St Petersburg Convention 2013

Well, St Petersburg was a wonderful experience again

 The "Red Room" at Bang Bang Tattoo

This room is occupied by Dmitry, Mike and Ambrozz. Here you can get an idea of Mike and Dmitry's collection on skulls, bones and Polynesian artifacts which cover the walls and fill the cabinets

 The wall of the "Green Room" with what remained of the Alex Binnie woodcuts we had displayed at Skin&Bone the month before. Bang Bang Tattoo held a little meet and greet party the night before the convention (There are still a hand full left if anyone wants to purchase before the London Convention)

Mike, Sergey and Dmitry enjoying some Sailor Jerry Rum supplied by Skin&Bone in a cross cultural exchange :-)

Kiri, an archaeology student whom I met last year is very interested in the Pazyryk mummies and wanted a Scythian style tattoo... however she wanted a depiction of a wolf. As none of the mummies (found) have had wolf tattoos I had to draw a custom variation based on other pieces of their art.

Kiri was kind enough to set her new tattoo in the Ornamental competition and dressed to the hilt to do so... a real Pazyryk Princess and received 2nd place for her effort :-)

Thank you Kiri

A little piece I tattooed back at Bang Bang Tattoo. 

Thor's Hammer with an Iron Age pattern as background.

On my one free day I was happily taken on a tour of the Kunstkamera by Mike, Jazz and Ambrozz.
The Kunstkamera was the first museum founded in Russia by Peter the Great in 1714 who also donated his private collection of rarities and curiousities. In 1724 the museum was the basis for the creation of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences whose collection forms the Chambers of Artificialis and Naturalis. As a former Clinical Illustrator these rooms of medical abnormalities were of great interest... however due to the nature of the subject, no photography is allowed.
The main collection of the museum comes from Siberia and the Arctic with thousands of artifacts from the Inuit and Tlingit people as well as several other floors of anthropological collections from Asia, the Orient, Africa, etc.
Here are a few Arctic artifacts with patterns carved in very similar to tattoo patterns of the Inuit

Tlingit robe with an Orca design

Tlingit helmet of a sealion

Close up of a Japanese water colour showing a "Bear Dance" ceremony by the Ainu people.

You can recognize the Ainu women by the tattooed "clown lips" around their mouths.

The Ainu were an indigenous tribe to Japan who were know as fierce warriors 

I received the 2007 catalogue as a gift from Dmitry a few years back... however I had to buy the updated and expanded 2010 edition. Both editions feature heavily the arctic anthropological collection of Inuit and Tlingit rarities... also several illustrations of piercing and tattoos which were very different from what I expected :-)

From Russia with Love :-)