st petersburg, 3

the day after our excursion to the peterhof palace
we made a stop at another palace [one of at least six in the city]:
the winter palace [zimnij dvorets] and the hermitage [ermitazh]

the building itself is mint green
but inside, it's incredible
there were such amazing statues just on the main staircase
and on the second floor, past an immense ballroom
through a portrait room dedicated to the war of 1812
[just the war; they had portraits of virtually every general,
and there were a couple of the tsar too]
there was the throne room, and the throne of the russian empire
i gotta say, given the russian proclivity towards immensely sized things,
it was rather small [still impressive, though]

the story behind the ermitazh is thus:
the russians wanted to have an immense collection of art
so, starting with pyotr the great [and continuing with yelizabeta and yekaterina]
agents would be sent out throughout europe with tons of money
they would buy everything they could get their hands on
and from there, they would send it back to petersburg
so, needless to say, the hermitage was packed with art
there were over four floors [i only got to two of them]
there's a story that goes along with its size:
if you saw every piece of art in the entire museum
and spent just one minute in front of every single piece
it would take you eleven years to see it all
considering how little i saw in just under an hour and a half
i'm inclined to agree

that evening, we went out to the mariinskij theater
we had a choice to either see opera or the ballet,
and we ended up going to the ballet
that night they just happened to be playing stravinsky
music freaks, you're going to love this:
they performed 'the wedding', 'the rite of spring', and 'the firebird' for us
[svadebka, vesna svyaschennaya, and zhar'–ptitsa, respectively]
that's right, all three
i have to say, the rite of spring is so much more intense when you watch it
the music is pretty epic in its own right
but coupled with that staging,
damn
that's really the only way i can describe it
and the firebird was, of course, beautiful as always
i really geeked out about the whole thing
and, as the final touch,
we got a box on stage left, right next to the percussion of the pit
we were close enough to see the whites of their eyes
it was quite the experience