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Published: August 19th 2008
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The Palace Fence
This is a portion of the fence around Catherine's palace (Summer one) in Zars village. What to say? There is so much, it's overwhelming. So overwhelming (at least to me) that it feels that I can't write anything about it, yet I should write so much. It feels as if none of the words I would be able to choose (English is also not my main language!) would do the place enough justice. I shouldn't say "the place", as I do not know all of St. Petersburg; I've only gone into some palaces, churches and cathedrals to look at artistic, architectural beauty and all on organized tours as working on a ship only allows me to do that. After seeing what I saw, I have to say that apart from being excelling in other “arts” like Olympic sports and in the Ballet, the Russians are fantastic painters, mosaic layers (is that the profession?), architects, musicians, artists… you name it. I was so impacted by the array of color, icons, mosaics, extremely precise and beautiful miniature painting and tremendous opulence and lavishness displayed in anything that was related to Imperial Russia, that I couldn't sleep right away on the first night. As I lay on my pillow, I closed my eyes and continued to see a "river"
A view of the Palace Front
It is so wide from left to right that without a wide angle you cannot get all of it (and even with one!) of color, religious icons, gold, mirrors, images, statues, passing through my brain, non stop. Just like the first time I went SCUBA diving and was introduced to a whole new underwater world of color and fish, while breathing in it. It felt similar. This day in St. Petersburg, I had spent all day visiting Catherine's (Summer) Palace out in the Village of the Zars a few kilometers away from St. Petersburg and then we had toured around the city going inside St. Isaac's Cathedral. What a city. Everywhere you look, in the down town area at least, you see huge buildings (most used to be palaces) that either house Museums nowadays, or the City Council or similar. All have some form of architectural detail that enhances them even more. I couldn’t stop taking pictures of windows and columns and doors and magnificent details of all sorts. In and out. Across the street from St. Isaac’s is the Astoria Hotel. That is the place were Hitler had planned to have his triumphant dinner party after having invaded Leningrad, thing he apparently was sure of. But that never happened of course as history proves, because the Russians stopped any invasion into their
Close up of the Front center
A close up of the front center entrance just at the end of the road leading from the gate. city. However, the invitations had already been printed and sent out by Hitler taking for granted the party was happening. (oops!) Yet the stern defenders of Leningrad didn’t allow that to happen so I wonder what happened to the invitations. You see in the city and outskirts signs of decadence mixed with the opulence. The contrast is huge in some places as there are plenty signs from the oppressing regime times, coexisting with the Mc Donald’s ads of today or Penelope Cruz’s huge billboard promoting L’Oreal and the Hummer waiting at the street light. I was there on a Summer day, on a Sunday, and the main parts of town were busy with the hustle and bustle of people shopping (the long Moscow Prospekt and Nevski Prospekt avenues that seem never ending), semi heavy traffic, rivers and canals with sightseeing boats cruising along enjoying the bit of sun peeping through the clouds, famous brand boutiques, cafes, tourists, and all the frantic construction work going on to improve streets and building facades throughout. Buildings need a face lift, many do. But many are fantastic and beautiful too. I’ve arrived to St. Petersburg by sea, and go there every 20 days or
so throughout our ship season in the Baltic. All our passengers onboard, if they do not have a Russian visa in their passports, they can only get off the ship if they are part of a shore excursion. It works very well anyway, because most people prefer to be taken on organized excursions with all access tickets into venues and lunch already included and that is a smart approach when you have little time in a place which is totally new to you. The visitor lines into all palaces and Hermitage are long because a lot of people want to see these main attractions and many come from the ships which are in port at the same time (3-5 a ship day). Our guide told us that Hermitage has more than 3 million objects in display and that to see all of them one would have to spend about 5 years inside the buildings which form the museum. I am not an avid museum visitor, I get a headache when I’m overflowed with information, so I tend to only look at a few things that call my attention in display and then forget about everything else which I can’t retain
Ceiling Paint
Ceilings and walls are adorned with fantastic painting, specially the ceilings. anyway. But in Hermitage for example, the interior of the buildings themselves are so completely fascinating, that they are an exhibition in themselves in addition to the 3 million things to see in there. So in my case, I was in the Hermitage mostly for the building itself and not for so much for the content in it, as I didn’t have time to appreciate it anyway. Mind you, the items in it are a fantastic collection, but if you are like me, you will only have two eyes and a brain to process all that info, and will be a bit overwhelmed when you have to cover a tiny area of the 4 buildings in 3 or 4 hours. You better walk quite fast and for long distances and keep an eye on the back of the neck of everyone in your group and learn to recognize them, cause the place is packed with tourist groups, all following their leader and crisscrossing one another from all directions, so its very easy to change groups all of a sudden and believe you are following your own, when in fact you lost them 3 rooms ago. While at the same
Lavish Dinner Table set up
inside Catherine's Palace. time, you hear through your headphones that you have a Leonardo to the right, then over there is the seat were the Zars sat, then here is one of the Renoirs then over here you can buy the Hermitage book, don’t take pictures if you didn’t pay your “right to do so” (who controls?), go this way, turn right, look up, look down, watch your step, bathrooms are there, the Mongolian treasures are over there, this is Catherine’s boudoir, then that is the portrait of Peter the Great and so on and so on, until suddenly you exit out of this tunnel of time that took you to this intense and mind boggling trip. So I have told myself that each time I am lucky enough to be in this city during our ship season, I’ll make some time to go see something else there. I still have to see the subway stations, which I am told are just fantastic; and want to walk around with my camera snapping away details of the city other than from a bus window for a change and want to go to the ballet at night. “Spasiva” St. Petersburg for this mini introduction to
Dutch heater
These humongous heaters were sometimes two to a room. the attractions of the city. (see 12 photos attached to this blog)
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Astrid
non-member comment
Great Blog!
Hi Rose, your blog had me pinned, I felt I was there.. You wrote it well, you put the reader in those corridors, and I was even getting nervous that you would be left behind by your tour group, and wondered what the necks of the people would look like... jWaiting for the next one.. Astrid