Our Wonderful Adventure

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Today, we went to the Hermitage. It was the Winter Palace of Catherine II - the Catherine the Great. She had been a German princess who married Alexander I. She had him killed and claimed he had had a stroke. She was not a very attractive woman. It is called the Hermitage because she was alone when she resided there as a widow. She did have many lovers and gave birth to many illegitimate children with legitimate son, Paul. She died at the age of 66 and had a 29 year old lover at that time. She was a lusty lady.

The first Winter Palace was made of wood. Catherine had galleries attached to it. When it caught fire, the guards watered down the walls attached to the galleries to protect their content. It was said that the blaze of the fire could be seen for miles. The rebuilding too only 7 years and marble was used with other more permanent materials.

The interior of the Hermitage has been magnificently restored. It is truly indescribable in its beauty. It is in the baroque style which they said Catherine hated. The architect was from Italy. They used a great deal of gold in the decorations. Originally it was applied through a steaming technique using mercury and many died in the use of it. Someone in Russian developed the gold leaf method. Gold leaf is 1/3 the thickness of a follicle of hair. So a little bit goes a long way. There are solid marble columns a few rooms but they used these sparingly as marble absorbs 80% of the heat in the room thus making the room very cold. Most of the columns are made of a marble technique developed in Italy that covers the column. Malachite and lapis was used in small pieces when put together looked as though it was a complete stone. You had to get really close to see the artistry in the construction that it was not a solid piece of stone. The rooms are mammoth. The floors are parquet with from 8 to 17 different types of wood used. The woods are from every continent. In the throne room (again mammoth) the parquet floor was done in floor and scroll patterns that was duplicated in the ceiling. However only the ceiling was allowed to have the royal crests as you were never permitted to walk on such.

Catherine sent emissaries to the European countries to buy art and artifacts for her pleasure as well as for an investment. There are rooms filled with beautiful art. One has all Paul Rubens and another Van Dyke. There is the Crouching Boy by Michaelangelo and two paintings by DaVinci - one when he was 18 and one later. These have similar size and design as the Mona Lisa. After Catherine, royalty continued to invest in art. There are entire rooms to Picasso, Gaugain, Matisse, Cezanne, and others. It is an incredible collection.

Much entertaining was done in the Winter Palace used from November to April. Catherine had one dining room that you entered where only chairs were present. The guests would sit down and the table fully laden with food would rise from the floor. She did this so that no servants would be present to here the conversation.

This is also the palace where Nicholas II and Alexandra were captured by the Bolsheviks. We saw the dining room where they were arrested.

During World War II, the art works were hidden in St Petersburg as well as in Siberia. It is incredible the quantity that they were able to save and protect. We were told that if you stood in front of each individual art work for one minute it would take between 8 and 11 years (if you slept) to see it all.

We also saw St Issac's Cathedral which is the largest church in Russia. It is still a Russian Orthodox Church but its main body is shown as a museum. No words can describe it.

We were in the Hermitage for 6 1/2 hours that seemed to fly by. It has been wonderful

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