Just as I sat down to write about our 5th day of the holiday, by sheer co-incidence Angelina Jolie announced that she would be making a film on Catherine the Great and would act in it also as the nymphomaniac queen. Before this trip I had not heard about Catherine the Great. My Russian history knowledge was restricted to the last Czar, Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet rule. Now I look forward to the film as after spending 2 days in St Petersburg the appetite for Russian history has grown. Actually this 2nd day at St Petersburg was all about Catherine the Great. We visited her palace, heard stories about her and talked about her with our guide.
The places we visited on the 2nd day at this lovely city were as charming and exciting as on the first day. We drove through the city and crossed the bridge over river Neva and proceeded towards the suburbs. We kept seeing some extraordinary buildings and enriched ourselves about stories about the Czars and the hardships during the communist regime. It’s as if we were being transported in the worlds of Peter the Great, Catherine the great, Czar Nicholos II, the Russian revolution, WW2 and the communist regime under the likes of Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev.
The places we visited on the 2nd day at this lovely city were as charming and exciting as on the first day. We drove through the city and crossed the bridge over river Neva and proceeded towards the suburbs. We kept seeing some extraordinary buildings and enriched ourselves about stories about the Czars and the hardships during the communist regime. It’s as if we were being transported in the worlds of Peter the Great, Catherine the great, Czar Nicholos II, the Russian revolution, WW2 and the communist regime under the likes of Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev.
Mightier than the sword
It so happened that I was at this time reading Jeffery
Archer’s latest book ‘Mightier than the sword’ which has a few scenes set in
Leningrad (St Petersburg) and talks extensively about Stalin and his
dictatorial role during this Soviet regime as narrated by his own interpreter. History has recorded the kind of regime carried on under the dictator Stalin. His spies made sure that enemies were taken care of before they became more dangerous. The unexpected victory of the Red Army over the mighty Nazis during world war II gave a cult status to Stalin and he ruthlessly occupied the Easter European countries so that he had buffer between Russia and Western forces. The purges continued till the death of Stalin.
However, the places we visited on our 2nd day at St Petersburg had more to do with the Czars and the richness of the historical past rather than the purges ordered by Lenin and Stalin. People of Russia want to block the period of 1919 to 1989 from their minds. It has too many dark tales.
However, the places we visited on our 2nd day at St Petersburg had more to do with the Czars and the richness of the historical past rather than the purges ordered by Lenin and Stalin. People of Russia want to block the period of 1919 to 1989 from their minds. It has too many dark tales.
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| The lovely gardens |
Peterhof Palace and and the enchanting fountains
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| A view of the palace, fountains and our family |
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| Sanya in front of a Rich Palace |
As you reach Peterhof Grand Palace (founded by Peter the Great ) and its lower
fountain park and upper Garden you feel very relaxed. The lovely fountains
enchant you and you can see the lovely Peterhof
Grand Palace. We spent quite some time roaming around these great gardens.The Grand Cascade, which goes downhill from the palace
towards the Baltic Sea, is one of the largest fountain ensembles in the world.
Some of them are trick fountains so the children loved it and Kartik enjoyed
getting drenched even though it was pretty cold. The Czars did have a sense of humor and some of them took delight when they would drench the unsuspecting guests with cold water from these trick fountains.
We could have spent a lot more time here but one has to do justice to the limited time one has as a tourist. There were many things to see before heading towards the cruise ship.
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| Tricked by the trick fountains ! |
Catherine the Great - The Nymphomaniac Queen who brought about the Golden era in Russia
Catherine the great ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796 making her the longest serving female ruler of Russia. Her reign is also know as the golden era of Russia and she brought about a lot of reforms thus bringing prosperity for the common man.. She is also known as a nymphomaniac Queen and is said to have had 22 lovers. Paintings of Catherine II, show her as an overweight and not a very attractive woman but then she was the Queen so she could have anyone she wanted for her pleasure. She was responsible for the coup against her incompetent Czar husband who actually was from the Romanov dynasty. Catherine herself was not even Russian. It is unclear who was the father of her successor (her son Paul). She was known to shower great gifts to her lovers like gifts of 1000 serfs along with large estates. Her summer palace houses a great museum today. 58 rooms of this palace were destroyed during WWII and around 32 have been restored till now. The Czars had a way of intimidating their nobles and ministers and guests before they gave them their audience. A person had to go through different rooms and wait for certain time and participate in certain activities before the Czar or the Queen appeared. By then the intimidation had taken its toll on most people.
