Tsarskoe Selo - The Tsar's Village

The school organized another tour for the students this week to Tsarskoe Selo or the Tsar's Village where the summer residences of the Romanov's were built. On the grounds of the Tsar's Village (also nicknamed Pushkin, because the writer Pushkin studied at a university in this area) there are two different palaces, the Alexander Palace and the Catherine Palace, numerous gardens, smaller buildings, monuments, ponds, fountains, etc. . . On Friday afternoon, we were driven to Pushkin and were taken on a tour throughout the Catherine Palace. Then on Sunday Ross, Laura, and I returned again to visit the Alexander Palace. Laura in particular is really interested in Imperial History so we had to go and see these places.

Catherine Palace - We had a guided tour of this palace on Friday afternoon and our guide's English was fantastic. The palace was originally founded in the time of Peter I and was the summer residence of his wife Ekaterina (Catherine I - hence Catherine Palace) but was built largely under the reign of Elizabeth I beginning in 1744 and later expanded under Catherine the Great. It is 740 meters long, nearly the size of Versailles, it would have been larger, but Catherine was given the wrong dimensions. Not all of this massive building has been restored yet - during the Second World War the entire structure was gutted by a huge fire, there were photos on the walls showing what it looked like after 1945 and all that was left, were the stones and bricks which made the foundation and walls of the building - so we were taken just through the one wing which has been rebuilt. Even though we saw probably only a 1/3 of the whole building it was unbelievably elaborate! One series of rooms facing out onto the parade yard at the front of the building are decorated floor to ceiling with carved mouldings which were guilded in gold! Almost every inch of the wall is decorated with these guilded carvings (gold leafed wooden carvings) which are a staple of Russian Imperial Architecture. Over 100 kilograms of gold were used to decorate it! Some interior dimensions for Dad so he can envision the size of the size of one of the rooms: the Great Ballroom is 846 square meteres - (sorry not sure of the conversion into feet) and apparently this didn't even seem big enough so there are mirrors on pretty much every surface that isn't covered in gold, so that it would appear larger. Also of interest, is the famous Amber Room. Initially the panels inlaid with amber were meant to decorate a palace in Germany, but they were sent as a gift to Peter the Great as a gift in 1717 and had to be added to because the dimensions were too small for the room he wanted to put them in. Now, the entire room, a study, is covered in mosaics made entirely of amber. The frames of the paintings, the doorframes, and everything else from the baseboards to the crown mouldings is decorated in amber. The original panels which covered the walls of this room, were looted by the Nazis in WWII and were never recovered, so what is present there today, is a recreation of the orginial decor taken from photos and paintings of the room. The parquet floors - every room has a different pattern on the floor, and our guide mentioned somewhere in the range of 45 different types of wood were used - oak, maple, walnut, ebony, roseword, mahogany, etc. All in all, an extremely over the top palace!

Alexander Palace - This palace was constructed as a gift to Alexander I, Catherine the Great's favorite grandson between 1792 and 1796. This Palace is also significant because it is where the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II and his family, chose to live and where they were eventually placed under arrest before eventually being taken to Ekaterineburg where they were held prisoner until their execution in July 1918. We made our way back to Pushkin on Sunday, taking first the metro to a train station in the city, and then a train from St. Petersburg out to Pushkin. This is definitely the way to travel if you are going to visit Pushkin, because the train is so much smoother and faster than taking one of the tour buses or vans which leave from the centre of the city. Once we arrived in Pushkin, we hopped on a bus which took us the rest of the way, from the train station up to the palaces. We hopped off at the Catherine Palace because we wanted to grab a quick snack in its little cafe, and then try to see the front parade yard before making our way to the Alexander Palace. Unfortunately, the front of the building was gated off because they are working on the exterior of the building for its upcoming 300th Anniversary in 2010. We next made our way through the grounds of the Alexander Palace, coming up behind the building, and taking a few minutes to visit a site that Laura in particular was eager to see. Off to one side of the Palace, in one of the garden's ponds is the Childrens' Island, where there is a "play house" aka their own small palace, and a small graveyard of the family's pets. Laura was very excited to see this place, because since there is no longer a bridge connecting the island to the rest of the park, it is only possible to visit it in the winter when the pond is frozen over and since it is where the Romanov children played. After seeing the Childrens' Island we headed for the Palace, which sadly is in terrible condition. One half of the building is now a museum, but requires still more attention, and the other half, which looks as though it is crumbling, has been used recently by a branch of the military and has not been kept up at all. Aparently, the museum has bought out the other half of the building now and there are plans to continue the restoration process. Inside, we were able to visit one floor of one wing, which has been mostly restored to how it would have looked when Nicholas II and his family lived there. It is far less extravagant than the Catherine Palace, but this is likely because its interiors are of a newer style which is far more modest than the style in the time of Catherine the Great.