Peterhof
The world-famous palace, fountain and park ensemble of Peterhof is an outstanding landmark of Russian artistic culture of the 18-19th centuries. Founded at the very beginning of the 18th century by Emperor Peter the Great not far from the new northern capital St. Petersburg, Peterhof was intended to become the most splendid official royal summer residence.
Credit for its creation should go to a great number of eminent architects, artists, and anonymous folk craftsmen. Its wonderful parks, 176 fountains of various forms and styles and four cascades, majestic palaces, numerous gilded statues of ancient gods and heroes, remarkable collections of sculpture, painting and works of the minor arts make Peterhof a veritable gem of art, often called "Capital of Fountains", unique in the world.
The foundation of Peterhof became a monument to the victory of Russia in war against Sweden. Located on the bank of the Gulf of Finland, it was supposed to prove that Russia was turning into navy state, able to protect itself. Immediately after Poltava battle Peter the Great ordered to lay out the parks of Peterhof. The construction of the palace, known as the Great palace, which is a gem of Peterhof, started in 1714. Peter the Great himself participated in the palace construction: the architects based their project on his drawings. Peter wanted to have a relatively modest palace. The building was carried out by Johann Braunstein. It proceeded with haste, and by 1716 the small building with its rather ordinary architecture was ready. Neither the appearance of the chambers, nor their dimensions were in keeping with the role of the building as the center of the splendid park ensemble, which had already been conceived by that time.
In 1721 architect Niccolo Michetti presented his design for extending the palace, approved by the tsar. But even the new palace, with stretched for 160 meters along the edge of the terrace, did not solve the problem of where to accommodate the growing court. In 1747 with the blessing of empress Elizabeth, architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli embarked upon a radical rebuilding of the palace. All that remained of the former building was the central section put up in Peter's time. The new palace was built with unprecedented speed. By 1755 the decor was practically complete. The size and sumptuousness of the rooms, the remarkable skill of the architect and craftsman astounded contemporaries.
Rastrelli retained the existing division of the palace into a central section with galleries and side buildings. But he added galleries that ran south in the direction of the Upper Gardens. He did away with the small pavilions at the east and the west ends of the palace, replacing them by a "building under arms" at the west end and "a church building" at the east end.
The palace interiors were in keeping with its external appearance. Its spacious and airy rooms were adorned with rich moldings, splendid parquet flooring, exquisite carving, painted ceilings and canvases by great masters. In subsequent decades many famous architects with different architectural styles enriched the exterior and interiors of the Great palace. So alongside the rooms dating back to the Petrine period there were the splendid halls that appeared in the mid-18th century and then the dignified, austere halls of the classical period that were later replaced by the interiors of the mid-19th century reflecting a revival of the main artistic principles of Rococo.
Over the two centuries of its existence the Great palace has become a kind of treasure-store of outstanding works of art, furniture, bronze, china, glass and everyday objects.
During the World War II the Nazi set fire to the Great palace on the very first day of their occupation of Peterhof. The fire destroyed not only the world-famous gem of architecture, but also many works of art. Everything that survived the fire was either destroyed or looted. Not content with this, they blew up the north wall of the most valuable, Petrine section of the palace. When Peterhof was liberated, all that remained of the Great palace were charred ruins. The destruction was so great that many people considered it quite out of question to even think of trying to restore the palace. The initial conservation work and measurements began almost as soon as the invaders were driven out. Highly complex though it was, the restoration of the interiors and exterior of the Great palace was done. The outstanding experts and masters carefully restored the palace step by step. Today the Great palace museum numbers more than twenty rooms and its collection of exhibits is in no way inferior to the pre-war one. The structural center of the Upper Gardens and the Lower Park, the palace stands on the edge of a sixteen-meter high terrace, adorned with gold statues, the crystal jets of the Great Cascade and the terrace fountains. The gleaming gold, the exquisite architecture and the splashing of the fountains create the most impressive sight.



Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo)
Pushkin is a town to the south from Saint Petersburg. Originally it was called Tsarskoe Selo. It was the main summer residence of the royal family, hence the name (Tsarskoe Selo means tsars' village). The second name of the town is Pushkin. It was called in honor of great Russian poet, as Alexander Pushkin's life was closely connected with this town. He was a student of lyceum, a privileged school, founded in 1811 and intended for the sons of the nobility. Pushkin spent 6 years in Tsarskoe Selo, and later, when he graduated from the lyceum and moved to Saint Petersburg, he still liked to visit the town. In 1937, when Russia commemorated centenary of Pushkin's death, the town was named in honor of the poet.
