B is for Ballet - Beethoven - Battleship - Babushka

Sunrise 8:15 Sunset 19:17 Day length: 11:01

Hi folks.

Last week we went to a couple of museums - the Defense & Siege of Leningrad Museum & the State Museum of Political History. The Siege one was small, mostly in Russian and mostly military paraphernalia like boots, shells, and canteens. The most interesting part to me was when they showed an example of the bread ration during the worst part of the seige (1941). For children and non-workers it was 125 grams - about 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 5 inches of bread. For the day! No wonder there were no rats or pigeons left in the city after that bitterly cold winter. Helen Dunmore's novel The Seige dramatizes that first winter - I read it a few years ago and it has stuck with me ever since - highly recommended.

The Political History Museum was very well done, as far as Russian museums go. It started in the late 19th century with serf reforms and came up to more or less 1989. Again, it was very artifact heavy and shy on interpretation. The exhibit about life under Stalin was my favorite part - for each decade or major campaign, they had propaganda, passports, photos, ration books, technology pieces, medals, etc...It also had binders of English interpretation for each display case and really gave a feel of the texture and the terror of life under Stalin.

Russian museums all seem to have babushkas in every room of the museum to make sure that you don't touch anything and to make sure that you go in the right order, as there is very little signage. Its a little bit weird having someone pacing the room that your in with their eye on you. Very effective though - no one wants a sweet/cranky grandma yelling at them.

The last push of the high holidays was last week. Nathan & I cooked all of Wednesday for the last few days of Sukkot. Now there aren't any more major holidays until Chanukah (which is a working holiday and so less of a huge deal) and Pesach (Passover).

On Wednesday night, Nathan & I went to Spartacus, the ballet. See photos below of the 150 year old Meriinski Theater, founding theater of ballet.






There wasn't much traditional dancing until the last two acts, but it had great costuming and very impressive dancers. We're going to try to see Swan Lake when we get back from Italy. During intermission, you can buy glasses of champagne and smoked salmon open-faced sandwiches. Even with the indulgences, the whole theater experience is a sixth of what it would be in the states, hoorah!

On Friday we went to a piano concerto by Beethoven and Mahler Symphony No.1. Mahler was much more interesting than the Beethoven, but I'll let Nathan comment on that since he knows more about that sort of thing.

Yesterday we went to see the Cruiser Aurora, from which the first (blank) shots of the 1917 revolution were shot. They've made it into a museum.


(Check out the scarf I just knitted!)