August 7. A Neva ending boatride.

Today we take a beautiful boatride. This is not supposed to be a touristic site but the boatride through the canals of St. Petersburg, passing all the beautiful facades and museums, the rattling Russian voice - don't forget to bring your Russian friends! - explains about the house where Pushkin lived, the tsar's palaces, the area where Dostojewski strolled as he pondered about his great novels, and it concludes the trip going out on the Neva, breeze in your hair. This, the Hermitage, the Dostojewski house, the Kunstkammer, a stroll over the Nevsky, make a great stay in St. Petersburg. Order your personal ticket at... etcetera. It is good for the soul too. It is really a very nice place to be, as a modern city (some might concern her a bit too expensive) St. Petersburg is a blend of haste and calmness, of frantic activity and relaxation. There are so many corners to discover, so many anecdotes if you are in love with Russian literature, and so many smiles - you will be willing to go back to her. Just one small thing. Please don't call her "Peter".

It can suddenly end. There will be a next sentence one day, a last utterance we need a last breath for, perhaps it will be an arbitrary and banal remark, or a careful recapitulation of our life's thinking. That one last sentence, what if we miss it? What if we prepare ourselves for it, as good as we can, I suppose that will always be imperfect but that is another story, we prepare ourselves for it as we see the day approaching and then it turns out we have been mistaken. It is not our last breath. Of course it catches us by surprise anyway, no matter in which direction we run. Our vanity has been boundless, we tried to prepare for this? Didn't we know there will be a breath after the last one, a breath we don't even get to breathe? I think we should just be less concerned with that. That said, our words will still in the end sum up to some "total", a body of text that will be interpreted depending on our level of fame. And there will be a last sentence, it will be turned and twisted and molded into whichever shape they want; we can't do anything about that so we shouldn't care. And yet... we might have the chance to play a little joke on our receptors. Something better than hey I own Asklepios a cock.

Moscow #2. Great Art Collections.

The next day I visited the Pushkin museum, where I saw another vast collection of European Art. Especially the Dutch floor caught my attention, and in front of Rembrandt's Old Lady I just had to spend several minutes. This canvas is just so great!

After the visit of this remarkable collection, I met with Aleksey and Ann, and we went to a nice bar, where wine and some Russian dishes accompanied a nice conversation.

I spent a few days in Moscow, and wrote most of the time, so I can be short here. I had a great time, got to know Moscow life because I lived in a flat with two very friendly Russians with whom I could speak about literature too. I read Jack Kerouac on the road, and wrote a couple of pages. I remember a huge pretty luxurious shopping mall, and I understood that in this city most wealth of Russia is concentrated indeed, and I didn't even see the real upper end diamonds and sportscars.

But I had promised myself to "do" some more culture, and so I went to the Tetryakov gallery one of those days, the other big museum in the capital, which has a reknowned collection of Russian impressionism. I wasn't aware of this the time I entered the museum, and was surprised several times when I saw the works of Perov, Schedrin, Sakrasov, Sunikov, and others. I compiled a list of my favorite paintings, just like I did in the Hermitage - so if you want a visible illustration of my taste, I'm sure the depths of the world wide web will provide it.

щедрин - sleeping Endymion (1779)
C.ф. щедрин - arbour coverd with vines (1828)
C.ф. щедрин m- terrace on the seacoast (1828)
Perov - blind musician
Perov - the snow-maiden
Perov - portrait of Dostojewski
Sakrasov - the rooks have come (1871)
Sakrasov - country road
Aivakovskty - black sea (1881)
Repin - taking a rest (1882)
Sunikov - portrait of Syrokovska as a child (1888)
M.A. Vremel - demon seated (1890)
Ivan Tserevich - grey wolf
Nesterov - girl by the pond (1923)
Ulyamov - Chistye ponds (1900)
Serov - portrait of Derwitsch with child
Serov - girl with peaches
Korovin - Boulevard des Capuccines

It was interesting to follow the development of impressionism throughout the 19th century. I could do it together with Olga, a fashion designer and quite a work of art herself.