In Which I Expand the Mind

Hey, hey, you, you (I don't like your girlfriend;)

Well, it’s a Saturday night and I’m listening to Mary Poppins in my Perpetual Party Dress. In about thirty minutes, I’m going to leave the comfort of Mama Masha’s cabbage-filled kitchen (I came home from my Russian Adventures today to find approximately ten cabbages on the windowsill and table. I sense a cabbage-filled week ahead) to hit up an abandoned bomb shelter club with some French gentlemen. However, I figured that before I begin this night of sweater-capes and phlegm, I would bloggy-blog it up to the best of my abilities. But what am I bloggy-blogging it up about, you ask?

Russian museums.

Now, if you are part of the 75-90 age group to which this blog is probably targeted, you may want to grab a pace-maker, because you are going to get more excitement out of this than the annual two-for-one sale on Frango mints (that was a shout-out to you, Grandma.) Anyway, in case you all were unaware, St. Petersburg, and all of Russia for that matter, has more museums than Hillary Clinton has pantsuits. (Which, if you don't follow the official Hillary Clinton style blog, is a lot.) 

If you don't believe that this woman should rule the galaxy after seeing this, then there's something wrong with your brain.

For real, though, if you want to find out every tiny detail about something that no one else in America cares about, come to St. Petersburg. And I'm not just talking about famous ones like the State Hermitage (Государственный Эрмитаж) or the Russian Museum (which are both incredibly beautiful.) No, I'm talking about the ones set up by that guy who lives in his mother's basement and who, by day, researches the reproduction methods of termites, and, by night, writes fanfictions about old Catdog episodes. Want to get your drink on in an educational way? Check out the Vodka Museum. Can't get enough of being well-hydrated? Pay a visit to the Water Museum. Have a cat fetish?  For just 99 Rubles (3 American dollars,) you can analyze a cat-a-fied rendition of the Mona Lisa and participate in weekly round table discussions with the creme de la creme of "crazy cat ladies" concerning what true happiness really means to felines. (I'm not kidding about this. Technically, the museum itself is in Moscow, but I don't think you can truly say you've lived until you know that this exists. Please check out its website, you will not be disappointed.) 

In case you can't read it, its official logo is "You can know more about cats in art...You can know more about cats...You can know more about..." 

Think that's just a bad translation? Well, it's not; I promise you that it says the exact same thing in Russian. Anyway, today I’m going to be talking about a few gems my friends and I have found during the course of our romps about the Motherland’s greatest city. We’ll start with the Hermitage.

I know I usually include a comical caption, but there's really nothing funny to say about the Hermitage. Sorry.

The Hermitage is/was the Winter Palace and acted as the Tsars’ home until the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. For Americans under the age of 25, it was the building where Anastasia went to find Dmitri but ended up hallucinating dead relatives and attracting unwanted attention from talking bats. Anyway, once you wiggle your way through the throng of Asian tourists filming the building, the place is actually beautiful. According to one of our tour guides, “Russian joke says you have to spend one year in Hermitage to see all paintings.” Some other knee-slappers included “Russian joke says St. Petersburg has 300 days of rain a year,” and “Russian joke says St. Petersburg has more museums than people.” Feel free to break those out when your next dinner party goes south. And, just so you know, they will get mad if you don’t laugh.

Anyway, it actually probably would take me a year to talk about all the paintings in the Hermitage, so I’ll just show you my favorite. The disarrayed shoes on the ground supposedly symbolize an affair between the two lovers, and the dog is supposed to represent fidelity, but, being the mature art critic I am, I just think it’s the bee’s knees that this old lady is getting her jollies by camping out in the corner.

My future right before my very eyes. Sorry about the boobies, y'all.

"Boy Blowing Horn." You rock that horn, boy.

Okay, this was pretty cool. Every hour the peacock would spread its tail, a squirrel would eat its nut, and the owl would do something equally fantasmical. It doesn't work now, so if you want to see it in action, you could buy your own peacock-owl-squirrel set and train them. Or, you know, close your eyes and imagine. Whatever works.

Anyway, I grow tired of my spiel on art. Let’s get to the pickled oddities.

The real museum is actually called Kuntskammer, and I think it’s an anthropological museum. I’m too lazy to double-check, so if you want to know, knock yourself out and have a party with Google. The real reason why anyone (aside from anthropologists, I guess,) visits the museum is because of the room filled with artifacts that can only be described as pickled oddities. You ever just wake up and think, “Man, last night was so crazy, the only thing I want to do right now is look at a two hundred-year-old deformed fetus in a jar of formaldehyde. And some crabs. Shucks, it’s too bad those don’t exist.” 

Well, you know what, kid? You’re wrong. And you know what else? IT’S FACT TIME!

The Kuntskammer (aka the Anthropological Museum, maybe,) was the first museum to be founded in Russia. Everyone’s good friend Peter the Great, being the trailblazer that he was, one day decided to partake on a voyage to collect two-headed animals, deformed fetuses, and whatever else he could find along the way. When he came back, he put them all on display and invited his citizens to come and look. Although it sounds kind of creepy (which it was,) he actually did it so that the people could learn that the deformations everyone was gawking at were not due to devilry, but this magical little thing called science. 

This actually took me about half an hour on Paint. 

He even enticed them with free glasses of vodka, because really, what is an afternoon of education without alcohol? At least, that’s my motto. Today, the place is decked out with Peter’s fetuses (which also sounds like the name of a soap opera,) skeletons of two-headed calves, teeth (Pete considered himself to be a pretty good dentist and practiced on his subjects, apparently,) and some sea shell collages. Oh, and crabs, for the marine biologists out there. There’s also an iron stick that Peter the Great hammered out himself. I don’t think it does anything besides be a stick, but I’ll give him props for being such a versatile person—he really should have a liberal arts department named after him. I’m going to put up some pictures, so if you are of the faint of heart (that’s you, 75-90 year-olds,) you can skip ahead to the picture of the pony in shoes.

Peter was a weird dude.

A two-headed cow.

Peter's death mask. From the looks of it, he died just pre-jowl phase.

     Anyway, here's that picture of a pony in shoes I promised you.

AWW, JUST LOOK AT THOSE LITTLE SHOES! Anyway, that's all for now. I'm actually going to attempt to do a "vlog" (I believe that's the hip internet lingo for it) next time, so get ready to see my chubby face in action. 

Пока, suckers!