Beyond the End of the Driveway: 21 June 2008: Петергоф

Today we had another excursion, this time to Peterhof, summer residence of Peter the Great. It took us about an hour and a half, which, in a bus sans air conditioning, was kind of unconfortable. The palace itself isn't super huge, but the fountains are phenomenal. I've never seen such amazing fountains at a palace before. It's all run without machinery, but utilizes the principles of falling water: water falling from a certain height will automatically want to rise to that same height, so the engineers who made these fountains just diverted water from a high hill far away and let it gush up through the pipes. We got to see the inner workings of this (and got a little wet!), but the pictures aren't very pretty.

The sad thing about visiting palaces in Russia is that they were all largely destroyed during the Second World War, meaning almost everything you see, from the statues, to the interior décor, to the paintings, is a replica, or was taken from somewhere else. The promising implications of this, though, is that there are still some very talented artists in the world whose work can meld seamlessly with the masters of the past. (At least it's seamless to me. I can't tell the difference.)

My first sight upon entering the palace grounds. There were two such towers: one on the guest pavilion, and one on the chapel. If you look closely, the double-headed eagle, the imperial seal of the tsar, stands on top.

The view of the palace from the gardens. The red and yellow things in the middle were big balloons, part of the fountain-starting ceremony that takes place at noon.

The main entrance staircase. Only one woman could go up it at a time, given the size of the dresses. Peter did this on purpose, so that every person coming in would have an initial skepticism about the palace which would slowly develop into awe as they moved further within.

Not my throne.

The main dining room. I guess dinners could last up to eight hours or so. Given that women spent around five hours pruning for the day, that didn't leave a lot of time for much anything else.

This is the wife of Tsar Nicholas I, I think. If this is true, that makes her Empress Charlotte of Prussia. I dont' know anything about her; I just liked the picture.

This is the grotto under the palace and behind the fountains where Peter would carouse with his sailor friends.

The fountain entitled "Samson Tearing the Jaws of the Lion" or some such thing. Samson was the symbol of Peter, like Apollo was the symbol of the Sun King. The lion is supposed to represent King Charles XII (that's a lot of Charles-es), king of Sweden whom Peter defeated in the Northern War of 1700-1721. (See, I pay attention!) Peter started it. The jet of water coming out of this thing is around 60 feet tall. (It comes out of the lion's mouth.)