In the lovely, but very Western-European city of St. Petersburg, we were given a tour of the city and the stunning Hermitage by our knowledgeable guide. It was clear to see that we could explore the Winter Palace and the Hermitage all day and night and still not see all there was to see and learn all there is to know about both the art movements and painters and the history of the Russian Imperial power and expansion towards a broad, world power that is culturally renown today.

This visitation of the Winter Palace and the Hermitage were especially exciting and meaningful for me. I have read a biography on Catherine the Great as well as another about Peter the Great; so, connecting the history of Catherine’s contributions and strikingly large personality to the location that brought culture to both St. Petersburg and Russia from Europe was seeing something I had daydreamed about - the place where Catherine had strolled with her gentlemen friends and improved her meager education and background as well as her country’s was euphoric. Though I knew that much of the art in the Hermitage is not of Russian movements or artists, I was surprised that we saw none at all by a native-Russian. Emphasis was very much upon the greatest, most famous – but not Russian – artists of the time; and the sheer volume of the collections of these was astonishing.