05 July 2008: Царское Село

Today we took our second palace excursion, this time to the little suburb town of Pushkin, named after the Russian demagogue who studied here, where Catherine the Great built her summer palace. The name of the palace, Царское Село (Tsarskoe Selo), means “Tsar’s Village” but more than probably is derived from the original Finnish name for the area.

I don’t really have much to say about the palace, actually. Beautiful, opulent, destroyed during World War II. The gardens are really quite pleasant. I feel awful saying this, but after a while, a palace is a palace . . . does that make me a bad person? Yes, they are thrilling, but I quickly run out of original things to say about them. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.




The central part of the palace.








Couldn't fit the whole thing in, so this is the North wing (I'm guessing). It's symmetrical, so this is what it looked like on the other side of the entrance, too.






A really neat clock from the main stairwell. There was a barometer, too. Sadly, the time was not right.










A ballroom, with a piano (*swoon*).








A dining room, where the nobles while away the hours on scrumptious dishes. This palace is still under renovation. Note the scaffalding behind the window in the top right.


A chess set. Fun stuff. If I remember correctly, this chess set came from China. Peter was very fond of chess. Alas, this was not Peter's palace.







These flowers are sleepy.








Like I said, the gardens are very nice. This little pond is fairly close to the palace itself, just down the steps from the building, actually. There is also a pretty large lake within the grounds, with an island. There's a gigantic pillar on the island with an eagle perched on top (it looks like a dragon decided to stop by) to commemorate Russia's victory at Chesme. Catherine was obsessed with this battle and commemorated paintings, churches, and monuments to be made for the occasion. Actually, in the palace there is a series of paintings depicting the naval battles at Chesme. One painting shows a ship exploding. The artist was a little miffed as how to paint an exploding ship, since he had never seen one before. Easily resolved: Catherine had one blown up in the harbor for his viewing pleasure. If that story doesn't just scream Russian, I don't know what does.
















Part of the lake, and a bridge.







Lake again, with a little getaway house.








Tsarskoe Selo is in a town called Pushkin, named after the incredibly famous (the Russians are obsessed with him) poet. This was his honeymoon house in the village.

04 July 2008: Into the Wild

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Naturally, people here don’t care at all.

As today was Friday again, it meant another trip to the Russian Museum. Today we focused on landscapes, realism, and caricatures which were supposedly hilarious at one time. Actually, one was pretty funny. I forget exactly what it’s called. “The Duke’s Courtship” or something like that. Clearly, the woman is thrilled to be engaged . . .

St. Petersburg is a pretty city when you don’t look at the garbage, the beggars, or too closely at the canals. Even so, I was in serious need of some greenery and the Summer Gardens wasn’t going to cut it. Karis lives on the very edge of the city, at the end of the yellow metro line. Way out there, there is a gigantic park which, on maps, is a gigantic green blob that covers the entire northwest area. Sounded good to me, so off we went. First we made a pit-stop at Karis’s apartment where I met the family cat. It’s a feisty little bugger. After I got done playing with it, my arms looked like those of a heroin addict. And I managed to break yet another toilet. To fix it, Karis and I wedged ourselves into the tiny bathroom (sitting, your knees would touch the door), I holding the flashlight, and she with her head practically in the tank trying to see what mechanism I had managed to dislodge. Yet another awkward moment for the two of us.

We gave up on the toilet (which apparently fixed itself anyway) and headed to the park. For quite a while, we had trouble finding our way off the trail that merely encircles the wilderness. We made a few attempts to bushwhack our way in, but gave up when we found only a lot of trash, wild dogs, and drunken Russians. Surprise, surprise. We did eventually find a path that sliced its way into the forest. While it took a bit to really get away from all the garbage (rusted truck, anyone?), it turned into a very pretty trail. This was very much worth the trip. Take a gander. It was quite the hike and I think we were both pretty pooped after it was over.