When most people think of the Hermitage, they think of gold objects, icons, priceless furniture, or 17th and 18th century paintings. And apparently that's where most of the visitors go, judging by the crazy confusing press of people when we were there. The crowd thins out downstairs, but there's an awful lot of cool stuff down in the basement, where they put all their "prehistoric art." Like this small cat carving:
Or this spooky armor for a horse's head from a Scythian tomb:
Or what was really cool was this funeral wagon from the same giant tomb. It's 2500 years old.
You can read more about this spectacular find which included the world's oldest carpet, mummified horses with trappings, a tatooed mummified cheiftan, furniture, gold jewelry etc..(somehow we both missed photographing ghe carpet--it is really beautiful! It has horsemen and deer on decorative borders. The horse gear depicted on the rug looks like the things in the tombs!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazyryk_burials
Check out the guys looking at it. They're symmetric:
More after the cut
Two toys:
Two silver plates from the Perm area of Russsia-near where Elena is from:
Here's a detail from a felt saddlebag decorated with leather cut to portray a lion attacking a moose:
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