Letters from St Petersburg

by Victoria Hammond

With its shimmering palaces and decaying mansions, enchanted forests and basements full of Soviet art, the history of St. Petersburg comes alive in this memoir of one art devotee's journey to reveal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1741143381
• ISBN13: 9781741143386
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin Academic
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining read

An Australian soends a few months in St Petersburg, getting to know locals even though she speaks no russian. Mostly about the art world, with reasonably well to do russians, it was a delight to read.

Fascinating Memoir

Victoria Hammond gives us an intriguing insite into life in St Petersberg, Russia, where she lived for about a year. She didn't know the language, or anyone there, but had a few contacts given to her by a fellow art curator. Everyday urban life in Russia is not a topic I was aquainted with, and Hammond's desriptions of the strange and the ordinary, and the friendship offered her by strangers makes an insightful read. I was interested to learn about St Petersberg's historical connections with Europe and the affects of perestroika - strange gaps in the law and the Russian mafia taking up the slack of what was formerly run by the state. Being an art curator, she also gives an insight into the world of art and curators and artists, who eek out a living. My only criticism- the photo selection was odd. Hammond describes a scene where she takes the wrong bus and gets horribly lost. She can't read the signs, can't speak a word of Russian and is confronted with mile after identical mile of anonymous tower blocks- I wanted a photo even though it wouldn't have been pretty. A great foray into an area of literature that's thin on the ground.