The previous day, we probably walked the most on this trip. Naturally, we sleep, as they say in Russia, without our hind legs. Worked out horses sleep with their hind legs so relaxed that, once awake, they can only get on their front ones and it takes a while for them to get the back legs going.
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When our hind legs moved, we cleaned up the Georgian pies Shorena and Irina prepared for us the night before and took off.
On the way to the St. Petersburg State University, we crossed Academician Sakharov Square. This was the first Sakharov monument in Russia. It was built entirely on donations from private citizens and installed here against the wishes of the local government and the university. Even Sakharov’s family was against this gesture, but for other reasons. Yelena Bonner, Sakharov’s wife, considered any monument to her husband in the current Russian political situation to be a hypocrisy.
The Twelve Colleges building has been here since the times of Peter the Great. It housed the Senate, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, and all the ministries. All central government bodies formed by Peter were located here. Now this is the main building and administrative offices of the Saint Petersburg State University.
Some interesting people passed through these doors. Ivan Turgenev, Sergei Dyagilev, Igor Stravinsky, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev…
In front of the main entrance, the Flying Genius, a university student, is resting on the column of knowledge with torch in hand.
Our next stop was The Kunstkamera — the very first Russian public museum — Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Peter the Great started this museum himself more than 300 years ago with a collection of human and animal fetuses carrying anatomical deformities which he originally kept in his summer residence and continued to expand.
For most part, the Kunstkamera is similar to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City with collections from North America, Africa, China, Middle East, and so forth, aimed at Peter’s goal of achieving full knowledge of the world.