This post brought to you by Lynda Meshkov, gracious co-sponsor of our time in St. Petersburg.
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We visited 4 palaces in St Petersburg, each more spectacular
than the previous one. We did not do all of them in one day but progressed to
the various palaces throughout the week.
We
started with Emperor Paul's palace, a small palace, 19 miles outside of St.
Petersburg, where this royal family actually lived the majority of their lives.
It was down the road from his mother's
(Catherine the Great) summer palace. This palace was a gift from his mother on
the birth of his first son. I told Dave and Jesse not to expect anything
like that from us upon the birth of their first child. [DSM: I told my mom not to expect us to move down the road from her upon the birth of our first child.]
[JLM: Oops. No pictures of Emperor Paul's palace, sorry. It was nice. Take our word for it.]
The second palace was Catherine the Great's Summer Palace. The
exterior is painted a beautiful blue and white, with the crowns of the chapel
gilded in gold. It is very impressive looking. It was enormous.
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| Waiting for the gates to open |
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| Outside (one wing of) the Summer Palace |
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| A little live musica to greet us |
It
was quite obvious that this woman LOVED gold. She covered everything in
18k gold leaf, door knobs, sconces, chandeliers, furniture, mirrors...you name
it, she gilded it. The dining rooms (there were many) were all set up as if there
was going to be a (BIG) dinner party that night. It was cool to see the
various china patterns, which frequently matched the designs painted on the
walls. Who doesn't want matching walls and china patterns? [JLM: Can you even image the registry process? Especially in the pre-scanner-gun days.]
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| Gilded walls and gorgeous inlaid floors |
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| That's gilded all right! |
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| Think they carry this line of china at Bloomingdales? |
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| This must be the casual breakfast room |
The pièce de résistance of this palace was the amber room. It is covered in small
amber pieces (think jigsaw puzzle) many of which have been treated to create
different hues and then placed on the walls in panels and designs backed with
mirrors and gold leaf.
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A photo of the amber room that JLM illegally sniped.
(To our KGB agent readers, I'm totally kidding, ha ha). |
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A photo of the amber room that Lynda illegally downloaded.
It's a miracle that neither of us ended up in a gulag. |
The grounds were
extensive, like a beautiful park.
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| "Yeah, nice park." |
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| A bride and groom on the go |
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| Beautiful manicured gardens |
Our third palace was Peterhof. This was built in 1712 by
Peter the Great. He was very interested in Western European culture and
frequently traveled to Paris. He saw Versailles and said "I like
that and would like one like that at home...only bigger" and he got it. It
is a spectacular building with each room grander than the previous one.
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| The entrance to Peterhoff by canal |
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| And the opposite view |
The most impressive thing about Peterhof is the 150 fountains that
surround the palace and are all over the extensive grounds. The palace is
outside of St Petersburg and is on the Gulf of Finland. There is a canal
that is lined with fountains from the back of the palace to the Gulf. The
fountains and waterfalls (called cascades in Russia) that are directly behind
the palace are lined with life sized statues of Greek and Roman heroes and gods
all covered in...(you guessed it) gold leaf. It is unbelievably impressive.
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| Giant golden statue, tiny golden modesty fig leaf |
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| Yeah, there are a LOT of statues |
The fourth and final palace was the Winter Palace, which is in St
Petersburg. It is enormous, impressive and overwhelming. When Catherine
the Great lived there, she and the previous Royals who had lived there
collected so many gifts and "stuff" that she had to build the
Hermitage to hold all of her goods. [JLM: What I wouldn't give to see her on an episode of Hoarders.] The palace is connected to the
Hermitage, which is one of the largest museums in the world. It covers 3 city
blocks.
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| Hermitage by day |
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| Hermitage by night |
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| Sculpture above the entrance to the Hermitage |
It houses painting, sculptures, silver and gold serving pieces, coins,
medieval art, antiques, jewels, all things Egyptian, including mummies, furs,
royal carriages and the list just goes on and on. These were all personal belongs
of the Royals. As in all the other palaces, there was much gold, jewels, and
incredibly beautiful inlaid wood in the furniture, floors and beautifully
painted ceilings.
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| Photo shoot on the interior front steps of the Hermitage |
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| Another photo shoot. Clearly we were wearing way too much clothing. |
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| Inlaid floor example/inspiration for pimping my parquet |
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| Meh. Looks like my entrance hall. |
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A horde of tourists surrounds a Da Vinci.
People - just buy the damn postcard from the gift shop. I guarantee it will be a better shot. |
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| Bacchus? I think I saw him on Khao San Road a few months ago... |
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| Fancy schmancy |
Having seen all these magnificent palaces, we
concluded "it is good to be king" but also wondered why it took the
peasants such a long time to revolt. The Royals certainly had it coming.
