SuzeBlogz

No Fleas were harmed.....

Where, a fabulous flea market is held each spring with over 300 vendors. And, being such a gorgeous sunny day...with mild temps, we loved walking through it.

We always run into favorite NJ people with the same idea in mind...

Laura Mchugh, Aaron Nieradka & Jenny Holiday

now, let it be known.... I absolutely didn't need to buy anything...and, aside from a few sterling silver spoons (to use with jewelry making, of course) I didn't find anything I had to spend money on...

well...OK...that's not ENTIRELY true..I did find one thing...but...

and I saw a great sign...

and I took lots of pictures of other outstanding paraphenalia that I totally didn't need...and didn't buy

 

even though some of it was....

 

The Lenster likes to search too....

Fun Dogs everywhere

You really have to tie your hands together so you aren't tempted by anything that has numbers or letters on it...right?!

 

AND......

all in all....a wonderful day..

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In the evening...more fun...

we celebraed as our Rabbi, Brooks Susman, marked his 40th year as a Rabbi.

We began with the traditional Havdalah service which marks the end of Shabbat (most often observed on Saturday evening, marking the end of the day of rest). It is a short service where a special braided candle, usually with 2 or more wicks is lit.

The service was terrific....and we held it outdoors at the home of our Temple President. Rabbi was honored with a special plaque given by representatives of the town commemorating his distinguished career.

and naming June 1 as Rabbi Brooks Susman Day. Hey...it also, just so happens, to be our son Lee's birthday...but......

On with the show...

Rabbi's friend and fellow Rabbi, Stan Stanway, told some hilarious stories about Brooks

we all loved it...a few of the choir members sang

 

more funny speeches

 

another meaningful gift

and the evening concluded with Rabbi and his wife Andrea thanking one and all !!

Tomorrow it's off to see Malifescent






  

 

Ah, The Hermitage

So, for those of you lovely peeps still following me around  Russia...I know you must be waiting for our day at The Hermitage.

WOWIE....let me tell you!

This is a view of the Alexander Column ourside of the Hermitage. 

They raised it in much the same way the pyramids were raised

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You walk in and immediately become a part of the masses of people all there to see this amazing former Winter Palace and home of the Tzars.

On 7 February 1852 the first Russian public museum was opened to visitors in the building of the New Hermitage. 

It is SOOOOOOOO gigantic it's overwhelming.

and FILLED with so much art...permanent collections and temporary on loan collections.

Lets take our own little tour.

You are instantly thrown into a world of art.......look who greets you at the door!!

as does

Construction of the Winter Palace was commissioned by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna 1754-1762. Architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700-1771)

from 1764 to 1775 they had construction of "the Small Hermitage" The Big Hermitage came a few years later.

The Three Graces (below) is a Neoclassical sculpture, in marble, of the mythological three charites, daughters of Zeus – identified on some engravings of the statue as, from left to right, Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia - who were said to represent beauty, charm and joy.

This version, in the Hermitage, is carved from veined marble and has a square pillar behind the left-hand figure (Euphrosyne)

All during this time the Empress and then Queen Catherine began collecting art and statuary to fill these rooms.

 

The Madonna and Child painting by Leonardo da Vinci is part of the State Hermitage Museums collection.

In fact for anyone who likes dates and actually wants the history timeline you can just click HERE

Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items, including the largest collection of paintings in the world.

 

For more than two centuries now the Hermitage has been adorned by a unique exhibit that never fails to evoke the enchanted admiration of visitors - the famous Peacock Clock. 

 

The history of the Hermitage's Peacock Clock begins in 1777, when the Duchess of Kingston visited St Petersburg. Balls were given in the Russian capital in honor of this wealthy and distinguished guest. Grigory Potiomkin, who met the Duchess in society, learned of James Cox's magnificent mechanisms.

  Pandering to Catherine II's passion for collecting, the Prince commissioned the celebrated craftsman to make a monumental automaton with a clock for the Empress's Hermitage.

