Peterhof, St Petersburg, Russia

Peter the Great, in his Peterhof Park

Peter is wearing high boots, which are used by kids as target for coin tossing to see if they can propel them inside his boots.

 

When Peter the Great had his Epiphany and decided to build a city on the Finnish Gulf to give him access to the Baltic Sea he sure did not entertain any half measures. St Petersburg is his brain child; he did set the tone and made it happen, despite swamps, cold, mostly terrible weather, reluctance of his subjects to be forced a) to build the city at great cost of human life and misery and b) to move there during and after it was ‘finished’. The whole entourage of Nobles of course had to maintain a ‘presence’ close to court to ensure that the mighty Tsar did not forget about them.

The Romanov Double Headed Eagle

The Map...

The Eagle is watching...

 

So Palaces sprouted up everywhere, that is, close to the ‘throne’ and along the Neva River. Many of them, and the ones built by foreign powers like the English, are still there. However their use has been changed from residences of the nobility to hotels, administrative offices and museums. Peter himself had so many dwellings in the city, that I lost count of them. He started on the shore of the Neva with a modest log house which did not even have a stove, which made it uninhabitable during Sub-arctic winters. It still exists today, enveloped in a ‘shell’ in the shape of a second larger building to protect the one underneath from the elements.

Catherine’s Palace, which I visited earlier, and Peterhof are just two of the many imperial residences in and around St Petersburg.

Peterhof on top of an escarpment overlooking park and Finnish Gulf

The Gulf of Finland, the shores are still rather marshy...

 

 Peterhof is located a few miles outside St Petersburg, on the shores of the Finnish Gulf with a distant view across the waters of the city itself. Initially the palace was only about 42 meters wide; it grew in width and luxury every time a new Tsar took over. Now it expands for a long stretch on the rim of an escarpment, overlooking what is the most notable of its features: the gardens with dozens of fountains, gilded statues, grottos, waterfalls, cascades, ponds and canals – all fed by gravity propelled water, and surrounded by a park like forest. The system works to this day; and between 11 a.m. and dusk the fountains are spouting. No recycling of course; the water runs along a beautiful canal that connects the fountains to the sea.

The Main Event

Cascades, Fountains and lots of Gold Leaf

In earlier years, sailboats could advance right to the Palace

Canal and Fountains right to the edge of the Gulf of Finland

There are small temples, statues and formal flower gardens among the densely treed park surrounding the Palace.

 

Fountains of different styles are spouting all over the park

This fountain with original four carved ducks and one bulldog represents a sea battle between four Danish Ships and one Russian one in hot pursuit

 

The Danes...

The Russians

Peter used Peterhof as his summer residence, sailing and ‘hanging out’ with his wife Catherine. The palace is magnificent. The golden onion domes of the Palace Church gleam above the roofs.

 

Post war restorations of much of the interior (never mind the exterior) give an inkling of the opulence of imperial life. No photos allowed inside.

Peter, not happy living in huge rooms with high ceilings had three more smaller ‘palaces’ built on the site, no higher than two floors and with a limited number of rooms which had ‘fake ceilings’ below the real ones to bring them to Peter’s preferred height. Being over 6 feet tall, he still had enough room to stand straight.

His favourite side palace was Mon Plaisir, a supersized mansion by our standards, where he and his wife Ekaterina, Catherine, spent many of their days. She would cook for him – after all that was her original profession before her prince found her and elevated her to higher calling. They would enjoy the view of the sea from their pleasant terrace and retire to their respective sub-mansions for the night. Catherine, the rags to riches imperial wife, preferred the cavernous and opulently decorated main palace. It appears that they co-existed quite happily, each living according to their taste and preference.

Mon Plaisir

Smaller Palace

Catherine's wing in Mon Plaisir

Walking through Peter’s ‘garden’ the size of a National Park is definitely a pleasure. Peter was instrumental in designing its lay out, and even many of the technical features. It would be difficult and superfluous to describe it; photos may give a rough idea of the beauty of the park. But, in true Imperial fashion, gilding abounds, and sometimes one feels as if the whole thing is a Disney World of the past, as discreet good taste is totally absent; it is in your face nouveau rich and gaudy.