The landmark of Tsarskoe Selo is the Catherine palace. It was started in the days of Catherine I, the wife of Peter the Great, and the palace bears her name. The first Catherine palace was a small two-story building, typical for Russian palaces of the early 18th century. The first attempt to expand the palace was undertaken during the reign of Empress Elizabeth according to plans by architects Zemtsov at the end of 1742. Reconstruction of the Catherine Palace and park ensemble was carried out by his pupils Kvasov and Chevakinsky. From the end of 1748 and through 1756, construction of the Tzarskoje Selo residence was directed by court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. He built the palace in the baroque style.
The Catherine palace features splendid interiors, designed by eminent architects Rastrelli, Cameron, Stasov and Monighetti. The collection of the palace includes a large number of precious works of art, such as furniture, porcelain, statues, canvases and so forth, including personal belongings of Russian emperors and members of their families. One of the most remarkable interiors of the Catherine palace is the Amber room.
In 1701, Friedrich IV, the King of Denmark, recommended the Prussian king Friedrich I that his court carver and amber polisher Gottfried Wolfram should make an amber room. It is known that from 1707 to 1712 the master Andreas Schluter and other craftsmen worked on amber panels. The twenty two amber panels made by them were set up in one of the rooms of the Berlin Palace Mon Bijou, where they attracted the attention of Peter the Great. In 1716, when the treaty of alliance with Russia was signed, the king Friedrich Wilhelm I presented the amber room to Peter the Great as a diplomatic gift. The amber panels were initially mounted in Peter's Summer Palace. Then they were set up in a study in the Winter Palace. From 1755 onwards the panels of "sunny stone" adorned one of the rooms in the main suite of the Catherine Palace for almost two hundred years. The panels were not large enough to complete the 100 meters decor of the room, so mosaic and mirror insets were added, and the upper part of the walls was painted to imitate amber. The amber panels, varying in size and shape, consist of polished amber of different hues. Obviously, each piece of amber was polished individually. The panels consist of amber frames, garlands, the heads of ancient gods, coats of arms, crown, monograms, and whole scenes from the Bible, also covered in amber. In numerous descriptions found in memoirs and historical literature the Amber room is referred to as "a fairy-tale work", "the eighth wonder of the world", "the amber poem" and so forth.
When the Nazi occupied Pushkin during the war, they removed the contents of the Amber room to the former capital of East Prussia, Konigsberg, where it was registered under No. 200 in the "list of gifts to the Prussian Museum". The amber panels were occasionally shown to a small circle of people. In 1944, when the victorious advance of the Soviet troops to the West began, the Nazi dismantled the contents of the room and packed into crates. No one knew what happened to this remarkable monument. In 1979 it was decided to restore the Amber room. For this purpose 6 tons of amber were needed. The official ceremony of opening of the restored Amber room took place on May, 31, 2003, in honor of 300th anniversary of Saint Petersburg.
In September, 1941, Tsarskoe Selo was occupied by Nazi troops. By that time 20,000 exhibits out of 70,000 were evacuated. The Catherine palace was looted and turned into barracks for solders. Before leaving Tsarskoe Selo in January, 1944, the Nazi planted 11 bombs of delivered action under the walls of the palace, but fortunately they were defused before explosion. After the town liberations, the skilled masters started restoration works, based on original designs, schemes and photos of the palace details, which had been made before the war. All the evacuated pieces were returned to Tsarskoe Selo, and all the fragments that could be found in the palace debris were used to restore the exterior and interiors. Today 27 halls out of 55 are opened for the public.
The Catherine palace is the compositional center of a big architectural and park ensemble. The Catherine park is an inseparable and extremely poetic part of the ensemble. It is a magnificent work of creative labor by several generations of talented Russian architects, sculptors, gardeners, engineers and thousands of craftsmen and working people of various specializations. The magnificent avenues of the park are crowded with people both in summer and in winter. Not only citizen of Saint Petersburg come here, but also tourists from all over the world.