If you accidentally step on the secret stone...
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...and just so tempt fate...
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...then you get doused with water!
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Tourists are glutton for punishment.
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The splendid gardens alone make Peterhof worth the trip. All the fountains are engineered by gravitational pull!
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Later that night, Carolyn and I go to the very cool Purga bar for a dose of what real Russians do.
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Strange animals walk on the ceiling between Heaven and Hell.
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I meet a friend of a friend Sasha, who is a Producer and Location Scout. (Sasha will move to Atlanta this fall... if anyone needs a great Atlanta-based Producer!)
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His friend Irena, an actress, just played the mother of Catherine the Great in a made-for-TV movie. (The rabbit ears are a nice touch in the "always Halloween and New Years" atmosphere at Purga).
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His Director of Photography Dmitry tries to contain the wild Sasha.
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During our drunken stroll, we encounter this arch revealing the splendid Hermitage Museum.
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We also encounter the overpriced USSR bar.
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This is a wild bunch. At 5am on a Tuesday night, we're still going strong... and I should note that both Sasha and Dmitry have wives and children!
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The shenanigans continue as Dmitry throws a table at Sasha for stealing Carolyn's KFC chicken! At 7am, I think it's time to go home!
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After sleeping late, Carolyn and I hit the Hermitage: the tremendous palace from which the Romanov Czars ruled Russia. It is also the site where the Bolsheviks siezed power... and later transformed it into a world class museum. This is the climb up the Jordan Staircase.
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An oil portrait of Catherine the Great resides on these walls.
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Shh! Don't tell anyone that this is the best museum in the world--better than the Louvre, the British Museum, or the Met.
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The history of every piece in the museum is incredibly rich. This scene shows the battle of Borodino (where the Russians eventually beat Napoleon's army), popularized in Tolstoy's War and Peace.
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This painting of Kutuzov embellishes the leader for his unusual but winning strategy against the Napoleonic invasion.
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Every 19th century painting seems to reflect something of 1812 and the Czarist aristocracy.
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This bronze gilded bird represents an engineering feat. When the hour of noon strikes, the mechanical bird spreads its wings!
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The sheer opulence of the palace makes it the perfect location for Alexander Sokurov's cinematic homage to Czarist history. Russian Ark is the first film in history to be filmed entirely in one take (on HD and by Run Lola Run's DP Tilman Buttner) and passed through this hall.
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It's impossible not to be impressed.
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The collection of 20th century art is a vertible "who's who" of Impresionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.
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Carolyn has to go home, so I hit the streets on a hunt for the Banya--the famed Russian sauna.
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Along the way, I encounter the unusual sight of an operational Mosque.
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And like everything else it seems, the banya is closed (and looks as though it's been closed for ages)!
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Pissed, I begin to wander around...
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...and find Lenfilm Studios!
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I don't really manage my way in. It seems a tad forbodding!
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So I decide to venture to another side of town to find an alternate banya.
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I'm really bummed because I can't find the bloody place... and no one knows what I'm talking about "banya."
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It's supposed to be somewhere in this place. But it's all derelict.
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After braving my way and practically yelling at people "banya," someone eventually takes me to the 6th floor, where this measly sign finally appears.
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After some fuss and paying a hefty tourist tax, I finally get in. But this cheesy painting should have told me immediately...
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...that it was a brothel! I turn down some poor Turkish immigrant "Luba masseuse" (who was genuinely angry that I didn't hire her) in her sultry quarters.
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After many trials and tribulations that take me about 4 hours, I finally get to relax in the banya!
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On the way back to the hotel, I pass this old school movie theater.
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A terribly dilapidated marquis indicates a Tartuffe film is playing (circa 1990?).
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The next day, I head to the Dostoyevski museum.
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