St Petersberg art literate private guide

[gfranzen]

Can anyone recommend a private guide who is well schooled in the art of the Hermitage? I'm looking for a guide who can do more than point and identify the artist.

[TLCOhio]

Can anyone recommend a private guide who is well schooled in the art of the Hermitage? I'm looking for a guide who can do more than point and identify the artist.

 

Through the two-day private tour set up with Anastasia, our guide, Jane, was excellent! She did much, much than just pointing and naming the artist. She had great background info and gave us all of the "why's" and the important details as we toured the Hermitage and visited other places in St. Petersburg. It is important to communicate on the why of the experience (and therefore the type of guide) you seek and need in picking which tour company to use.

 

Search these boards for more info on the top tour companies. Be specific. Tell them what you need and want. To reach Anastasia: info@anastasiaworld.com

anastasiadavidova@yahoo.com

 

Below are a couple of pictures from our tours with Jane. The first two are from in the Hermitage. First, in front of one of the famed Da Vinci painting and the other with one of Rembrandt's most famous and last paintings. The other is from being at Catherine's Palace.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

 

 

 

 

[gdayhoff]

We used SPB-Tours in July of this year.Our guide was Elena Skidan who was outstanding and was able to communicate very well with the various age difference in my family[15-79 year olds] but what I was really impressed about her was her knowledge of the Hermitage.She was able to answer our questions on any piece of art work that we had picked out and had questions.We spent about 2 1/2 hours there and when we needed to leave in order get back to our ship she seem disappointed.I'm not into art but she was good and made it very enjoyable.I would go back to the Hermitage with her any day .

[sbhdmh]

My husband is an art professor so he also had a strong interest in the artwork at the Hermitage. We chose to work with a private guide named Masha http://www.guide-spb-ru.com/index.html. She was so eager to work with my husband. Her grandmother was an art historian and her daughter is currently an art student. She strongly encouraged him to also visit the Russian Museum which houses work of many of the great Russian artists.

 

My husband knew what he was looking at and they spent much of their time together with him providing her with more background on some of the artwork. Apparently all the guides have to memorize a great number of facts to be licensed. He enjoyed working with Masha because of her passion for the art they were seeing even if her knowledge was not what you could call encyclopedic.

 

He says that he would recommend her to someone who is eager to see the art at the Hermitage but she is not what he would call "an art guide." If you are planning to do the Hermitage as part of a larger tour of St Petersburg she could be ideal. She is a lovely person and has a great deal of knowledge about many aspects of the city. She did some amazing research for us and found and exhibition at the Ethnographic Museum that no one else seemed to know existed. Since she was not knowledgable about the subject matter (the History of Jews in Russia) she arranged for the curator of the exhibition to give us a personal tour. Now THAT'S a guide!

[sbhdmh]

FYI: My husband just received an email from Masha. She has enrolled in an Art History course at the Hermitage so that she will be better able to provide just the sort of information you are asking about. She is passionate and very eager to have as much information as possible to share with her visitors. I really can't imagine a better guide to work with.

 

Good luck and enjoy your trip.