinner at the Nikolaevsky Palace
Monday Evening in St Petersburg
The rest of the day was spent touring St Petersburg founded in 1703 by Peter the Great as the new capital city. The architecture is tremendously impressive. We finished up at the Peter and Paul fortress where most of the Romanoffs are buried including the last of the dynasty whose remains were interred there in 1998.
Dinner was at the Nikolai Palace where we dined in sumptuous surroundings, served by 18th C costumed waiters whilst a pianist from the St Petersburg Conservatoire played. Dinner was followed by another highlight of the week; the Russian Folklore Show. This was 90 minutes of sheer delight where we were entertained by Russian singers and dancers; we LOVED this show and a sizeable number agreed it was the best evening EVER! There was a point when Ems was 'fell upon' by a man dressed up as two dancers (this was part of the act, don't worry she was fine!). Later on the way back Tania, our guide taught us the traditional Russian song Kalinka Malinka (she got, in return a rendition of Non Nobis!).
Waiting for the start of the ballet at the Hermitage Theatre.
Waiting for the start of the ballet at the Hermitage Theatre.
Tuesday: The Hermitage
What can be said about this museum which can do it justice? We walked about 5 miles through its corridors and only saw a fraction of it. We skipped the earlier pieces and started with the Renaissance and moved through da Vinci, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens to Renoir, Monet, Gaugain, Matisse etc etc! Miss Potter took a small group to see the classical collection. We made sure this year that the girls had some undirected time so that they could revisit any areas of special interest to them.
That same evening we returned to The Hermitage Theatre to watch a delightful production of Swan Lake; I kept having to pinch myself to remind myself that tomorrow evening I would be back in Surrey!). We returned to the hotel admiring the beauty of St Petersburg by night , singing Kalinka Malinka!

The Lower Sixth in the Hall of Mirrors
The Lower Sixth in the Hall of Mirrors
Wednesday: Tsarskoe Selo and home
The Tsars' Summer Palace at Pushkin which is rather like Versailles is to Paris Once again it is breathtakingly beautiful with rooms in the main part based on that well-known architecural style, rococo on speed! Catherine the Great who inherited the Palace from Empress Elizabeth (Peter the Great's favourite daughter) found it rather too vulgar and so her wing of the palace is more low key arranged in the classical style with lost of pastel shades and decorated more in the style of Wedgwood than Liberace! The highlight is the Amber Room built entirely out of...amber!; originally a gift of Frederick I of Prussia to Peter the Great.

And then back to the airport via the blini eatery and home.
I think we all agreed that Russia is a fantastic destination with something for everyone to enjoy; art, history, music, architecture. This was a wonderful trip enjoyed by staff and students. We are already planning for 2011!

Mrs Gill David: Head of History April 2009