Pushkin Museum

We spent two very intense days in Saint Petersburg and saw as much beauty as I had not seen in my whole life. However, the tight schedule did not allow us to visit a single museum or art gallery from the inside; we managed to appreciate the beauty of only the external façades.

A meeting with the first significant art gallery in my life was waiting for me on my return from Saint Petersburg to Moscow. This gallery was the Pushkin Museum located a 30-minute walk from the Kremlin. The building of the Pushkin Museum is one of the most beautiful in Moscow; it resembles a magnificent ancient Greek temple with columns.

The Pushkin Museum is one of the most beloved by Muscovites and guests of the capital. In general, Russian people love art very much. I learned that the “Masterpieces of the Dresden Picture Gallery” exhibition in the Pushkin Museum was visited by more than a million Russians in the last century. It is even difficult to imagine such a number of visitors to an art gallery; for this, you really need to adore the art of the whole nation. I have never seen such a great love of art (which Russians have) in any nation of the world.

I drew attention to the fact that in the Pushkin Museum, there are works of not only Russian masters but also European painters of the Renaissance and subsequent centuries. A few months later, I was convinced that many canvases of the Pushkin Museum are similar in style to those of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It turned out that this is not surprising, as in the Soviet era, many paintings from the Hermitage were transferred to the Pushkin Museum.

In a separate building of the Pushkin Museum, there is a large collection of impressionists, French artists of the late 19th-early 20th century. I am not a big fan of impressionists and absolutely do not like modern abstract art. Fortunately, in Russian museums, there is practically no abstractionism; in the Pushkin Museum, this style did not poison my mood at all. As for impressionism, many canvases of the beginning of this era in painting made a vivid impression on me.

However, most of all in the Pushkin Museum I was struck not even by the pictures. At the very beginning of the exhibition, I saw ancient Egyptian mummies and sarcophagi. Since childhood, I am concerned about the subject of ancient Egypt; I feel a special connection with this era and this country. I even know that my spirit was embodied in those times, in those places, in the form of a goddess. Nevertheless, this is a topic for another story.

In India, it is impossible to get acquainted with the real artefacts of ancient Egypt, since they are not there. I only saw them on TV and always dreamed of seeing them with my own eyes. My dream came true in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Here is a large collection of jewellery, ritual things, and household items from ancient Egypt.

The sculptures in the Pushkin Museum made a similar impression on me. Some of the sculptures are made so skilfully that they seem alive. A stone dress on a female sculpture looks so light, as if it is swaying from the elusive whiff of the wind.

Perhaps it was the artefacts of ancient Egypt and the ingenious sculptures performed by European masters that most shocked me in the Pushkin Museum of Moscow.