The figures of a peacock, cockerel and owl that form part of this elaborate timepiece-automaton are fitted with mechanisms that set them in motion. Boy did we luck out...we were there when they set it in motion.

 It is, moreover, the only large 18th-century automaton in the world to have come down to us unaltered and in a functioning condition.

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NOTE: for you historians!

Apart from the Hermitage, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya and the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are also part of the museum. The museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a federal state property. Since 1990, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky.

 

Of six buildings of the main museum complex, five, named the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre, are open to the public.

 

This is The Jasper Vase (below)

The celebrated Kolyvan Vase or "Tsarina of Vases", weighs 19.2 tons

 

 

 

Crouching Boy: Michelangelo (below)

 

"...You are not Aurora Borealis, you are the brightest star of the North, and there never has been any other luminary so beneficial" - these were the words used by Voltaire to characterize Catherine the Great.

 

The official and private life of the imperial family took place within these walls, and they are linked with the final chapter in the rule of the Romanov dynasty. 

Hope you've been enjoying the tour...yes...there will be more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kizhi Island

Today we're going to one of the most ancient inhabited sites in Russia. It's called Kizhi Island and it was an early pagan center which now houses an open-air architectural museum and reserve.

Settlements and churches on the island were known from at least the 15th century. The name Kizhi is believed to originate from ancient Veps or Karelian word “kizhat” or "kizhansuari" ("social gathering" or “island of games”)

The amazing Church of the Transfiguration, built in 1714 during the reign of Peter the Great, has 22 timbered onion domes covered with aspen shingles. 

You are just in awe as you begin to get closer and closer to this sight.

No nails were used in the construction of the cathedral, and today many of the spruce logs are weakened by insects and rot. Pieces of wood have been notched together to form even the most intricate structures.

A donation from Grand Circle Foundation to the World Monuments Fund helped to maintain and protect this treasure.

 

A lot of Russia's wooden churches were quickly ravished by rot and fire. Over the centuries, destroyed churches were replaced with larger and more elaborate buildings.

 

Some of the local birds who were definitely used to people !

 

 

 

 

This is our wonderful tour guide Jenia. We LOVED her.

and we loved her friends, the other tour guides. (Jenia, L), Natasha and Asia

we watched a young man carve the white birch that creates the shingles. A legend tells that the main builder of the church used one axe for the whole construction, which he threw into the lake upon completion with the words "there was not and will be not another one to match it".

 

an interesting fact about the Russian white birch:

White-trunk birch became a symbol of spring, light and love to the fatherland. The word “birch” is very ancient and is connected with the verb “to keep, to take care”, since the Slavs considered the birch as the protecting people gift of God. The year began with spring and people celebrated it not with fir, but with the birch.

 

The fishing nets made for an interesting photo op.

and, inside the museum we were treated to life as it must have been 

She uses NO pattern...all free hand...it was amazing

 

 

The use and making of icons entered Kievan Rus' following its conversion to Orthodox Christianity in AD 988. As a general rule, these icons strictly followed models and formulas hallowed by Byzantine art, led from the capital in Constantinople. As time passed, the Russians widened the vocabulary of types and styles far beyond anything found elsewhere in the Orthodox world.

Hope you enjoyed todays tour...I know we all did !!

 

 

 

 

 

Lets Skip Ahead to Dinner and Dancing

I know I've been promising you palaces....and even tho they came later into the trip...why wait...

Lets go straight to Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg

The Catherine Palace is named after Catherine I, the wife of Peter the Great, who ruled Russia for two years after her husband's death. The residence originated in 1717, when Catherine I of Russia engaged the German architect Johann-Friedrich Braunstein to construct a summer palace for her pleasure.

 

I did not take this aerial view but it certainly gives you some idea of a cozy little summer place !!