The early Russians must all have been dentists....there is a lot of prying into open jaws going on

Open wide....or else!

Peter the Great was fond of practical jokes. He designed a few ‘trick fountains’ which would douse his courtiers with showers of water if they were unlucky enough not to know the secret of the fountains. There are some secret spouts hidden underneath pretty cobbled pavement surrounding romantic park benches. When a stroller stepped on the wrong stone, hidden spouts behind the benches would emit a deft shower. One set of spouts – which currently is switched on once a day at 3 p.m.  – is buried at each edge of a stretch of a park avenue.  In Peter’s time courtiers strolling in their finery along this pleasant path would suddenly find themselves drenched by about a hundred meter stretch of tightly spaced spouts aimed at the centre of the avenue. 

One of Peter's trick fountains

When one visits today, one may observe Russians running through the shower; families make special excursions to the park to give their children a thrill.

Peter sometimes sailed from Peterhof across the Gulf of Finland to St Petersburg. Actually his sailing passion, picked up in Holland during his apprenticeships there, resulted in a decree that Petersburg should have no bridges crossing the Neva. Citizens were expected to SAIL across, oars were prohibited. Peter provided boats to people who could not afford them. However, after a few drownings and one embarrassing one (a foreign diplomat drowned) oars were allowed.

One way ticket to St Petersburg from Peterhof - 12 Rubles

Hydrofoils between Peterhof and St Petersburg

Between June and September hydrofoils whisk visitors from downtown St Petersburg to Peterhof in less than an hour, thus avoiding the permanently plugged up traffic in and around St Petersburg. I am glad this rowing and sailing bit is no longer enforced.

Thousands of people visit Peterhof each year, most of them foreign tourists. It is heaven for pickpockets, who are famous for their expertise and professionalism.

Peterhof’s gardens rival Versailles in design and beauty. The pervasive gilding of statues and fountainheads, if ostentatious, does result in a dazzling display when the sun shines on St Petersburg. Well, the sun shines about 30 days out of every 365, ergo I was lucky to see the palace and its spectacular gardens once, bathed in sunshine – and once, bathed in rain.

 

The Hermitage (Winterpalace), St Petersburg, Russia

Winter Palace, The Hermitage, Dvortsovaya Square

 

When the Curator of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg was asked, whether he considered the Hermitage Museum the Number One Art Museum in the world, he diplomatically answered: I cannot say whether it is number one, but I am quite sure that it is not number two.

Only the Louvre in Paris houses more items than the Hermitage, which houses three million pieces. It would take a few years to see them all, even if one only spends a few minutes to admire  each of them. Not that quantity is a determining factor in the realm of art, but the quality and importance of the pieces are the determining factor. Even on that note, the Hermitage sits right at the top with large collections of Rembrandt, Goya, Matisse, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Murillo, Monet, Manet, Raphael and more.

Murillo

Goya

Monet

Van Gogh

Matisse

Picasso

 

Huge collections of Italian Art, Rodin Sculptures, Tapestry, China, Bronzes and too much more to mention. It is in a word overwhelming – unless one concentrates on a few selected targets and enjoys them as much as possible amongst streams of visitors, who not only undergo strict security checks but also are herded through the exhibitions in small groups and are constantly scrutinised by observant babushkas (ladies who sit and watch everyone at each door in each room) who charge at anyone who appears even most remotely to touch anything.

 

Babushka (?) watching ...

 

The venue is spectacular. Several Palaces constructed by a series of Tsars and Tsarinas form several immense interconnected city blocks with hanging gardens and elaborate courtyards. The main entrance to the primary museum, the Winter Palace, faces Dvortzovaya Place, the largest square in St Petersburg, scene of many tsarist, Bolshevik , soviet and Russian spectacles.

