June 9th, by Donna

Today we went to Peterhof, the summer palace first designed by Peter the Great, then finished by his successors (remember?  Catherine, Elizabeth, Catherine, etc.?).  This was yet another spectacular palace which had been totally destroyed by the Germans during the occupation, and now is fully restored.  It seems that restoring Russian palaces has been one of the principal employment activities in Russia over the past 25 years.  I think it’s the equivalent of the stimulus funds at home.

 
One of my favorite rooms was the dining room which was decorated in white, with a grand table set with white china with a simple lavender design.  This room also was filled with spectacular chandeliers with glass pieces in a slightly blue color, making the whole effect very elegant.  My other favorite room had wall to wall portraits of young women.  There were sixty portraits in all, but of only six girls, done over and over in different poses and different clothing.  It was meant to be wallpaper … very deluxe wallpaper indeed.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside.

Outside it is clear that Peter was inspired by Versailles as the palace has an extensive network of fountains and geometric gardens.  Much of the grounds are wilder than Versailles, with less formal planting, and there are several fun “trick” fountains for entertainment. 

 For lunch, we ate at the Orangery on the grounds, which used to be the greenhouse.  We were met there by our Yale classmate, John Roseman, who I don’t believe I’ve seen in at least twenty years.  John settled in Russia (and now lives in Belarus) in 1991, so is fluent in Russian, and full of stories and information about life in Russia.  We enjoyed chatting with him, and plan to see him tomorrow as well.  Note the nice photo of all of us together … but don’t miss the statue “mooning” us!!

My other favorite photo is of the six of us posing with the people in costumes (for 800 rubles, or around $3!).

We took the hydrofoil back to St. Petersburg – much faster than going by road earlier today.

 Here are a few other random comments.  It is very funny to see some of the signs in Russia because they look like our letters, but they really are Cyrllic.  Our favorite sign looks like “Pectopah”, but actually is “Restaurant”, pronounced "res-toe-rah".  We see Pectopah’s everywhere, and it never ceases to get a chuckle out of Marina when we happily point out another pectopah!

 
Marina wrote about the Russian women in the museums.  I just wanted to add that they wear the strangest assortment of clothing.  You would think they would have some kind of standard issue uniform, but instead they might have a striped shirt on top, a checked skirt below, with knee socks and loafers.  Most of these women are older, and there sure are a lot of them.  Perhaps another stimulus program?