 

Originally a modest two-story building commissioned by Peter for Catherine in 1717, the Catherine Palace owes its awesome grandeur to their daughter, Empress Elizabeth, who chose Tsarskoe Selo as her chief summer residence. 

we were greeted by a lovely band

 

More than 100 kilograms of gold were used to gild the sophisticated stucco façade and numerous statues erected on the roof.

 

Like hello...check out the ballroom for dancing.....

Line dancing ya think??

A venue for "Dancing With The Tzars" perhaps?

Seriously !!! Can you even imagine the sit down dinner!!

In 1733, Empress Elizabeth commissioned Mikhail Zemtsov and Andrei Kvasov to expand the Catherine Palace. Empress Elizabeth, however, found her mother's residence outdated and incommodious and in May 1752 asked her court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to demolish the old structure and replace it with a much grander edifice in a flamboyant Rococo style. Construction lasted for four years, and on 30 July 1756 the architect presented the brand-new 325-meter-long palace to the Empress, her dazed courtiers, and stupefied foreign ambassadors.

 

I, me, Suze, was going into GLITZ overload !!

Although the palace is popularly associated with Catherine the Great, she actually regarded its "whipped cream" architecture as old-fashioned.

 

Other highlights of the Grand Enfilade include the Portrait Hall, which contains remarkably good portraits of both Catherine and Elizabeth, the Picture Gallery, in which almost every inch of wall space is covered with paneling comprising 17^th and 18^th century canvases and, of course, the legendary Amber Room.

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In 1982, the order was given to begin the recreation of the Amber Room, a process that took over 20 years and cost more than $12 million. Opened in 2003 by President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the restored Amber Room is a truly unique monument, and a testament to the painstaking care of the craftsmen who worked on it.

To create this extraordinary chamber, Rastrelli used the panels of amber mosaic originally destined for an Amber Cabinet at Konigsberg Castle and presented to Peter the Great by Friedrich-Wilhelm I of Prussia, and surrounded them with gilded carving, mirrors, more amber panels created by Florentine and Russian craftsman (comprising a total of 450kg of amber), and further mosaics of Ural and Caucasus gemstones. The room was completed in 1770. Due to the fragility of the materials used, a caretaker was employed constantly to maintain and repair the decorations, and major restoration was undertaken three times in the 19^th century. 

Sounds just like your house, huh?

 

 

Now, doesn't this look just look your average craft table, ?

 

 

Let me tell you...I've been to Versailles....this even outdid that !

check out the wallpaper..the floors....oy vey !

Well...are you "palaced out" yet?

Tomorrow we'll continue with some more highlights as the fantastic trip to Russia continues...

teasers...teasers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Religion in Russia

At one time, Russia held the largest population of Jews in the world.

My own father came from Belarus and emigrated to England when he was a toddler, then to America in his 20's.

To honor the Russian Jews who died during the years of the holocaust, a synagogue called Holocaust Memorial Synagogue was built in 1998 and we went to visit it.

 

 Located near Victory Park, which was built in honor of Russia’s victory in World War 2, it was designed and built by Israeli’s Moshe Zarhi and Frank Meisler.

An incredible monument stands on the grounds dedicated to all (not just Jewish) victims of the Holocaust.

 

It absolutely takes your breath away.

Having a Jewish Holocaust synagogue and museum at this prestigious location is an amazing achievement for the Russian Jewish community" said Michael Steiner, the director of JDC Moscow

 

The tour inside was just as remarkable.

 

 

The museum exposition covers the story of the Jews in Russia before the Revolution, and it analyzes the phenomenon of the Holocaust on Soviet-controlled territory and in neighboring areas of Poland. Displays include copies of Nazi extermination orders, photographs of Jews in ghettoes and of massacre sites, and various artifacts. The other section concentrates on Jewish combatants during the Great Patriotic War.

