Saint Petersburg: Museums Palaces and Historic Collections (Museums)

Rating:
Summary: Discovering St. Petersburg's 40 Unknown Treasures
Review: As the founder of a company devoted to business and cultural travel to Russia, it pains me that so many tourists come to St. Petersburg for a day or two and only visit the Hermitage, Peterhof, and a ballet. Russia is like a Fabergé egg-a beautiful exterior with a hard-to-open but spectacular hidden interior. Among the little known gems in St. Petersburg are the Museum of Theatrical and Musical Arts, the Nabokov Museum (former residence of Vladimir Nabokov), the Russian Ethnographic Museum, the Rimskii-Korsakov Memorial Apartment-Museum, the History of Religion Museum (formerly the "Anti-Religion Museum), the recently-opened Museum of Toys, and the Museum of Russian Vodka. All these treasures and more are fondly catalogued in Cathy Giangrande's Saint Petersburg: Museums Palaces and Historic Collections (Museums).

To appreciate this book a traveler needs to understand the unintentional irony of the chapter titled "Also well worth a visit are ..." listing the Hermitage Museum, one of the world's premier cultural treasures (and the most popular tourist site in Russia). It makes a great companion to such guides as DK Eyewitness's St. Petersburg guidebook (far more sights and coverage of the Hermitage, but without lengthy descriptions of lesser-known museums).

Its small size makes this a "laptray book", but for the visitor in body or spirit to St. Petersburg is just as enthralling as a five pound coffee table book. One-to-four pages are devoted to each of the over 40 lesser known attractions in St. Petersburg. Each listing had a clear address, directions, phone and web site (if available).

Books like this will help St. Petersburg, and Russia, become one of the world's premier tourist destinations in the next 10 years. There are literally thousands of such treasures throughout Russia as these listed here, but few people know about them. Truly, this book will help anyone interested in truly discovering Russia.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece among specialty city guides
Review: I began reading Cathy Giandrande's little guide to St. Petersburg with a great deal of skepticism. As I kept exploring the book, all my doubts quickly disappeared. That alone came to me as a surprise. Unlike most Russians who still suffer from a mild identity disorder, Petersburgers have a strong sense of local patriotism and know what they are and what their city is about. From time to time, their patriotism mutates into a peculiar kind of city chauvinism. It is taken for granted that no temporary visitor, be he or she from Moscow or Paris, can know the city or truly appreciate it. I am no different. As a Petersburger, I would never think that an outsider, least a foreigner, least someone from a culture many Russians perceive as hostile and extremely russophobic, would be able to put together a concise guide to the lesser known museums and landmarks of the city and do it in such a low key, friendly and unbiased manner, that the final work is a joy to read and is more useful from any practical standpoint of city exploration than many far weightier and thicker "serious" guides.

Cathy Giangrande's St. Petersburg is a guide to the city museums and lesser-known landmarks. If the author "missed" any museums, then I have a feeling, that she excluded them deliberately because they are so obscure (like the Museum of Armed Forces Medical Academy) that almost no locals are aware of their existence. On the other hand, the guidebook contains information on some really obscure museums, such as the new private museum of toys.

The book is a journey of exploration and is a pleasure to read "as is" from cover to cover. Alternately, it can be used as a helpful reference manual.

The guidebook has its own share of minor irritants, such as the occasional misspelling of French and English words transliterated backwards, but they are not very significant.

The book is beautifully printed on high quality paper and is richly illustrated with color photographs. It contains a helpful map or rather an outline plan of the central part of the city, a schematic plan of St. Petersburg region, and a well-designed plan of St.Petersburg "Metro" (or the city's subway system). All museum and landmark entries include detailed address and contact information, and indicate the nearest subway or suburban train station.

Among all foreign languages guides and books on St. Petersburg, that I ever came across, this one is the only work that is worth translating into Russian. Even locals would find this book a great aid in exploring their own city.

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding guidebook to St. Petersburg
Review: I began reading Cathy Giandrande's little guide to St. Petersburg with a great deal of skepticism. As I kept exploring the book, all my doubts quickly disappeared. That alone came to me as a surprise. Unlike most Russians who still suffer from a mild identity disorder, Petersburgers have a strong sense of local patriotism and know what they are and what their city is about. From time to time, their patriotism mutates into a peculiar kind of city chauvinism. It is taken for granted that no temporary visitor, be he or she from Moscow or Paris, can know the city or truly appreciate it. I am no different. As a Petersburger, I would never think that an outsider, least a foreigner, least someone from a culture many Russians perceive as hostile and extremely russophobic, would be able to put together a concise guide to the lesser known museums and landmarks of the city and do it in such a low key, friendly and unbiased manner, that the final work is a joy to read and is more useful from any practical standpoint of city exploration than many far weightier and thicker "serious" guides.
Cathy Giangrande's St. Petersburg is a guide to the city museums and lesser-known landmarks. If the author "missed" any museums, then I have a feeling, that she excluded them deliberately because they are so obscure (like the Museum of Armed Forces Medical Academy) that almost no locals are aware of their existence. On the other hand, the guidebook contains information on some really obscure museums, such as the new private museum of toys.

The book is a journey of exploration and is a pleasure to read "as is" from cover to cover. Alternately, it can be used as a helpful reference manual.

The guidebook has its own share of minor irritants, such as the occasional misspelling of French and English words transliterated backwards, but they are not very significant.

The book is beautifully printed on high quality paper and is richly illustrated with color photographs. It contains a helpful map or rather an outline plan of the central part of the city, a schematic plan of St. Petersburg region, and a well-designed plan of St.Petersburg "Metro" (or the city's subway system). All museum and landmark entries include detailed address and contact information, and indicate the nearest subway or suburban train station.

Among all foreign languages guides and books on St. Petersburg, that I ever came across, this one is the only work that is worth translating into Russian. Even locals would find this book a great aid in exploring their own city.