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.