 

The presence of Jews in the territories corresponding to modern Belarus, Ukraine, and the European part of Russia can be traced back to the 7th-14th centuries CE

 

Over two million Soviet Jews are believed to have died during the Holocaust, second only to the number of Polish Jews to have fallen victims to Hitler.

 

 

 

We were also fortunate to also visit a second synagogue. This one, The Moscow Choral Synagogue, is an active place of worship.

In fact it was in October, 1948, that Golda Meir, the first representative from Israel to the Soviet Union, paid an unauthorized visit to the synagogue to attendRosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services, enraging the Soviet government.

The synagogue has been recently restored. It is also known for the famous choir of Michael Turetsky.

 

Leaving the grounds we were greeted by a happy soul....not a care in the world !!!

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Even though this is out of order in terms of our time frame I thought you needed to see the other side....the splendor of the Russian Churches.

I should be shot for not having written down the name of this cathedral (we saw so many!) , but one of you smarties will help me out, I'm sure. It's in St. Petersburg! Peter and Paul perhaps??!!

 

and I thought MY house had high ceilings !!!

but wait....

we havent even come to the palaces yet!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Circus, the Soldiers and GUM

Our visit to Moscow included a wonderful circus. Terrific arial acts and a very funny clown...not your traditional clown in costume, but more like a funnyman doing stunts. The kids loved him. We did too !

The venue was much like we have here...concession stands and all

 

we are often used to a 3-ring circus...this was just a 1 ring with plenty going on !

and horses outside giving kids rides

and aren't kids the same everywhere !!

 

Across the street from the Circus was a wonderful park complete with bronze clown statues

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 Red Square is often considered the central square of Moscow and all of Russia, because Moscow's major streets—which connect to Russia's major highways—originate from the square.

The name "Red Square" has nothing to do with communism....the name came about because the Russian word красная (krasnaya) can mean either "red" or "beautiful". This word, with the meaning "beautiful", was originally applied to Saint Basil's Cathedral and was subsequently transferred to the nearby square.

I was very excited to deposit a little piece of jewelry in Red Square as part of the Art Abandonment project.

you just leave your little piece of art somewhere, hopefully no one is looking - and then you dream about the lucky person who will find this special gift for them !

Do you all own the new ART ABANDONMENT book? You should !

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and look....we ran into some soldiers.

Serving in the military is a 12 month draft, mandatory for all male citizens age 18–27. It used to be 18 months but was changed in 2008.

Leaving Red Square...some artwork

and, more at a subway entrance

Now, you can't visit Red Square without a visit to the enormous and super expensive GUM department store. Actually spelled, (in Russian), ГУМ, and pronounced goom (like doom!).

It was quite some Mall.....oh boy!!

The glass-​roofed design made the building unique at the time of construction. The roof, the diameter of which is 46 ft (14 m), looks light, but it is a firm construction made of more than 50,000 metal pods (about 819 short tons (743 t), capable of supporting snowfall accumulation.

 

Just say the word Mall and I'm there !

are ya flippin' out yet...cause I sure was !

 

never one to pass up a little Russian ice cream

GUM is a popular tourist destination for those visiting Moscow. Many of the stores feature fashionable brand names familiar in the West; locals refer to these as the "exhibitions of prices", the joke being that no one could afford actually to buy any of the items displayed. The building was completed in 1893. As of 2005, there were approximately 200 stores.

In 1928, GUM was closed by Stalin, who decided to use the building as the headquarters for officials working on the first Five Year Plan. GUM was reopened in 1953

It was quite a day !

But wait...THERE'S MORE....see you tomorrow !

 

 


 

 

The Domes & The Kremlin

When you think of Russia you can't help but think of the magnificent golden domes seen on the Russian Orthodox Churches. For a very long time religion was not even allowed in Russia.

 

The Christian community that became the Russian Orthodox Church is traditionally said to have been founded by the Apostle Andrew

 

By the mid-10th century, there was already a Christian community among Kievan nobility, under the leadership of Byzantine priests, although paganism remained the dominant religion. Princess Olga of Kiev was the first ruler of Kievan Rus to convert to Christianity, either in 945 or 957. Her grandson, Vladimir the Great, made Kievan Rus' a Christian state.

