St. Petersburg was our last stop before leaving Russia. 3 days for exploration and waaaay too many amazing places to see. The schedule was tough, but all the best things in life come with challenges!
Unfortunately, the little one started having a fever in the middle of day #1, so the rest of the time we spent at home, hoping that she gets better.
However, we did manage to check a few things off of our list before this happened, and this is the post about that.
St. Petersburg truly is the most beautiful and historical place in Russia. It is full of breathtaking architecture, palaces of nearly every King or Queen this country has ever seen, museums, art and inspiration. It has been the home of every other Russian writer and you can almost feel that history has happened there. I adore that place. And all my rant is not giving it justice.
Early in the morning, we went to the old part of the city. The subway was so crowded that I ended up having a panic attack and had to run out of the train to calm down. That was the start to our morning. But worry not! My fear of public transport has never stopped me before and it sure isn't going to stop me from enjoying my favourite city on earth.
We started off on the Palace Square, an inch away from the General Staff Building.
Right in front of it, you can find the Winter Palace and in the middle stands the Alexandrian Column which finishes it all off quite gloriously.
Right across the Neva river stands Kunstkamera. It hosts the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.
It was dedicated to collecting rare and curious objects from fetuses to minerals and ended up gathering truly weird things from all over the world. If my understanding is correct, Peter the Great was eager to understand the world in full depth and went to great extends to study it.
The Zoological Museum used to be a part of it, but as the collection grew they decided to move it to a separate building. Since for the little one animals would be much more interesting than objects and minerals, we headed for the Zoological exhibition.
It starts off with a 27m (88ft) long skeleton of a blue whale.
A little challenge for you: imagine how would you explain this to a child. My daughter knows that skeletons are made of bones, but I don't think she realizes that it used to be a living creature once. You should have seen the puzzled look on her face when I told her that this used to be a whale.
Being one of the largest natural history museums in the world, it holds around 30 000 exhibits.
It even has an area dedicated to different breeds of house dogs and cats which is quite unusual. Normally, museums like to focus on wild or extinct animals that you don't see in everyday life.
One of the sections features albino animals. And right next to them you can find examples of how they are most likely to look in the wild.
I was especially impressed by an albino peacock.
Some species are displayed simply standing next to each other to really show off their diversity.
But the other ones are positioned to mimic their natural behaviour.
The distribution of kiwi birds.
A snake's skeleton, which is mind-blowing.
They've got it all.
The amount of exhibits that they've collected is astonishing.
Also, the size of some of them is just ridiculous. You can't back up enough to get them all in the frame.
Each display shows a story, a personality.
Taxidermy is not everyone's cup of tea, but I find it extraordinary. Of course, having a live animal in such a closed space so that you can really experience their size is completely cruel. And preserving them after death like this is such an amazing opportunity to satisfy your curiosity and leave animals in the wild and undisturbed.
And, yeah, I know I'm an idiot, but what can you do? The little child inside my head demands silly pictures and a great deal of self-irony hints that they must be posted.
I mean, just look how awkward this one is. Such a tourist.
On every exhibit along with general information about the species, you can find a grid that shows their conservation status. You can spot a little bit of this sign on the following photo. The red colour indicates that the hippopotamus is considered endangered and is on the IUCN Red List.
If the animal is extinct the sign next to it would be black and if it's not endangered at all, it would be colourless.
Here you can see a Tasmanian wolf that is in fact extinct.
All of them are just so expressive.
And these guys are unbelievable.
Of course, the coolest part of that whole exhibition is the collection of mammoths. They have exactly 5 of them, two of which are skeletons.
Probably, the most famous one is Berezovsky Mammoth.
The two other preserved ones are very small compared to this one.
To be honest, it feels very special to have them in front of you. The real evidence of their existence. Because sometimes you kind of know that extinct species used to live on our planet, but you don't fully believe it. Like they might as well be made up for a good story, you know? And only through experiences like this one you start to feel how rich and layered is our history and how time is truly merciless.
The museum also had exhibits of insects and corals, but we didn't make it that far, because we all were quite hungry and the child started to feel unwell. Despite having tons of other plans we had to call it a day.
And though it was very brief, we all left with new appreciation for the world. Personally, I started admiring Peter the Great on the spot, because many of the curious exhibits were collected by him personally. He suddenly became a driven scientist, which is so much more than a guy from a boring history book that I had to read in middle school.
Going home was the right call because as soon as we made it there, Sofia developed a high fever.
She only woke up to eat something and then again in the middle of the night when the medicine started wearing off. We were freaked out since our train for Finland was going to leave in 48 hours and if she was still sick by then, we couldn't stay with couchsurfers (they had two little kids), which meant losing our tickets for the second time during the trip and cancelling the trip to Finland.
You can experience it all with us through vlogs when they come out.
A little spoiler: she got better and we made it to Helsinki no problem. But that's for future posts.
For now stay curious, be happy and explore the world. Never miss an opportunity to see a preserved mammoth and make as many silly selfies as you can manage. Trust me, they will instantly put a smile on your face afterwards.
