On family history, parenting, education, social issues and more
Author: Hettie D.
My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996.
I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future.
I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life.
As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.
Wednesday was my first working day in Helsinki, but after work, we went to a proper concert. Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra performed Elgar’s Violin Concerto (“the longest violin concerto”:)), and the Beethoven Fifth (and the whole concert was called “The Sound of Fate”. The soloist was Christian Tetzlaff, whom I heard a number of times at the CSO, and who is absolutely brilliant. He canceled his CSO appearance in October due to visa issues/in protest. Not sure which one is true, I heard both versions, but in any case, I was delighted to hear him again.
Also, that was the first time I attended a concert in the Helsinki House of Music, and I had an opportunity to experience this outstanding venue!
The coolest organ I’ve seen in my life!
Beautiful sound and great view from any seat, easy entrance and exit, fast service at the cafe and at the coat check – everything about this venue is perfect 🙂
Tuesday, January 20, was a very cold day in Vienna, largely due to the Chicago-style wind chill. I was dressed warmly enough, but my face was hurting all the time, and most of the time, I couldn’t make myself take pictures, because I needed to take off at least one glove, at least for a minute.
After everything we saw in the museums during the previous two days, we realized that we do not know enough about the post-WWII Austrian History, and decided to alter our plans and go to the House of Austrian History, which is located in the Hofburg Palace (and saw the Changing of the Guard on the way):
Unfortunately, when we got there, we found the museum closed on that day due to whatever repairs. We were crushed, so we went to the Sisi Museum since we were already at the Hofburg.
This museum has a very different mood compared to Schonbrunn (if you can say that about a museum). Also, I watched the movie “Sisi and I” last year, and did more Sisi-related reading, and that might have influenced how I perceived the exhibit.
It was very dark inside (Boris lost me, and we didn’t reunite until the exit :)), but they were giving everyone an audioguide, which helped.
The imperial rooms had normal light, so I took some pictures there
Franz Joseph’s audience roomHis cabinetA dining room for “non-formal” dinners. The most impressive thing we learned was that there were from nine to thirteen courses served, and each course was promptly removed when the next course started, and the whole dinner didn’t last more than 45 minutes. I don’t know how they did it!
The next several pictures show Sisi’s rooms.
Note the gymnastic rings in the doorway
We left Hofburg and went to St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
We planned to explore it, to climb up the tower and to walk around the neighborhood, but once again, the bitter cold altered all our plans.
So we just stayed inside the Cathedral, saw all we could see, and went for a pre-booked lunch, and then moved from one coffee shop to another until it was time to go to the airport 🙂
Looking at the posts about our previous visit to Vienna in 2022, this one and that one, it appears to be hopeless – I was complaining about the cold weather back then, and promised to get there in better weather, and we came back for even worse weather!
Also, I still haven’t done my homework on Modernism in Vienna, but at least this time, we had more time to explore. After Belvedere, we headed to the Leopold Museum, which was partially under reconstruction last time, and this time, we spent a lot of time there. It was a more in-depth dive into the New Objectivity, Modernism, Kimpt and Schiele, Secession and Women’s Rights, and the artists in the exhibit were pretty much the same we saw in other museums, so I won’t repeat myself. The Leopold Museum has an excellent online collection that you can tour.
I liked a four-minute movie with the tram going through Vienna in the early 1900s (don’t remember the exact year). It always feels surreal to see people “live” more than a hundred years ago, and it’s surprising how much alike things look (you want to say these are the same trees :)), and the people waiting at the tram stop. It’s also interesting how little the men’s clothing changed since then, and how much the women’s clothing changed 🙂
Several pictures of the museum interior, a couple of interesting objects, and paintings:
On Monday morning, we planned a visit to the Belvedere Summer Palaces and park.
I thought that Belvedere would be mostly about architecture and interiors (same as many summer palaces around St. Petersburg). But it turned out that only a few rooms in each palace are restored in all their baroque glory, and there was more art and more information to process.
I will still start with the architecture, though. Everything would look better during summer, but I imagine there will also be hordes of tourists when the weather is nicer (same as in Paris, Athens, and other big tourist attractions, so I am counting my blessings.
We started with the Upper Palace and the park, which actually looks a lot like the Peterhoff Uppaer Palace.
