St Petersburg - discovering Akhmatova and rediscovering childhood

2,408 miles GMT +3 hours Temp -5

Today Yelena wants to share her favourites, for the parts of Russia important to her. We started with her heroine Anna Akhmatova, a legendary Russian Poet, by visiting the museum dedicated to her, 'Fontanny Dom' - The Fountain House, where she lived from 1926 to 1952.

It is a fantastic museum, quite possibly the best I've ever been to, in terms of the depth of knowledge and passion that the staff and resources offer. Once we has finished looking around we had just under an hour to go and get a coffee and then returned for a workshop, which basically took you back to witness the past in photographs, books, old papers and diaries contained in an old chest to get in touch with life in St Petersburg in the 19th and 20th centuries. As well as to imagine the environment and history of the house, Akhmatova's life and her poetic world, with the aid of a an academic expert. It was an astonishing experience - my arm is not being twisted here :)

After lunch the same expert, Utkina, took us for a guided walk of Akhmatova and other literary figures of St Petersburg for two hours.
It's an absolute must if you visit St Petersburg and like literature.

Akhmatova

Dvortsavaya Square

Pushkin

From there were taken to the Russian Museum, where we were filled with Russian folklore and fairy tales by 'Princess Lena'. If you would like to know the stories then you can read them here for yourself.

Entrance to Museum

Folklore Puppets

 We've had a great day and have been talking about things as children, following on from the fairy tales and puppets at the Russian museum. There are only three years between all us, yet we have little in common from childhhod, all coming from very different backgrounds. Since we arrived back home this evening Yelena has been glued to Yourtube, as she wasn’t aware that it held so many treasures from the past. She would like to share some of her childhood experiences on the blog.


I grew up in a closed soviet city. Nobody allowed in or out unless they were Soviet military because of what was made there. School was very Soviet with lots of 'State' education or what I now know to be propaganda lessons. My father was in the army and not often at home, but when he was he followed my mothers manifesto and he was a good father. My mother was not a communist, although she would pretend to be when the occasion required it. She was an intelligent and well read woman and she instilled in both my brother and me a love of books and the importance to not believe everything we were taught by the state, as she had grown up in Poland and had seen what was outside.


She talked with us almost every night after school right up until we were 16. She wouldn't let us join any of the state youth groups, she kept us away from it by having us work in the garden where we grew vegetables and fruit. We did some gardening because she was careful so that we could answer questions should anyone ask us, or if someone visited from the party. But most of the time we played chess, painted, made puppet shows, or talked with my aunt, grandmother or mother. People thought we were the model soviet family, life was a game and we played it well. 


We didn't have TV, I don't think anyone did at home. We did have a radio and we would listen to it sometimes for plays or music but the same programmes were repeated for weeks along with good soviet news, bad news did not exist in the soviet Utopia of the 70's. At weekends we would go together to the circus or a puppet theatre. The cinema was for special occasions, Easter or birthdays, as my mother was very sceptical about the content. Only Russian films were shown and we only saw the short animated ones, not proper films. The programme would start with the news and then a propaganda film and then two or maybe three of the childrens films. I think so you could not just watch them and then leave. I remember the Hedgehog and the Fog best as we had hedgehogs in the garden. I am not sure if it is the first one I saw, but seeing it again today has made my day.  

The Mariinsky Theatre, formerly the Kirov

The View from the Tsar's Box

This evening we have been to the opera, which made all of our days. We just hope the locals have recovered. Afraid Anya and I were a bit unconventional in that we waited for the lights to go down and the curtain to rise before removing our salopettes and watching Madame Butterfly in our thermals………. Yelena had to bite on her gloves to stop laughing. We didn’t throw caution to the wind and go for interval drinks, and surprisingly the Mariinsky don't have usherettes with cornettos.......tut tut.