Unfortunately, the little one started having a fever in the middle of day #1, so the rest of the time we spent at home, hoping that she gets better.
However, we did manage to check a few things off of our list before this happened, and this is the post about that.
St. Petersburg truly is the most beautiful and historical place in Russia. It is full of breathtaking architecture, palaces of nearly every King or Queen this country has ever seen, museums, art and inspiration. It has been the home of every other Russian writer and you can almost feel that history has happened there. I adore that place. And all my rant is not giving it justice.
Early in the morning, we went to the old part of the city. The subway was so crowded that I ended up having a panic attack and had to run out of the train to calm down. That was the start to our morning. But worry not! My fear of public transport has never stopped me before and it sure isn't going to stop me from enjoying my favourite city on earth.
We started off on the Palace Square, an inch away from the General Staff Building.
Right in front of it, you can find the Winter Palace and in the middle stands the Alexandrian Column which finishes it all off quite gloriously.
Right across the Neva river stands Kunstkamera. It hosts the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.
It was dedicated to collecting rare and curious objects from fetuses to minerals and ended up gathering truly weird things from all over the world. If my understanding is correct, Peter the Great was eager to understand the world in full depth and went to great extends to study it.
The Zoological Museum used to be a part of it, but as the collection grew they decided to move it to a separate building. Since for the little one animals would be much more interesting than objects and minerals, we headed for the Zoological exhibition.
It starts off with a 27m (88ft) long skeleton of a blue whale.
A little challenge for you: imagine how would you explain this to a child. My daughter knows that skeletons are made of bones, but I don't think she realizes that it used to be a living creature once. You should have seen the puzzled look on her face when I told her that this used to be a whale.
Being one of the largest natural history museums in the world, it holds around 30 000 exhibits.
It even has an area dedicated to different breeds of house dogs and cats which is quite unusual. Normally, museums like to focus on wild or extinct animals that you don't see in everyday life.
One of the sections features albino animals. And right next to them you can find examples of how they are most likely to look in the wild.
I was especially impressed by an albino peacock.
Some species are displayed simply standing next to each other to really show off their diversity.
But the other ones are positioned to mimic their natural behaviour.
The distribution of kiwi birds.
A snake's skeleton, which is mind-blowing.
They've got it all.
The amount of exhibits that they've collected is astonishing.
Also, the size of some of them is just ridiculous. You can't back up enough to get them all in the frame.
Each display shows a story, a personality.
Taxidermy is not everyone's cup of tea, but I find it extraordinary. Of course, having a live animal in such a closed space so that you can really experience their size is completely cruel. And preserving them after death like this is such an amazing opportunity to satisfy your curiosity and leave animals in the wild and undisturbed.
And, yeah, I know I'm an idiot, but what can you do? The little child inside my head demands silly pictures and a great deal of self-irony hints that they must be posted.
I mean, just look how awkward this one is. Such a tourist.
On every exhibit along with general information about the species, you can find a grid that shows their conservation status. You can spot a little bit of this sign on the following photo. The red colour indicates that the hippopotamus is considered endangered and is on the IUCN Red List.
If the animal is extinct the sign next to it would be black and if it's not endangered at all, it would be colourless.
Here you can see a Tasmanian wolf that is in fact extinct.
All of them are just so expressive.
And these guys are unbelievable.
Of course, the coolest part of that whole exhibition is the collection of mammoths. They have exactly 5 of them, two of which are skeletons.
Probably, the most famous one is Berezovsky Mammoth.
The two other preserved ones are very small compared to this one.
To be honest, it feels very special to have them in front of you. The real evidence of their existence. Because sometimes you kind of know that extinct species used to live on our planet, but you don't fully believe it. Like they might as well be made up for a good story, you know? And only through experiences like this one you start to feel how rich and layered is our history and how time is truly merciless.
The museum also had exhibits of insects and corals, but we didn't make it that far, because we all were quite hungry and the child started to feel unwell. Despite having tons of other plans we had to call it a day.
And though it was very brief, we all left with new appreciation for the world. Personally, I started admiring Peter the Great on the spot, because many of the curious exhibits were collected by him personally. He suddenly became a driven scientist, which is so much more than a guy from a boring history book that I had to read in middle school.
Going home was the right call because as soon as we made it there, Sofia developed a high fever.
She only woke up to eat something and then again in the middle of the night when the medicine started wearing off. We were freaked out since our train for Finland was going to leave in 48 hours and if she was still sick by then, we couldn't stay with couchsurfers (they had two little kids), which meant losing our tickets for the second time during the trip and cancelling the trip to Finland.
You can experience it all with us through vlogs when they come out.
A little spoiler: she got better and we made it to Helsinki no problem. But that's for future posts.
For now stay curious, be happy and explore the world. Never miss an opportunity to see a preserved mammoth and make as many silly selfies as you can manage. Trust me, they will instantly put a smile on your face afterwards.
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