Festival of Lights
Held for the fourth time in a row, this year’s Festival of Lights will be a truly stellar sight to behold. The St. Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex will come to life with planets dancing on its modernistic facade and drones serving an electric performance inside, which will probably be too much for the 1980’s building as the organizers promise it will tilt like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
If that’s not enough to blow your socks off, skedaddle to the Moskovsky Victory Park to take a gander at funky light installations, futuristic holograms, and a gigantic luminescent replica of the Moon, which will be surrounded with robots celebrating the event with a lively boogie. Squeeze in a visit to a mystical garden adorned with creepy animal figurines and then head straight to the alley lit up by the flickers of 500 lanterns to take a photo for the occasion and calm your nerves a bit.
The program doesn’t end here; the Organ Hall of the historical Tauride Palace will host a concert featuring a symphonic-poetic composition by local composer Pyotr Klimov and poet Svyatoslav Grabovsky, and there will be lectures and workshops aplenty in the city’s Planetarium 1 and the Capella of the Tauride Palace. The event will be held on November 3-5 between 7 and 11pm for the Moskovsky Victory Park’s program and on November 3-4 from 8 to 11 pm for the St. Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex’s one. Admission is free.
TECH Weekend Festival
Novelty gadgets, antediluvian computers, hip game consoles, kicky neurostimulators, 3D holograms, light sculptures and scientific shows bonanza: this weekend, the A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications will turn into an every techie’s heaven. Swing by to watch science-pop documentaries, guinea-pig at VR experiments, fly into space and treat yourself to a real astronaut’s lunch while you’re there – the annual TECH Weekend Festival is not an event to miss out on. Tickets cost 350 roubles for all adults and 250 roubles for the chosen ones (students and pensioners, that is).
Art Night
‘The Art Unites’: that is the motto of this year’s Art Night, a grandiose national arts celebration taking place on November 3. St. Petersburg’s many cultural spots will join in the fun with a chock-a-block program of theater performances, music concerts, movie screenings and other divertissements. One of our personal picks is the Tsarskoye Selo museum’s exhibition of exquisite paintings, ornate furniture, delicate porcelain sets, bronze sculptures that belonged to Alexander the Second and his family, as well as a display of elaborate costumes in which fashion history meets modern haute couture powered by the Associations project. Both will be held on November 4 from 5 to 9pm; a ticket to the royal exhibition will cost you 150 roubles, while the second one boasts free admission.
The National Library of Russia will be pulling a classical music all-nighter by St. Petersburg Conservatory’s educatees on November 3 (starting from 6pm, admission is free), while the St. Petersburg Court Chapel will host a screening of the Prince Igor 1969 film-opera (starting at 8pm, drop an email at kinovcapelle@mail.ru to be registered). And that’s just some of the events you can pop in on; here’s the full affiche (in Russian).
Retro-Train Ride
Choo choo: passengers wanting to participate in a retro-train ride to Tsarskoye Selo, please proceed to the Vitebsky railway station on November 4 at 10am. The trip will start with a tour of the station considered the most beautiful in the country. After exploiting its majestic stained-glass windows, elegant stucco moulding, and Antiquity-inspired sculptures, you’ll embark on a fun retro-train adventure through the Malaya Oktyabrskaya railroad. And should you get hungry, there’ll be a tea party on the way back to finish your culture-packed outing. Tickets cost 1700 roubles for adults and 1500 for kids and teens.
Have a great weekend! Yours truly, ITMO.NEWS