Paul KleeBoris Grigorjew. A couple: Thief and Prostitute. 1917
Once again, I didn’t know anything about this artist, so I saved some notes from the exhibit:
Boris Grigoriev is one of those artists who, despite the omnipresent search for new forms of avant-garde expression in the contemporary Eastern European art centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg, stuck to figuration and the classical genres. A brilliant draftsman, he initially worked as an illustrator for magazines and made a name for himself as a recognized portraitist of well-known personalities. Self-Portrait with a Cigarette is one of these powerfully expressive portraits.
Grigoriev’s portraits thrive on a direct confrontation with the sitter and the exaggeration of gestures and facial features, as well as the expression of an emotion that captivates the viewer. In this sell-portrait Grigorier presents himself in a defensive posture: the raised shoulder and the skeptical, grim gaze suggest a defensive aloofness; in addition, the figure is viewed from below, by which the artist elevates himself while subordinating the viewer it is through such powerful means that Grigorier lends this traditional genre o modernity that a comparable and roughly contemporaneous with the visoalizations of Expressionism and New Objectivity. Not lost because of the criticism of his “European style,” the artist left Russia in 1919 and settled in Paris in 1921
I recognized Deineka, and was wondering how he could possibly paint a baseball game, and it turned out that he was “awarded” a trip abroad, including the USA, approximately at the same time as Ilf and Petrov Continue reading “Albertina Museum In Vienna, Part 2”→
When we planned this trip, Boris was sure it wouldn’t be that cold in Vienna in January, definitely not colder than in Helsinki, and it will bw nice to walk around. As our departure approached, the weather forecast kept talking about “severe weather conditions,” and we couldn’t figure out what the fuss was about, since it was still showing a little below 30F.
On Sunday, we planned to visit both Albertina and at least some of the Hofburg museums, but we ended up spending the whole afternoon in Albertina (including lunch, which took longer than we expected for a museum cafe).
This very unconventional piece of furniture was made for Archduke Carl, who got tired of the constant presence of the staff who didn’t allow him to do anything by himself. Having this very modern looking, and for his time, revolutionary, this stand allowed Archduke to put things on it and take them off independently (do not ask, that’s what the exhibit description says!)And that’s how Archduke Carl lookedOn the opposite side of practicality – a porcelain tableContinue reading “Albertina Museum In Vienna, Part 1”→
About the travel. British Airways decided to gift me a free business class upgrade, and they notified me when I was dropping off my luggage, not at the last minute. That was super-nice, because they are not my primary carrier, and I didn’t expect it. Also, that meant that I could sleep horizontally and try to get my sleep back on track. But now, I had a dilemma. Originally, I booked premium and planned to skip the meal and try to sleep right away, but now, there was some fancy food in sight, and at the same time, the flight was delayed even more.
I ended up having dinner, which was a mistake, because although we departed almost an hour late, the captain made up for it and we arrived almost on time, which meant I had less than four hours of sleep. My Apple Watch was going nuts about my lack of sleep.
I had a very long connection in London, which I was hoping to use to catch up on my community-related work, but I wasn’t super productive because I was so tired. My arrival in Helsinki was very late(as expected), and we had an early flight to Vienna.
To be done with the topic of sleep deprivation, we also had a late dinner with one of me peer on the first night in Vienna, and I finally caught up on sleep on Tuesday :).
I spent a very long time choosing a hotel to stay in Vienna, and it was OK location-wise, but there were several unexpected twists. First, although they said on the website they had a fitness center, it was… not really. To be precise, it meant a corner in their pre-sauna room, so you could technically exercise after you get out of the sauna, but not like you could come in the morning and do the weights. Second (and that was the first time ever I had such a problem) – there was no closet in the room. Nothing. Even a small one. Instead, there were two hooks with a bunch of hangers, and good luck hanging both the coats and the clothes! I would never thought I had to check for that!
Anyway, we survived, and are about to leave now, but I will definitely mention it in my review 🙂
It might look like schnitzels, desserts, and coffee, and lots of entertainment, but this visit provoked a lot of thought about the parts of the history I didn’t know. I how I will have time to tell al about it, but for now – just my Instagram feed 🙂
I will show more pictures shortly, but for now, just one. I am trying to spend my birthday in a new country every year, at least for another couple of years 🙂
Hettie's Reflections 