Museums[edit]
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted specifically to Russian fine art. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova,Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.
The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
A number of museums provide insight into the Soviet history of Saint Petersburg, including the Museum of the Blockade, which describes the Siege of Leningrad and the Museum of Political History, which explains many authoritarian features of the U.S.S.R..
Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum, and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Suvorov Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, the largest non-governmental Museum of contemporary art in Russia, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress andArtillery Museum, which includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniforms and decorations.
Music[edit]
Among the city's more than fifty theatres is the world-famous Mariinsky Theatre (also known as the Kirov Theatre in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.
The First music professional institution – Conservatory – appeared in 1862 in St. Petersburg thanks to the Russian pianist and composerAnton Rubinstein. The school alumni have included such notable composers as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Artur Kapp, andRudolf Tobias and Dmitri Shostakovich, who taught at the conservatory during the 1960s, bringing it additional fame. Famous Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who taught at the Conservatory for more than 30 years, created strong composers' school. Among his students were Igor Stravinsky, Alexander Glazounov, Anatoly Liadov and others. The only composer's museum in St. Petersburg is now museum in the former apartment of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The completeness and authenticity of these rooms make the museum particularly invaluable.
Dmitri Shostakovich, who was born and raised in Saint Petersburg, dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in the city during the siege of Leningrad. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg. It was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors.[79] In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century earlier.[80] The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky andYuri Temirkanov. Mravinsky's term as artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic – a term which is possibly the longest of any conductor with any orchestra in modern times – led the orchestra from being a little-known provincial ensemble to it becoming one of the world's most highly regarded orchestras today, especially for the performance of Russian music.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s and was later named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha to become the first popular band in the USSR during the 1950s. In the 1960s student rock-groupsArgonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium which later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from 'underground' and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club, which provided a stage to such bands as DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Alisa, Zemlyane, Zoopark, Piknik, Secret and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop Mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talentedSergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s. The annual International Music Festival SKIF (Sergey Kuriokhin International Festival) is named after him. In 2004 the Kuryokhin Center was founded, were the SKIF as well as the Electro-Mechanica festival and Ethnomechanica festival takes place. SKIF focuses on experimental pop music and avant garde music, Electro-Mechanica on electronic music and Ethnomechanica on world music.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov, Tequilajazzz, Splean, Korol i Shut, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky. In the early 2000s on a wave of popularity of metalcore, rapcore, emocore and there are such groups as Amatory, Kirpichi, Psychea, Stigmata, Grenouer and Animal Jazz.
The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and a massive show celebrating the end of the school year.
Film[edit]
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg.[81] Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg have been produced worldwide but not filmed in the city. The first film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 20th century and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 199
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