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| This hall in Catherine's palace is available for parties and marriages. I am sure that with Russian Ruble going down, many of my countrymen would love to show off their wealth by having wedding of their children here ! |
The main hall in Catherine's palace is now available for weddings and parties provided you pay the correct price. I would like to think that the place can accommodate more than 3000 people so hopefully my rich countrymen, who keep looking for exotic destinations for their children's wedding would like to book this place soon to show their might. Being a guest in the ballroom once used by Catherine the great and subsequent Czars would be incentive enough for the guests to rush to this exotic locale. Provided of course that they are given visa by the Russians !
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| Catherine's palace |
Catherine Palace is once again something you would associate
with the Czarist opulence. This was the summer palace of the Czars and once
again you are fascinated by each and everything inside the palace. The walls,
the tapestries, the floorings, the furniture……………everything is exquisite. What
we found most exquisite was the Amber Room in Catherine Palace.
The story of Amber Room
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| It has taken almost 20 years to re-create the Amber Room. These are spare panels kept aside for future use. |
Amber room, if it exists today would be worth around $ 400 million. Some say it would be priceless. It was made out of Amber panels and Gold and was referred to as the ‘8th wonder of the world.’ When Nazis occupied Leningrad, the first thing they did was dismantle the Amber Room and pack it away in crates and ship it out. The Soviets had tried to dismantle and hide the Amber room but had not been able to do it. Hitler had given instructions and his special team carried specialized equipment with them and get the Amber Room to him. These experts could dismantle the room in 36 hours ! The Russians had tried camouflaging the room but the Nazis knew where exactly it was. The Amber room was subsequently set up by Nazis at Koenigsberg in 1944 but it disappeared during the last days of the war. There are many theories and the main one is that the Koenigsberg castle was bombed and with it went the Amber Room. But several historians believe that it was transported out before the bombing and the search is still on.
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| The lecture given by an expert about Amber Room |
Amber room has once more been created in Catherine palace. We attended a workshop about the creation of panels and process. The intricate work was marvelous. Photography in the Amber room is prohibited but we were allowed to touch the panels in the workshop which was created just near the palace. Will Amber room ever be found ? I am certainly going to read whatever appears in world newspapers about this subject.
Saying Goodbye to St Petersburg and ......another party
Time for the Cruise ship sailing was 6 PM. One didn't want to be left behind in Russia even though we had found it most beautiful. For the moment we did think that we had seen all that there was to see. There were many more places to visit but already the mind was getting muddled up regarding places. Important thing was that it was not a very rushed tour but it was informative and we did get a sense of what St Petersburg was all about. We had seen the places which we wanted to see.
By 5.20 PM we were back in our stateroom after saying bye to our guide Daniel and the driver. They had been very good and deserved the tip of 10% and 5% respectively which SBP tours had recommended. We had got quite friendly to Daniel and he showed us his family pictures (he had married pretty young) and the stories related to his wedding. Daniel had always recommended that we leave the valuables and passports etc in the mini bus when we visited palaces and museums as he assured us that it was very safe there. St Petersburg is notoriously famous for the pick-pockets in the crowded touristy places.
It was then time for a nice cup of tea followed by some time in the Jacuzzi to get rid of the tiredness in the legs. As usual there was a nice Italian dinner at the dining hall of the the ship and the theme today was food from Sicily. As Costa is an Italian Company, each day we had Italian food in the dining hall but each day it was from a different region of Italy.Just when we thought we would sleep early, I was told that there was a party near the pool on the upper deck. And it is a well known fact that I don't like missing parties........
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| Midnight Party |
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