Tuesday, September 06, 2005

 

Today's Trip Pic

Leave return to St. Petersburg for a few days. The city of the Romanovs is perhaps at its absolute finest in the "suburban" palaces. The winter palace, now part of the Hermitage was used by all of them, though some of the smaller buildings were added by differing generations -- but it was in the 'burbs where the various generations really made their mark. The most famous of these palaces is "Peterhof" which we did not visit this trip -- mostly because I did in 1991 and wanted to see some that I had not seen. Though I will post some Peterhof pictures from my '91 trip is a few days

Where we did end up visiting is "Catherine Palace" Built originally for Peter the Great's second wife, Catherine, it was a couple of generations later when Catherine the Great brought the place into its full glory. The palace is on the edge of a small village, traditionally where the servants lived, and borders on the grounds of another widely known suburban palace -- Alexander Palace. Alexander place has not been restored for it shares as much infamy and fame. This was the palace from which the Nicholas II clan was taken as a part of the revolution.

The restoration job on Catherine Palace is not yet complete, but what has been accomplished is extraordinary.

Russian restoration masters are sticklers for detail, and this place has a lot of detail. They are also sticklers for using the correct original material, which means everything that glows is, in fact, gold. The ornateness is truly amazing, though I must say it is a little fussy for my taste. Outside of Moscow is a place where the Moscow Csars would spend their summers, and it includes a log cabin in which Peter the Great was born. In actuality, that is far more my style.

The grounds at Catherine Palace are also extraordinary. Utterly demolished by the Nazis, the statuary was buried in place before the invasion, being far too heavy to remove. The Nazis rolled right over it and it was there when the war was over. In a place as much a monument to Soviet determination to capture hard currency as a committment to the decadent history of the monarchy, that bit or originality was charming indeed.

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