Thursday, August 13, 2009

Stolen

Day 519
I was the first person up in my room and packed quickly and quietly. The guy who had asked if I believed in JC very loudly said "miss, I'm sorry for last night." I whispered back that if he wanted to talk we could do so outside, but that people were sleeping and we can't talk.




After checking out I mapped out my day over breakfast.

In the city garden I possed with everyone else on a bronze chair. I have no idea why , but everyone was doing it. After taking pictures of various buildings and monuments I headed to the Western and Eastern Art Museum. We can just call it the W & E from now on.

The W & E sounded amazing. It might sound a bit familiar because on July 30 of last year Caravaggio's "Taking of the Christ," worth US $100 million, was stolen from here. Not a trace of it has been found. Miracles have happened here before though. At the end of the 18th century Katherine the Great purchased four Frans Hals paintings (he was a Dutch master). The two shops transporting them were hit by a brutal storm. One sank and the other was badly damaged. All four works were considered lost. In 1958 an art collector was perusing a market and was drawn to an ancient looking painting. The museum paid the woman who had it 9 rubles. I don't know how much that was then, but it wasn't much. Another one of the paintings was found in a museum storage room.

In 1965 both paintings were sent to Moscow fora special exhibit. St. Luke was cut from its from. When the thieves started talking to buyers they ran into an agent and were caught. The painting had been really mistreated and thought destroyed, however the experts were able to salvage it. The other tow paintings have been found as well. One was in a private collection, the other in the Getty museum in LA.

As an aside a Russian woman recently threw a cup at the Mona Lisa for not receiving French citizenship. The painting was unharmed. It is also unknown as to why she would attach a painting by an Italian painter.

I was really excited about this museum. The bottom floor held the Eastern art collection. It was good, but I wanted to see the European stuff. When I got upstairs I found out that the museum was under renovations because of the stolen painting. There wasn't much to see at all. It really sucked.

Disappointed I headed to the Archaeological Museum. I was pretty good with a small but nice Greek and Egyptian collection.

After some more wandering I had finished my to do list I went to an i-cafe to type up the entries I had written the night before. When I was done I went back to the hostel to charge my i-pod.

At 9 I asked the guy at reception to call me a cab. He asked when my bus was and when I told him 10:15. He said that I didn't need to leave until 9:30 and that he would call later. He then left, but told me that he would come back. At 9:40 he still wasn't there and I was irritated.

I managed to find a cab but the guy tried to over charge me. I told him that I only had about $7 left and he took that.

The bus was loading when I arrived. I found out a few hours later that I had gotten the right ticket after all and had missed Transdniester.

No comments: