Russia- day 4-Peterhoff Palace and Park

Day 4- June 3- temp 38 and cold  Off to Peterhoff  Palace and Park. - the Russian Versailles.   In the afternoon St. Petersburg from the water. 

A view taken from the internet because I couldn't get a picture to show the grandeur of the "summer place". 1700's

"Peter the Great first mentions the Peterhof site in his journal in 1705, during the Great Northern War, as a good place to construct a landing for use in travelling to and from the island fortress of Kronstadt. And in 1714, Peter began construction of the Monplaisir ("my pleasure") Palace based on his own sketches of the palace that he wanted close to the shoreline. This was Peter's Summer Palace that he would use on his way coming and going from Europe through the harbour at Kronstad."

The picture above shows the view of where I am standing as I turn and look down to the sea.  Peter had this long'water way all the way to the sea.  The Samson Fountain and its massive pedestal had not yet been installed in the Sea Channel.  The channel itself had been used as a grand marine entrance into the complex.

The fountains come on at 11:00 so they were turned on after this picture was taken. There are some 75 fountains in the front.

Looking over at the gardens, It is still very cold here so the gardens are not in bloom as they might be.

This is one on the corners to the palace. This leads us to the gardens and more out buildings.

                              The sea is in the direction behind me.  I believe this is a guest house.

                                                 One of the many fountains to be seen.

                                   My traveling buddies! a motley crew we are all bundled up!

                They are on!

I found it fascinating to see the before after effects of the war so I put them in my blog. The building below is this photo.

                  As we walked along from the building above we see the sea that stretches a mile.

Here is another example of the restoration that had to be done after the war. The building below is the now,

                                 Another picture showing the work that was done,

There were no pictures allowed to be taken in the palace so these are just a few of the many postcards that I bought. ( it took all day to get these few transferred!)

The Chesma Hall is decorated with twelve large paintings of the Battle of Chesma, a stunning naval victory of the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774. These were painted between 1771 and 1773 by the German artist Jacob Philipp Hackert. His first renderings of the great battle scenes were criticised by witnesses as not showing realistically the effect of exploding ships — the flying timbers, great flames, smoke, and fireballs. Catherine II assisted the artist by exploding a frigate in the harbour of Livorno, Italy, for the benefit of Hackert, who had never seen a naval battle first-hand. Hackert also did not research the actual positions of the Russian and Turkish forces during the battle, so the scenes depicted are somewhat fanciful, but do effectively convey drama and destruction of naval warfare.

The Ball room

The Western Chinese Lobby

The Picture Room

I am going to do the afternoon session in a different blog as this already has several pictures.

ciao :)

Russia Day 3- St Petersburg

Day 3- June 2-St Petersburg - temp 40 cold and windy. Rained in the afternoon. 

 

Off to the Catherine Palace in Pushkin and city tour of St Petersburg in the afternoon. 

Catherine's palace was the summer place for the royal family and began as a two story building but was extended by her daughter Empress Elizabeth to rival Versailles.  The palace was completed in 1756. 

      The rooms are world famous especially the Hall of light measuring nearly 130,000 square feet. Notice the floor and the painted ceiling. The picture is very dull compared to seeing it in person.

                              We are walking from room to room as you can see in this picture.

                         
This was the dining room for business.  In the corner you can see a porcelain stove used to heat this room.

                                              This room is original with its green foil and gold.

                     and silk wallpaper...

 The room that you can see only a small section of on the left is the famous the Amber room .( you can't take any pictures of it and there were no postcards)   It was constructed from more than six tons of carved amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors It was a gift from the Prussian king Frederick Wilhelm I and completed in 1770. The room was lite with 565 candles to make it glow a fiery gold. In 1941 the Germans invaded and though the room had been hidden by wall paper, the Natzis soon found it and after 36 hours of dismantling it shipped it off to Konigsberg Germany.  To this day it has never been found. Because of this loss the Soviets decided to rebuild the room in 1985-2003 at the cost of more than  $12 million.

                                                   The floors in this room is original.

                                            Every floor and every wall is different.

                                                          Catherine the Great

On the grounds are boat houses, steam bath houses and other meeting places on the man made lake. In the war Hitler burned all the boats.

"Hermitage" means excluded and the was what this building was for.-a place were meeting took place in privacy.  The building had a moat around and a drawbridge. Inside there was a table that was set for 14 on the dumb waiter then lifted up to the 2nd floor. No servants were allowed up there.

As we traveled home we crossed the line of defense that kept the Nazis out of st Petersburg.


For the Tour of St Petersburg in the afternoon, it wasn't a great day, cold and drizzly. .Our guide stated that the weather here in St Petersburg they have " nine months of expectations and three months of disappointment "

 In 1918 Moscow became capital- museum of water, only Castle # 2998 Paul I killed by his own quards and his son Alexander was in on the plot.-

  Faberge museum- We never got to go to the museum because it was closed this week.

 The interesting thing in St Petersburg and Moscow were the lines that you will see in my pictures. Here they don't bury their lines but string them on top of the buildings to other tops of buildings.

            The light houses now used for celebrations and will light up then. 

                                             Behind us is the Hermitage museum.

  Peter and Paul Fortress from the river. This was a fortress that was built at the height of the Great Northern wars,

 We are inside the Fortress and this is the oldest cathedral in St Petersburg.  Inside the columns are painted to look like marble. This was to keep the church warmer. In Russia they don't use alters. 

 Here you see 6 tombs together. Paul buried his mother next to his father to" punish her."

                 Across the church is the building where the Russian money is made.

There are so many more pictures to show you but I am trying to keep these brief.
See you tomorrow
Ciao :)