Russian History

There's nothing better than immersing yourself in the Russian culture and learning history from a different perspective. Today I traveled to Peterhof, the grand palace of Peter the Great that was originally built in the 1700's. A special tour was set up for those who were interested, and I signed up to go while Marty attended the conference. Wonder who had more fun?

We left promptly at 1:30 for the 20 mile ride via tourist van with a personal tour guide. She was marvelous and kept us entertained for the one hour 35 minute trip due to heavy city traffic. The driver was obviously upset by the slow pace and the high concentration of gridlocked cars on the road. But our guide, Yolanda, had plenty of information to share with us as we made our way out of the city.

We passed a very interesting church that had a bell tower with an unusual shape. Yolanda described it as in the shape of a Champagne bottle. Apparently the church is named, “The church next to the Champagne bottle bell tower” in Russian. She went on to tell us that there is a very special icon in the church. And that people go there to pray for family members who have a problem with alcohol. Apparently alcoholism a a huge problem in Russia. (Considering that many tables of 10 finished off an entire bottle of vodka at the dinner last night, I didn't find that fact too hard to figure out!)

Don't you find it rather interesting that the church with the special icon devoted to curing alcoholism has a bell tower shaped like a champagne bottle? Well, I suppose that's better than being shaped like a vodka bottle.

As we drove along, we learned some very sad facts about St. Petersburg's recent history. Prior to World War II, the city had over 800 churches. During the German occupation, they dwindled to 19, 15 being Russian Orthodox. Now they have about 250 churches of various types, including a Buddhist temple and a Mosque which we saw on our drive today.

Many religious items were shipped off to Siberia for safe keeping during the occupation, but the rest were looted or destroyed. I had marveled at the icons in the museums, and wondered how they had managed to be saved. We learned that the Soviets turned the churches into factories and markets. Any religious items in them were lost forever.

In fact, a million of the items in the Hermitage had been shipped to Siberia for safekeeping as well, for fear of losing them to the Germans.

During the Soviet era, people could only live in rented flats, concrete building erected by the Soviets. These still stand along the highways just on the outskirts of the city.

One of the exciting highlights of the day was driving on the new toll road, the first toll road in all of Russia.

Yolanda mentioned that the Russian government explored the toll road system in European countries to determine the best way of implementing such a system. Yolanda was all smiles when the driver paid the toll and we started our drive on the highway. Couldn't help but chuckle at that!

Yolanda explained to us, that within the city limits, many of the palaces were damaged during the war, but outside the limits, most of the beautiful palaces were destroyed by the Germans.

Today's trip to Peterhof highlighted the recreation of a magnificent palace that had originally been built by Peter the Great. When you enter the grounds, huge posters show the destruction that was done by the Germans. We saw photos of the original that showed burning ruins.

Somehow, many of the items and silk wall hangings had been removed for safe keeping prior to the German occupation.

Stalin make it a priority to rebuild this palace as an exact replica of the original, or at least as close as possible. So, today we toured this magnificent building. There were originally 55 rooms, but only 23 have been completed.

The outside gardens have been recreated in the early grandeur. One thing that is truly remarkable is the cascading fountains in the back of the palace. They flow strictly as a result of gravity. There is enough drop in elevation to accommodate the flow of water from the fountains without any external interference. They are truly spectacular to see, and it is amazing to think that someone could design such a phenomenon in the mid 1700's.

When Marty and I left the hotel for the conference venue, the skies were gray and rain seemed imminent. You can see by the photos that the weather changed for the best, providing an awesome background for this beautiful palace and surroundings.

Our guide was absolutely delightful! With each room that we entered, she would say in such an excited voice, “And now I want to show you the lovely......” as if each room were her own and she was showing them off. No photos were permitted but you can take my word when I tell you that they rooms were very elaborate. Rooms were filled with gilded gold items on the wood. We were told that all of the gold in the room was actually limetree wood covered with gold dust and that only 1.5 kilograms of gold was used in just one huge room. Amazing!

The palace grounds are located on the Gulf of Finland. Looking out over the water, one can see St. Petersburg in the distance, and right smack in the middle of the gulf you can see a huge cooling tower for a Nuclear Power plant. Something I'm pretty sure Peter the Great would never have predicted.

The gardens were spectacular and we needed to “move in a hurry” as Yolanda stated so that we could see the featured fountains prior them turning off at 5:00 p.m.

Our trip home was much quicker....less than an hour, because the driver decided to take the longer road around the city rather than try to crawl through the city. So, most of the road featured forests with birch trees lining the road. It really was quite beautiful and calm.

Did I mention that everyone drives crazy here? Definitely the most aggressive driving that I have ever seen. No wonder they like to drink so much vodka! Calms the nerves, so I hear.