The previous installment of Husam’s travelogue can be found here.

In the early morning, I took a walk across St. Petersburg that would take me all day, crossing the waters, landing on islands, and visiting both well-known and lesser-know tourist sites, not to mention discovering hidden surprises that the city still had up its sleeve.

I started on Nevsky Prospect and went up over two bridges, each adorned with a different sculptural theme. I saw a lovely church built in a style very similar to that of St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow! Hmmm… Wasn’t the original architect killed? – I wondered

I then quickly realized that St. Petersburg didn’t even exist when he was alive. Whatever his destiny was, he and his vibrant style were revived when the St. Petersburg church was built in the late nineteenth century.

This Church On Spilled Blood, as it is called, was built on the spot where on the first of March 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated. His successor commissioned a magnificent church to commemorate his father in the Russian revivalist style.

A park nearby lead me to the Arts Square, where the Russian Museum is located and another weird story of murder was played out in the beginning of the 1800’s. The Mikhaylovskiy Castle was built on orders of Paul I, who was obsessed with the possibility of assassination. The castle was surrounded by moats and draw bridges and supplied with secret underground passages to help in rescue. Alas, all those precautions were futile in the face of destiny, and he was murdered only 40 days after moving into his fortified haven!

At the moat I saw many young Russians throwing coins at small statue under one of the bridges nearby, driven by the belief that their wishes could be granted if their coin balanced itself on the statue without falling into the river Moyka, a tradition that has endured since since long ago. I didn’t try my luck; after all, what more can I wish for? Read More »

The previous installment of Husam’s travelogue can be found here.

Like most people, I have heard a lot about the Hermitage, but never in my wildest dreams expected it to be as stupendous as it turned out to be. Everyone knows the Hermitage is grand, not everyone realizes what “grand” truly means.

The museum is located on the waterfront, surrounded by statues. Behind it is a vast open square in the middle of which is the largest podium made of a single piece of granite in the world. The palace itself was built to host the collections of art and sculpture and curiosities that the Russian Empire both produced and collected, beginning at the time of Catherine the Great.

Nothing was spared as successive Russian monarchs tried their best to benefit their country by sending agents to gather and assemble precious collections of art, as well as commission Russian and international artists and architects to design and build. The mere size of the St. Petersburg museum made me realize that at least several other world museums can easily fit inside this gargantuan wonderland.

Once you enter the maze of the Hermitage, even a compass or the latest GPS system, even a laser-guided tour, will not save you from getting lost in its vastness. Your mind will wander in its labyrinth and your heart will jump in every new room you encounter. It is simply endless.

The Hermitage boasts huge exhibits centered Romans, Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian civilizations, rooms that not many people know about. Add to that precious collections of paintings from every epoch and every school of art. Add carvings, sculptures, artifacts, tapestries, and so on. This is beside the fact that the presentation itself is just as priceless:

Each new hall and gallery has a different theme. The floors vary from marble mosaics to wooden parquet of every conceivable color and design, created with loving care, like a painting that you can walk on. Read More »

Check out parts one and two of Husam’s travelogue.

I had a slow start on the third day of my Russian adventures, but did finally make it to the Moscow History Museum.

This place tells the story of human civilization through four million exhibits, spanning thousands of years from the Stone Age and on. The museum puts a lot of emphasis on the various peoples and cultures that comprise the Russian Federation.

For that matter, a stroll down any Moscow street can be a very informative ethnographic experience. Russian citizens’ backgrounds are extremely varied. My friend Renata for example has Russian (Slavic) and Tatar blood running through her veins, while other friend Dzera is half-Russian and half-Ossetian. On my trip, I met people of German, Baltic, Swami, and Central Asian heritage, among many others.

All of these ethnic groups and more are represented in the Museum. It was peculiar to see the personal belongings of past czars and church patriarchs next to shamanic tools and flint stone daggers, such contrast!

However, one of the exhibits that especially moved me was devoted to the late Imam Shamel of the Caucasus. There was his portrait in oil, as well as his personal dress and kamas (daggers) next to official letters handwritten and signed by him. To my astonishment, the language of these documents was Arabic and not Chechen, despite the fact that they were official written orders and directions to his followers and agents. The history of interaction between Russian and Arab cultures had never seemed more tangible to me as it did when I stood next to that exhibit. Read More »

”A riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma” – these are a few words that Churchill used to describe the many faces of that continent of a country called Russia. That riddle has always, always made me curious. The tickle became an itch that soon turned into an obsession to know more and experience what Russia has to offer.

I just had to pack and explore that massively huge country spanning half of the globe, encompassing hundreds of ethnicities, religions, and languages. A country that pioneered the space age and made great leaps in medicine and other fields of science, while its still-existing shamans practice their own medicine. A place that has historically believed itself as the successor to the great Byzantine Empire and eastern orthodox Christianity yet has a Muslim minority of about 20 million strong, not to mention Jews, Buddhists, Pagans, and Animists. A nation that contributed to the human civilization countless works of art, literature and music, science, the spirit of discovery and that colonial drive that put Europe in the lead for the last two centuries of human history. An empire that died and disintegrated then regenerated and reinvented itself over and over again. Who could resist? Not I. Read More »