Written by Sonja Smaldone Photos by Ewa Imielska - Henrike Hörmann
Saint Petersburg is a world-class destination and Russia second largest city, with a population of more than 5 million perched at the eastern tip of the Baltic Sea and the Neva River. The city was formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad. This is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on earth, and virtually any building in the large historic center, threaded with canals dotted with baroque bridges, can be considered an attraction - and indeed - it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This is a magical city, with a long list of major attractions. Its Hermitage Museum, housed in the Winter Palace of the Romanov Dynasty, is both one of the world’s greatest and oldest collections of art, treasure, and antiquities, and one of its most beautiful buildings. It contains more than three million art works, but the spaces allow the exhibition of ‘only’ sixty thousand pieces. On display the paintings of many authors, including Caravaggio, Antonio Canova, Francesco Casanova, Paul Cézanne, Leonardo da Vinci, Jacques-Louis David, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Fra Filippo Lippi, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, Vincent Van Gogh, Jacob van Ruisdael, Diego Velázquez, and Paolo Pagani. The monumental expansion of the collection is due to the contribution of Catherine the Great, sovereign lover and advocate of Arts. Recommended by Diderot and other distinguished European experts, the Tsarina bought more than 2000 paintings. Other sovereigns enriched the collection with donations and purchases. There are hundreds of theaters and concert halls in Saint Petersburg, where plays are performed every day, numerous historic monuments, palaces, charming nooks, greenery, parks and the city’s flagship structures, bridges – in an incredible number of 396 – as well as the Nevsky Prospect, the main artery of the city, where life pulsates till late in the night. All of this has made Petersburg one of the most wonderful urban complexes of the world, so much to deserve the name of the ‘Venice of the North’. It cannot be denied that the beauty of the Arabian horse matches these surroundings perfectly well. The participants of the event were lucky with the weather – St. Petersburg is known for having just two sunny months per year. Two mild days - straddling between the end of April and the beginning of May - decided to lighten up that weekend. 82
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