Ice-Skating on New Holland Island
You better get into the holiday spirit now, because slowly but surely, the winter festivities are creeping up on us: behold the first horseman of the looming tinsel and jingle bells apocalypse, the opening of one of St. Pete’s most iconic ice rinks located on the New Holland Island. The grand unveiling will take place on November 17, with figure skating theatrics, holiday-flavor ice cream degustation and a special live music concert bombarding visitors with all the festive feels.
Such Christmas cheer is to last all the way to March 17 thanks to the cutting-edge cooling system keeping the ice in good nick even in above-zero temperatures. An hour of ice frolics will cost you from 150 to 450 roubles depending on the time of the day you decide to swing by the New Holland island for some glidin’ around. Note that the tickets tend to sell out pretty fast, so it’s better to claim your place in advance before the malignant hipsters come and buy everything out. Kids from three to seven years old have free admission – ageism is real, people. You can also rent the skates if you don’t have a pair on yourself or buy a ten-session season ticket if you’re secretly training for the next World Figure Skating Championship.
Bonjour France Weekend
Les enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé! Or two jours de gloire, rather, for Bonjour France, the annual celebration of French culture, language, food and crafts held in the Berthold Center will span the whole weekend, to the delight of all the bon vivants, gourmets, francophiles and dedicated followers of joie de vivre which our fair city is teeming with. Explore the ever-charmant l’Héxagone through the festival’s many workshops, lectures, food tastings, quests, and even karaoke à la française sessions on November 17, or splash out on pâtisserie and other handmade goodness on November 18 (or both); whatever your choice, you’re guaranteed to enter the working week wined, dined, and planning for your big escape to Paris. That’s a weekend well-spent right there!
The entrance to the Sunday market is free, but you’ll need to cash in (and register here) should you want to attend all the Saturday lectures and whatnot: the tickets cost 300 roubles if bought in advance and 500 roubles on the day. Amusez-vous bien (duh, of course you will).
Cinema nights at the Lumiere Hall
If it’s not French but Russian that you want to practice, and you’re not partial to a good ol’ cinema binge, look into the Cinema Nights hosted by the Lumiere Hall creative space. The name is pretty self-explanatory, but what makes these so cool is that the movies are projected onto the dome of the Hall’s projection hall, and instead of sitting in the ascetically rigid seats begrimed with cemented popcorn and soda stains, spectators lounge on comfortable poufs which they can also shuffle around to find a better spot.
Each cinema night is dedicated to one director or actor in particular: the one taking place on November 17, for example, will blow the trumpet of a somewhat iconoclastic British filmmaker Guy Ritchie. For as little as 500 roubles (or even 400 roubles with the promo code LUM if you buy your ticket before Friday comes round), you’ll get the chance to see not one but three movies signed by Ritchie: a crime comedy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, another crime comedy RocknRolla, and a thriller Revolver. The screenings start at 11.55 pm.
Art exhibitions
Let’s end things on a high note with three art exhibitions, shall we? The first one is to take place in the museum of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and will be dedicated to the sophisticated arts of the Antiquity. Visitors have the opportunity to see miniature replicas of the Colosseum, Pantheon, Arch of Titus and other architectural and sculptural icons, as well as inspired paintings of a classical era-enamored 18th-century artist Charles-Louis Clerisseau and thematic watercolors of the Academy’s own 19th- and early 20th-century graduates. Tickets are 200 roubles (for students) and, alas, 300 roubles for everyone else.
If you’re in the mood for something a little bit more modern, head to the retrospective of the Belle Époque artist Viktor Zamiraylo. Touted by art critics as the ‘Russian Goya’, this talented pupil of old master Mikhail Vrubel is, however, not that well-known to the wider public. In an attempt to rectify this injustice, the St. Petersburg K Gallery has prepared an exhibition of the painter’s best works, which range from whimsical book illustrations to theater sketches and large-scale drawings. Tickets cost 100 roubles for students and 200 for others.
From Russian Goya to the Russian Banksy: another noteworthy exhibition opening on this weekend is a showcase of the Russian street art’s big-name Pasha 183, who has sadly passed away in 2013 but still remains a major influence for his fellow artists. The organizers at the St. Petersburg Street Art Museum say that by displaying the creator’s seminal works, they want to show that street art can be a valuable addition to the otherwise much-of-a-muchness of public spaces. Tickets cost 400 roubles.
Have a great weekend! Yours truly, ITMO.NEWS
