Free tour of Chesme Palace
Courtesy of the art-loving social tourism group “Ekskursion”, residents and guests of our fair northern capital can now roam free (quite literally too) through the St. Petersburg’s majestic palaces and historic dokhodnye doma, tenement buildings which gave roof to the intelligentsia and working class alike, learning a ton of useful information along the way.
This Saturday, March 16, there will be a free tour of the knightly Chesme Palace, an (atypical for Russia) architectural homage to the early gothic revival style (which basically means that it looks like a stout medieval castle). Call +7 911 984-56-37 to learn all the deets and sign up for the tour, and while you’re there, look out for the neighboring Chesme Church to take your cultural immersion even further (we have just the article for you to nail all of its architectural nuances!).
Screening of David Lynch’s “Lost Highway”
You would think that 7 is everybody’s lucky number, but it wasn’t the case for the iconoclastic director David Lynch, whose seventh creation, a full-blown weird neo-noir film Lost Highway, was initially met with the unilateral “what the eff have I just seen?” by the critics and audience alike (but has since majorly improved its record).
This Saturday at 9pm, the Rodina movie theater offers you to revisit this cinema classic… something like an art screening (which is like a usual screening, but everyone is an intellectual). Tickets cost 400 rubles, the film will be screened in English with Russian subtitles. Make sure to swing by: if what happens on screen doesn’t float your boat, you can at least close your eyes and enjoy the atmospheric soundtrack. Or just have a nap, as an option. I have my best naps at boring cinema screenings.
#Snegosledart photo exhibition of footprints on snow
What oh what our postmodernist era wouldn’t make art from? If your answer was “footprints on the snow”, cross that option off your list, and head to the #Snegosledart exhibition for proofs. Held in St. Petersburg’s Freud Museum of Dreams, this is an anthology of photos showcasing the creative vision of Andrey Sikorsky, whose artsy footprints on snow hailed “the sadly unnoticed revolution in the field of street art”, in the lamenting words of the organizers, who are clearly fans of the guy. Truth be told, these photos are appealingly quirky, so the event gets our seal of approval. Tickets cost 200 rubles (100 rubles for students).
“Jacob Jordaens. Paintings and drawings from Russian museum collections” exhibition in the State Hermitage
With his colorful vernacularism drawings, emotion-filled portraits, momentous historical and religious paintings and idiosyncratic tapestry designs, Jacob Jordaens is one of the most well-known stars of the Flemish baroque. So the Hermitage and a host of other Russian museums cooked up a large exhibition to celebrate the great old master, his works channelling that exciting, almost tangible joy of life we all want a bite of after a long, dreary winter. Tickets cost 300 rubles, free for students.
