St. Petersburg Feature

The Peacock Clock (Tchasy Pavlin), one of the most delightful pieces on display at the State Hermitage Museum, is found in the Pavilion Hall on the first floor. The clock consists of a gilded peacock on a branch, a rooster, and an owl in a cage. Designed by the famous London jeweler and goldsmith James Cox and brought in pieces to St. Petersburg for Russian empress Catherine the Great in 1781, the clock is still in working order. Over the past decades it has been wound once a week to activate the moving pieces—the peacock spreads its wings and turns in a circle, the rooster crows, and the owl opens and closes its eyes—but recently the museum has cancelled this weekly ritual to save the aging mechanisms. Even without motion the clock is still a must-see. If you have kids with you, ask them to count all the creatures on the clock. There are more than just the three birds, like the dragonfly that acts as the tiny second hand on the mushroom dial.