Hermitage facing the Neva River

Peter and Paul Fortress, where all the Tsars are buried. Canterbury Cathedral of Russia

 

The opposite side of these magnificent buildings faces the River Neva with an unobstructed view of the oldest part of St Petersburg, the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Staircase in the Hermitage

Hallway

Example of Exhibition Rooms

 

The interior of the palaces almost defies description. Instead of stark rooms and minimalist appearance such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (where the building and not the contents is the prime attraction) these ‘exhibition halls’ are opulent. Luxurious, architecturally intriguing and designed in Barroc, Neo Classical and Rococo Styles it merits its own admiration if not shock. Gilded surfaces, frescoes, wall paintings, intricately and inlaid carved portals, chandeliers, parquet floors of rare woods – the whole imperial splendour makes for a fitting backdrop for a wealth of priceless treasures within.

Hall in one of the Palaces of the Hermitage

Detail of above Hall Decorations

Detail

Detail of one of the flowers on the decorated walls

Chandelier in Hermitage

 

Of course, as all of St Petersburg’s main attractions, it has a long Tsarist history which starts with Peter the Great.  He had married a poor countrywomen by the name of Martha later changed to Catherine, who rose to being Tsarina after his death (the Cinderella of Russian story). One of Peter’s daughters, with the rare (in Russia) name of Elizabeth, turned out to be the Imelda Marcos of her day, especially after she attained the throne after a few intermediate Tsars had died (Catherine I, Peter II, Anna and Ivan VI)

Elizabeth build the first of many succeeding palaces on the shore of the Neva, the total of them is now called Hermitage. She hired the Italian architect Rastrelli, to erect the 1100 room cottage.

Tapestry

Rembrand

Rembrand

 

Elizabeth started the collection as something she wanted to show off to her friends on ‘private’ occasions.

Elizabeth accumulated 17.000 imperial gala outfits; she never wore anything twice. Apart from spending money like in buckets on herself and her palaces, she bought imperial style ‘trinkets’, like priceless art from all over the world that she sometimes bought ‘wholesale’.  She later built an adjoining palace now called the Old Hermitage, which she exclusively used to house art treasures that did not find room anymore in the previously built 1100 rooms. The rest is history – with each reign, the collection grew in size and importance – truly a world heritage.

Elizabeth was never officially married, but secretly wed Count Alexei Grigoryevich to share her glittering life style – somehow.

Of course, I did not see three million pieces of art. I only had about three hours to get a glimpse of some of the highlights of the Hermitage.

Here, at the Winter Palace, started the Russian Revolution with the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917 by revolutionary crowds. Fortunately the anarchistic tendencies during the revolution spared the treasures of the Palace (albeit created chaos and havoc throughout the country). As the nobility was chopped liver, the Duma/Bolsheviks confiscated their treasures as well which were moved to the Winter Palace/Hermitage. Thus the museum grows over centuries and decades to its present impressive wealth.

During WWII the Hermitage served as a hospital.

I was, of course, part of a tour. One American tour participant asked the guide, how much ‘the new government after the Tsar was deposed’ had paid the nobility to take over their art work.  Ah, knowledge (if any) about Russian history in most of the world is limited to Glasnost and Putin – the rest is just that for them: history.

Catharina the Great

Catherina the Great, before the really got heavy

Far right, Paul I

Wife of Paul I, Maria Feodorovna

Ivan V

 

Those last Romanovs, Nicholas II and Alexandra, have their some of their portraits in the Hermitage, along with about every other Emperor/Tsar’s picture. The entire clan’s history is violent, fascinating, shocking, admirable and tragic. It is difficult for me to look at the representations of Nicholas and Alexandra as human beings, not as powerful if inept Tsars, and think about their horrific death at the hands of the Bolsheviks to erase the Romanovs once and for all. When these portraits were taken they were suffering personal tragedy (Rasputin fatal influence, the worry and secrecy about hemophilic son Alexei etc.) already, and did not know that they were doomed.

Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of the last Tsar Nicholas II

Nicholas II, last Tsar
1868-1918
reigned 1894-1917
Shot point blank by Bolsheviks in the cellar of Ekaterinburg in the Urals, together with his wife and children, close servants and dog 17 July 2018