 

 

In 1914 there were 55,173 Russian Orthodox churches and 29,593 chapels, 112,629 priests and deacons, 550 monasteries and 475 convents with a total of 95,259 monks and nuns in Russia.

 

A new and widespread persecution of the church was subsequently instituted under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. A second round of repression, harassment and church closures took place between 1959 and 1964 when Nikita Khrushchev was in office.

There are three liturgies used in the Russian church: These are the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the Liturgy of St. Basil and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. The Liturgy of Chrysostom is the normal Liturgy of the Eastern Church

 

 

When you visit inside of the churches the men must remove their hats. Ladies should cover their heads and no open shoulders, you must wear full length pants & no shorts are allowed.

 

and then, you also think of the Kremlin

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Weather wise...not so glorious that day...

but...we frequent travelers never go anywhere without our little umbrellas....we were prepared!

 

Here we are approaching the Tsar Bell or Royal Bell as it is sometimes called.  The bell was commissioned by Empress Anna Ivanovna, niece of Peter the Great.

 

The Tsar Bell is located between the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and the Kremlin Wall. Made of bronze, the bell was broken during metalcasting and has never been rung. The bell is currently the largest bell in the world

 

 The broken piece weighs 25,400 lb

This bell was raised in the summer of 1836 by the French architect Auguste de Montferrand and placed on a stone pedestal. The broken slab alone is nearly three times larger than the world's largest bell hung for full circle ringing, the tenor bell at Liverpool Cathedral.

 

In future posts I'll take you INSIDE the incredible churches...and a synagogue.....and also the palaces...so..keep coming back !

 

Ahoy Mates..we're off to Russia

Well, I'm a little overdo, (been back almost a week now), but this IS the first real chance (after jet lag) to fill you in on the wonderful trip to Russia via Overseas Adventure Travels river cruise line Grand Circle Cruises.

We began in Moscow, situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia making it the world's most populated inland city.

It was a holiday weekend when we arrived so the streets were very quiet.

Here are a few shots of our sojourn to this big city:

 

Below is the the most famous theatre in Russia, THE BOLSHOI THEATER, which has a glorious interior and excellent acoustics, and is home to one of the most important ballet and opera companies in the world.

 

 

 

 

We traveled with our favorite friends and best ever traveling buddies Wendy & Roger Aikin and Judy and Joe Stabile from California. Judy & Wendy (sisters) are the owners of WaxWorksWest in Corralitos.

 

We thought it would be much warmer there than it actually was and wound up layering to the nines and buying hats !!

 

We wore whisper head sets so we could hear our guide Jenia (who spoke gorgeous English but with a Russian accent & a delightful sense of humor).

Moscow is the site of the Moscow Kremlin, a medieval city-fortress that is today the residence of the Russian president. The Moscow Kremlin is also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. We got to visit it and go insde. Yes we did !

 

We could practically touch St. Basils Cathedral, a former church in Red Square which is now a museum. The building is shaped as a flame of a bonfire rising into the sky. Nothing similar can be found in the entire millennium of Byzantine tradition from the fifth to fifteenth century. The church has been part of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990

 

so, rather than bore you with lots of chit chat...let me simply share some photos because I'm going to blog over several days with the highlights. I hope you'll feel like you were with us though the daily photos!

 

The Peter the Great Statue (below) is a 98-metre-high monument. It was designed by the Georgian designer Zurab Tsereteli to commemorate 300 years of the Russian Navy, which Peter the Great established.

 It was erected in 1997 and is the eighth tallest statue in the world. It weighs around 1,000 tons and contains 600 tons of stainless steel, bronze and copper. 

 

So...this little sampling of photos is just the beginning...join me tomorrow for more of Moscow !