{"id":1501,"date":"2016-04-27T08:38:22","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T08:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=1501"},"modified":"2016-08-21T01:24:59","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T01:24:59","slug":"thursday-april-21-menshikov-nabokov-museum-of-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=1501","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, April 21, Menshikov + Nabokov + Museum of Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ubered over the river to The Menshikov Palace<\/strong>, home of a proud and ambitious man. His marble\u00a0bust says it all.<\/p>\n

\"{"focusMode":0,"deviceTilt":0.03066079219314055,"whiteBalanceProgram":0,"macroEnabled":false,"qualityMode":3}\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s nothing like as graceful as the Yusupov Palace, but then Menshikov rose\u00a0from humble\u00a0beginnings to prominence, then plummeted to a bad end\u00a0after the death of his great friend and patron, Peter the Great. They were besties during their salad days in Amsterdam, which might explains his devotion to Dutch tile. It was both the fashion and outrageously expensive. Menshikov paved the walls and ceilings with it. Kind of a nouveau riche move.<\/p>\n

\"Don't<\/a>
Don’t look up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here\u2019s his sister\u2019s room. \"sister\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Along with a lathe and wood-working tools used by Peter the Great,\u00a0There was this\u00a0wooden strong box.\u00a0The turn of one key open 26 bolts at once.\"case<\/a><\/p>\n

Couldn\u2019t find the restaurant I was looking for, so famished I decided to\u00a0take a chance on this place. It turned out to be a good call. Other patrons were Italian-suited business men and a few Chanel-suited tourist couples. I got the \u2018would madam like to see the menu? \u2018 move from the Ma\u00eetre d\u2019, who squinted\u00a0at my Chucks and tee and jeans and wanted to avoid mutual embarrassment by giving me a look\u00a0at the prices. He did not realize the favorable exchange rate made this a cheap meal. The venue was nice. Light-filled, spacious, calm, excellent service, and not bad food (fish cakes, mashed potatoes, grilled veg).<\/p>\n

\"Name<\/a>
Name of this place is Restaurant. Which makes it really hard to looks up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were birds\u00a0squawking and singing at random moments. I thought it was some strange attempt at\u00a0ambience by audio\u00a0until I saw the\u00a0pair of cockatiels caged by the bar.<\/p>\n

Ubered back across the river to the Nabokov House Museum<\/strong>. \u00a0Opening the door was like entering a\u00a0shrine.\u00a0I\u2019d read his engaging and\u00a0lucid memoir,\u00a0Speak, Memory<\/em>\u00a0years ago, and been listening to the audio book for the past week. I could see his home in my mind\u2019s eye; especially the library, where his father practiced fencing\u00a0in the morning. Ah, me. Today Nabokov\u2019s boyhood home is nearly a ruin; a few dilapidated rooms with intact ceiling paneling, a wreck of cordoned-off stairs. The exhibits are meager; photos pinned to the walls, fragments of letters, random\u00a0memorabilia.The flotsam and jetsam of\u00a0his exile from the Russia of his youth. A\u00a0few glass cases of butterflies alone had undiminished beauty.<\/p>\n

\"Crooked<\/a>
Crooked things make me crazy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Russian language video documentary played in another room to rows and rows of empty seats and three other visitors. I guess they haven\u2019t forgiven him.\u00a0A prophet without honor in his own land.<\/p>\n

Not ready to quit, I checked my homemade Google Map and saw the Museum of the History of Religion<\/strong> was only a few blocks away. Let me recommend\u00a0\u00a0the audio guide. It was very informative and spoken by a dry English voice. Like listening to a benevolent and cynical old man\u00a0recount fairy tales. All that\u2019s missing is the intro, \u2018Once upon a time.\u2019 Or, \u2018Then the princess pricked her finger and fell asleep for a hundred years.\u2019<\/p>\n

Unlike the Nabokov House, there was plenty to see and hear, from shaman rites and Greek temples to over-the-top orthodox vestments, purloined, I assume, when the Bolsheviks ransacked the churches and outlawed the opium of the masses** \"vestment\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were hard to define\u00a0oddities, like this priest in a box<\/p>\n

\"Pope<\/a>
Pope to go.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anti-Roman Catholic propaganda. \"rome\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And this, \u00a0which was purported to be the actual nails from the actual cross. \"nailed<\/a>I doubt these are the real thing.<\/p>\n

Unexpectedly, presenting all this as\u00a0childish superstition had the opposite cumulative effect. Instead of engendering doubt, it fanned the fame of possibility. If all humanity through all the ages has worshipped, has sought\u00a0and acknowledged a creator, why wouldn\u2019t there be something greater than ourselves? Change the names, the dogma, the rituals, it all points the same direction. The idea man is the very pinnacle, the apotheosis of existence sounds absurd to me. Is hubris the word I\u2019m looking for here? Arrogance, maybe.***<\/p>\n

Biggest surprise was the exhibit of The Pure Land of a Buddha of infinite light, Amitabha.<\/p>\n

\"They<\/a>
They went all in on this display<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The room was dim and blue. A shining path of starlight above\u00a0and\u00a0below led to a set of carved wooden sculptures representing the sphere of bliss. There was the humming\u00a0drone of chanting. The Mahayana Buddha waits, enthroned. If I\u2019d sat down, I don\u2019t know when I would have gotten up. It was like sinking into a warm lotus pond, in the summer. Bliss.<\/p>\n

My last stop was a line of bright gold and red prayer wheels. There was a notice inviting \u00a0the dear visitor to spin them, so spin I did. I went up and back and up again, saying the names of those I love in my mind, urged on by a smiling Indian babushka. It\u2019s another trip highlight.<\/p>\n

** \u201cIt is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.\u201d<\/em> Karl Marx<\/em><\/p>\n

*** ‘Hubris:\u00a0insolent contempt that may be defined verbally as extreme or foolish pride.’<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ubered over the river to The Menshikov Palace, home of a proud and ambitious man. His marble\u00a0bust says it all. It\u2019s nothing like as graceful as the Yusupov Palace, but then Menshikov rose\u00a0from humble\u00a0beginnings to prominence, then plummeted to a bad end\u00a0after the death of his great friend and patron, Peter the Great. They were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21],"tags":[57,59,58,194],"class_list":{"0":"post-1501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-menshikov","9":"tag-museum-of-religion","10":"tag-nabokov-house","11":"tag-restaurant","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/OriginalPhoto-482939447.749618.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-od","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1501"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1555,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions\/1555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}