My body is still not use to this sun situation. Below is 1:30am and I'm wide awake. It's interesting how your sleep patterns can be so influenced by whether or not there is any light.
We're at the same latitude as Alaska so the sun never ever fully goes away
Today we're headed to the countryside to see some of the larger estates where Peter and Catherine would go to during the summer months. To start we're checking out their subway system. Before the rise of the USSR the subways were ornate palaces people would enjoy while going to and from work. Once the USSR came along they didn't think people needed beauty so they stopped all art work on new stations. Slowly some art is being added.
Every ride is $0.50 regardless of distance
We're headed 150 feet underground
Paying tribute to the old ship builders (as this is the ship yard station)
Cold-war era trains still run
This mural is fitting as we're now 185 feet underground
The longest escalator in the world takes 3.5 minutes to get us back to the surface
Peter the Great also loved Venice so when given the chance to build St. Petersburg he made canals everywhere.
The Hermitage Museum on our left and right.
Larger scale but so similar to Venice
If it looks familiar it's because Eiffel designed it
Not exactly ADA compliant but it works
Time to quickly visit a "standard" house of one of the rich noble families. Many families enjoyed their time in Russia before the fall of the empire. Once it fell most were forced to flee or risk being killed by the mobs.
What one of the rooms looked like before the mobs raided it
All that has been able to be recovered and returned
If you're rich and have means of course you build you own 200 person mini theater. There's just enough space for roughly 3 performers. Surprisingly there is an actual orchestra pit.
Time to leave the city and head an hour into the countryside to see where Catherine would have her parties when weather got nice and could entertain friends during the summer.
Blue walls, Seems a sensible retreat
Turns out the front is actually 200 feet long
A girls can never have enough space to entertain
A retreat naturally must have a church
Where guests would enter the palace. Their residences were those building on the left and right
The palace just recently completed a major renovation of the exterior which lasted some 20 years. Interior rooms are still being restored to how they looked when Catherine was here.
Walls are covered in silk
Rooms are styled in the Rococo fashion
Catherine had her dance hall in the Winter home, she obviously needed one in the summer retreat
And what a dance hall it is
Fireplaces using tiles from Delft (remember there?) were used to keep the room warm as the tiles retained and radiated the heat well into the fall night.
The tiles painted a picture of life in Russia
Catherine didn't have any particular love of a specific style of art and would tell people to just go find some so she could look at it. She displayed it like this (both sides are similar designs)
I loved the blue chandeliers
Those darn Nazi's. Again, they firebombed Catherine's palace. Many pieces were able to be removed or hidden before the bombers approached. The entire building had to be recreated.
If you're not part of a tour group you don't get to see the front side of the palace, you line up on the garden side. This palace is the holy grail for China tourists as there is an entire room for Amber. Chinese people believe just inhailing it will bring health and long life to them. They go nuts trying to squeeze into that room. It's such a popular room that they will cause the line to get into the building to exceed 4-hours.
China tourists waiting to get in. The line stretches the entire 180 feet of the palace
Catherine had her palace. It's only fair that Peter had his own place. Back on the bus, drive an hour and we get to see what he fancied. What would a ruler call his own retreat? Peterhof, naturally.
If it looks like Monet's house in France it's because it's ment to be a copy
Peter loved all the fountains he saw during his trip to Europe, especially what he saw in Versailles. One thing he didn't like was seeing was the fountains stopping so water could be piped back up to the storage tanks before they could run again. When he begins to build his palace he looks for a place with natural springs that he could tap into to give his fountains uninterrupted water 24/7. Here, water is sourced 10 miles away (at a higher elevation), gravity brings it underground to the palace (at a lower elevation), flows through his fountains and eventually empty into the sea (5 minutes away, lower elevation).
Darn Nazi's. Again, firebombed the whole palace
If you want to relieve visiting here in the 1800s you can rent an outfit and stroll the gardens. Yes there are outfits for the gentlemen too
Peter had a good sense of humor and was always trying to play tricks on visitors. He would invite guests to stroll along the gardens, bring them to this path, excuse himself for some reason then have one of his staff turn on this water feature, soaking guests. What's impressive is Peter designed everything about this "fountain" himself. Now they run the fountain a few times a day and people stand and wait to be soaked.
Worker about to turn on the water
Guests eager to run through the fountain
This impressive feature is all wood, there are no tiles anywhere
Before the Nazi's could reach the castle staff buried all the statues that lined this water feature so the Germans couldn't steal them. Below you can see how it was before WW2, staff quickly throwing dirt on them and finally soldiers pulling them out and back into position.
Catherine had her own church at her summer palace, Peter needed his
What luck, rain stayed away until just as we're pulling out. This storm was so intense that while sailing away we passed through a storm cell, lighting hit us, rain was running sideways and wind was forcing the ship to hard list to one side. That would have been awful to experience the city with that kind of storm.
Verdict about St. Petersburg - skip it. Yes I'm glad I
went but everything here was built in the 1800-1900s because one guy saw
things he liked in Europe, was narcissistic, wanted copies of those
things for himself. His wife (Catherine) was just as bad, wanting what
others thought was pretty and nice. Nothing significant original created for either of them for preferences / tastes. Even their artists that put the city together were all hired from Europe; no Russians designed anything you will see. Before Peter took over Russia was a land of simple farmers, unaware of the 'enlightened' world so it's not surprising they wanted to quickly catch up by copying what other countries spent decades evolving. If you've seen much of Europe then consider
visiting here. Otherwise, save your time and money - go see what this city
was copied from.
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