COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader
A 10.30am pick up for our trip to Pushkin, 29km south of St Petersburg and named after Alexander Pushkin, the Russian poet, playwright and novelist who died in 1837 and is credited with being the founder of modern Russian literature. The Captain's Daughter, The Bronze Horseman and The Queen of Spades are some of his novels = must make a point of reading at least one of them. Out tour started with an exterior only view of the Lyceum, founded by Tsar Alexander I in 1811 (relocated to St Petersburg in 1844) and where Pushkin studied.
Wow upon wow today with many wow moments today as we toured the enormous and lavishly decorated Catherine the Great’s Summer Palace and the superbly kept French style park but what a chequered history of plunder, fire, warfare and restoration. The original building started in 1717 with restoration and renovation a never ending battle including ongoing reinstatement post the most recent ruination and plundering during WWII's German occupation and the bombing that ended that occupation. Ahead of the occupation, valiant efforts by those not away at war, to remove and hide whatever they could carry, meant some of the treasures are the originals. Mostly
Catherine Palace
From Google By Je-str being women and children, they were limited in what they could achieve but what an amazing effort they put in, including putting up fake walls in the amber room. Sadly the fake walls were quickly discovered resulting in the original amber removed and taken back to Germany from where it was moved about with its final destination unknown. Completed in 2003, it took 24 years to recreate the amber room to its original glory. The exterior decorations that currently look like brown clay were originally gilded in 100kg of gold that needed continuous maintenance but Empress Elizabeth considered this too extravagant = now just clay. Interestingly Catherine the Great was not a fan of the architecture describing it as whipped cream and old fashioned.
Back at the hotel with a couple of hours to fill in ahead of attending the Feel Yourself Russian folk show (sure they missed an 'a' from that title), we headed off to the Faberge Museum = fail. We found the museum but it had closed early and we assume for private viewing or shopping by someone of more importance than us as the heavies on guard wouldn't let us in.
Our show tickets
included taxi to get there but we were soon wondering where we were going to end up, as it became clear the driver didn't know the way taking 40 minutes for what we expected to be a 15 minute trip. Being amongst the last to arrive we had to settle for back row seats which turned into a bonus as was we could stand up to see everything without blocking anyone behind us. The show itself was pretty good especially the second half with the Cossack performers and a few slapstick comedy laughs, although the singing was not to the standard of the Doros singers we had heard in St Basil's or at Pushkin this morning, we had a grand time.
Some interesting Russian economic stats as given to us by Olga: You can get a one bedroom bare apartment without any fittings and bordering the city for 1.5 million rubles ($NZ33,750), two bedroom for 3m rubles ($NZ67.5k), one bedroom in the city for 6m to 14m (NZ$125 to $315k), 30m (NZ$675k) for historic 5 bedroom apartments. Average wage around 300k (NZ$6.5k) per year for under 30 year olds, then can expect up to 1,560,000 ($NZ35k) and pay 13%
Moscow Triumphal Gate in St Petersburg
Mostly made from cast iron, completed 1838 in memory of Russian victory in Russo-Turkish War 1828-1829 tax with employers paying another 26%.
Russia's population stats: Currently 143.3 million equivalent to 1.91% of the total world population, the 9th largest with a density of 9 per square kilometre, compared to NZ's 4.6 million, 0.06% of world's population, the 127th largest and a density of 18 per square kilometre.
COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader_blog_bottom
Tot: 0.068s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0406s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
