CAU > Seminars and Study Tours > A Russian Winter Symphony: The Sights and Sounds of Moscow and St. Petersburg

A Russian Winter Symphony: The Sights and Sounds of Moscow and St. Petersburg

January 10-18, 2007

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Overview

The Winter Palace. The Kremlin. Peter and the Wolf. Napoleon's army. Doctor Zhivago. Persian lamb hats. These are images of Russia we all know. And, what could be more Russian than winter? Yet, few tourists brave Russia when Russia is most itself. Instead, they're content to swelter in the months when the air-conditioning doesn't work, the museums are packed, and the Bolshoi is on vacation. Not us!

Faculty

Led by CAU favorite Neal Zaslaw, the Herbert Gussman Professor of Music, one of Cornell's great teachers as well as an internationally recognized authority on Mozart and European music of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, we've decided to do what timid tourists avoid: savor the cities of Tchaikovsky, Lenin, Rachmaninoff, and Anastasia at the time of year when Russia is at its most Russian.

Itinerary

In Moscow, we'll settle in at the five-star Hotel Metropol, explore the Kremlin, Red Square, and the Arbat (with its shops and café sample the fare at a few of Moscow's best restaurants, and enjoy performances (to be selected by professor Zaslaw in the fall) at famed venues, including the Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the Bolshoi New Theater, with Neal helping us appreciate Russia's great composers and musical traditions. From Moscow, we'll take the train through the winter countryside to St. Petersburg, Peter the Great's "Window on the West." Our quarters will be the five-star Angleterre Hotel, centrally located near the streets and squares where the czars paraded, Dostoevsky walked, and Shostakovich performed. We'll continue our musical forays with performances at the Shostakovich Philharmonic Hall, the Mariinsky Theater, and at a Russian Orthodox church. We'll explore several of St. Petersburg's fabulous districts and sites, including Catherine's Palace, with its incomparable Amber Room, and the Hermitage, where we won't have to fight off herds of visitors to approach the artwork.

Program Cost and Travel Arrangements

The program fee of $4,475 (per-person, double-occupancy) includes all accommodations, most meals, all site visits, admission fees, best available tickets to five performances, ground transportation, escort services, gratuities, taxes, emergency medical-evacuation insurance, and the full educational program. The supplement for single occupancy is $750. A special group airfare (the current price is $710) from New York, aboard Lufthansa, will be available, but you are free to make your own international air arrangements if you prefer.

Physical Requirements

This is not a physically rigorous program, but we'll be walking over uneven, possibly snow-covered or icy ground and climbing steps at many points. Floridians may find all this daunting, but anyone who manages just fine in New York, Boston, Chicago—or Ithaca—in winter should do very well!