I DON'T know what it is about ladies in brightly coloured hats, but they always seem to appear at opportune moments and offer me invaluable assistance.
As I stood alone and confused on the streets of St Petersburg, she appeared to me like a guardian angel in a pink straw boater. "What are you looking for? Tell me." Her name was Sophia, she was from the Ukraine and had emigrated to New York in the '70s. She had a manner that was at once abrupt and beguiling, and a face you wouldn't argue with. "The Hermitage," I replied. "I'm lost and I'm Irish." That line usually generates sympathy. It worked this time too.
"This way," demanded Sophia. Frankly, she could have been leading me to a Siberian salt mine, but I followed. She fearlessly hailed a cab and had us at the Hermitage within minutes.
Recently the Celtic Tenors (I am a member) were invited to Russia to take part in a private performance in St Petersburg. I was particularly excited because I had always wanted to visit the world-famous Hermitage Museum. But trips to the former Soviet country still have to be carefully stage-managed. It's not advisable to go alone - not just yet anyway - and visas have to be arranged well in advance. We were advised against going anywhere by ourselves and not to venture out of the hotel alone at night. For the first few days we were escorted everywhere and wonderfully looked after, but I felt I was seeing very little of the city.
So the day before leaving I ventured out by myself to find the Hermitage. St Petersburg is a confusing city to navigate, with twisting and turning canals that have had it dubbed the Venice of the North. My map seemed to make no sense no matter which way I held it up. I wandered down the Nevskiy Prospeckt - the equivalent of O'Connell Street - with my head in my map, looking conspicuous and touristy.
That's when Sophia came to my rescue. I had been wary of jumping into a taxi, partly because of the language barrier (few of the locals speak much English) but also because I had no idea how much I would have to pay and whether they would accept foreign currency (many 'informal' business transactions appeared to be negotiated in dollars). She seemed to enjoy her fight with the taxi driver over how much he wanted to charge. "Five dollars! No way! That's the supermarket for the whole family for a week!" I think she gave him two.
THE Hermitage, noble and rather severe from the outside, is by far the city's biggest tourist attraction, so we were anticipating a queue. But this was the mother of all queues. It twisted and turned around the outer square and then coiled under an arch, only to re-emerge two hundred yards later and disappear again into the distance. As we stood waiting for about 20 minutes in the cold and damp, the Rembrandts and Titians seemed less and less appealing. At that moment a very smartly dressed young lady approached me. She addressed me in perfect English with the hint of an American accent: "Would you like to skip the line? Stay close to me until we get to the main door at the top of the square. Say nothing. Don't look at anyone. Just follow me.
The young lady was an official tour guide but had invented a handy way to supplement her income. We would pay her the entrance fee, pretend to be in her tour party, and she would put the cash directly into the handbag, a clever little industry that must have made her at least $100 a day. We followed her into the main hall, as she passed security guards with the confidence of a Russian princess. We then paid her the agreed $10 each, behind an Italian statue from the High Renaissance. We had saved ourselves at least two hours queueing. The contrast was extraordinary. We left behind the grey, run-down streets, the faces that had seen much hardship, and entered the imperial splendour of pre-revolutionary Russia. The interiors were ornate and grandiose. Under the supervision of Catherine the Great, they were designed to emulate the royal palaces of France. In 1764 she acquired 225 paintings by Western artists from a Berlin merchant, thereby starting a collection now comprising more than three million pieces.
The museum sprawls along the Palace Embankment, occupying three buildings including the Winter Palace. I made straight for the landmark rooms, starting with the one called Hidden Treasures, which housed some wonderful Van Goghs, Renoirs and Monets. There were two rooms full of huge Gaughins - classics from his Tahiti period - and I counted 26 Picassos. If you like to stand nose to nose with some of the finest portraits ever painted, the Rembrandt Room will leave you breathless. The Hermitage has an immense history in its own right. I wandered down the Hall of the Tsars, mesmerised by the family portraits of the Romanovs. The fastidiously designed Pavilion Room, with its ornate balconies and immaculately executed mosaic floors, are testament to Catherine's obsession with detail.
However, the finest interior is the amazing Malachite Room (named after its green marbled pillars), the scene of the last arrest of the Russian ministers in November 1917, symbolising the Bolshevik overthrow of the Government. Finally, when I had walked enough, I left the splendid interiors and found myself outside in the square under driving rain. I rushed for refuge in a cafe, a little piece of Seventies kitsch with formica tables and fake ivy dripping out of window boxes. I ordered the local vodka, Diplomat, which comes in a shot glass with a wedge of lemon. After five, I was warm again and ready to tackle those disorientating streets. Perhaps I would even be able to find my way home without Sophia and her pink straw hat.