Another early start to visit the Peterhof Palace, which was from the Dutch for "Peter's Court" it is actually a series of palaces and gardens, laid out on the orders of Peter the Great. These Palaces and gardens are sometimes referred as the "Russian Versailles". We arrived at the palace around 9:30 and had a special entry as the general public and tour groups are not admitted until 10:30, this meant we had each room to ourselves and were able to see all the exhibits.
Peter the Great first mentions the Peterhof site in his journal in 1705, as a good place to con
struct a landing for use in traveling to and from the island fortress of Kronstadt and in 1714, Peter began construction of the Monplaisir ("my pleasure") Palace based on his own sketches of the palace that he wanted close to the shoreline. This was Peter's Summer Palace that he would use on his way coming and going from Europe through the harbor at Kronstadt. Later, he expanded his plans to include a larger royal chateau of palaces and gardens further inland, on the model of Versailles. Each of the tsars after Peter expanded on the inland palaces and gardens of Peterhof, but the major contributions by Peter the Great were completed by 1725.
Peterhof, like Catherine Palace, was captured by German troops in 1941 and held until 1944. In the few months that elapsed between the outbreak of war in the west and the appearance of the German Army, employees were only able to save a portion of the treasures of the palaces and fountains. An attempt was made to dismantle and bury the fountain sculptures, but three-quarters, including all of the largest ones, remained in place. The occupying forces of the German Army largely destroyed] Peterhof. Many of the fountains were destroyed, and the palace was partially exploded and left to burn. Restoration work began almost immediately after the end of the war and is still continuing.
The name was changed to 'Petrodvorets' ("Peter's Palace") in 1944 as a result of wartime anti-German sentiment and propaganda, but the original name was restored in 1997.
The first room we entered was the Grand Throne Room which was no where as elaborate as th
e in Catherine Palace, in fact the whole palace is some what subdued in comparison.
We then entered the Chesma Hall which is decorated with twelve large paintings of the Battle of Chesma during the Russo-Turkish War, these were painted around 1771 by a German artist but they were criticized for not realistically depicting scenes of exploding ships, so to assist the artist Catherine II arranged to blow up a Russian frigate so he could see first hand what it looked like.
The next rooms, the East and West Chinese Cabinets were decorated between 1766 and 1769 to exhibit objects of decorative art imported from the East. The walls were decorated with imitation Oriental patterns by Russian craftsmen, and hung with Chinese landscape paintings in yellow and black lacquer, because the secret of the Chinese lacquer has been lost we couldn’t linger in the rooms as the moisture from our breath could effect the lacqer used in the restoration.
Another room, positioned at the center of the palace, bears the name of the Picture Hall. Its walls are almost entirely covered by a series of 368 paintings, mostly of variously dressed women, differing in appearance and even age, yet most were drawn from a single model. On each side of the room there is one picture of a male and no-one knows why they were included.
Moving through the palace we passed through the Divan room where Catherine sometimes received visitors and some bedrooms, also quite subdued.
The most striking part of Peterhof is its gardens and fountains, the fountains are fed by gravity through pipes made of oak trees from many kilometers away and it is still the same system as installed by Peter the Great. Throughout the gardens fountains and ponds appear at every turn ranging from “oak trees” that spurt water, a giant mushroom that rains a circle of water when you go to sit under it. Others are the gold guilded Triton fountain, two fountains with marble statues representing Adam and Eve, a chess hill, a marble chute with black and white pattern and three dragons at the top and many others.
Probably the highlight is the gold Samson fountain which spurts water six metres into the air, this is surrounded by many other gold guided statues and a chanel runs from the pool to the Gulf of Finland about half a kilometre away. This fountain and the supporting fountains are turned on at 11:00 am every day to the accompanyment of the Symphony of St Petersburg, very impressive.
On our way to Peterhof and return we passed the Russian President’s St Petersburg Palace where he hosts important guests and hold discussions. In the morning we noticed many police along the way but on our return every road, lane, dirt track or entrance to a parking area had police stationed at the entrance to the small road we were driving along as the President was expected within the hour.
We returned to the boat for a free afternoon and a chance to pack as tomorrow we leave for Helsinki.
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