Петерго́ф

Today we took a trip to Peterhof (spelled in Cyrillic above)! It's a town outside of St. Petersburg a little ways on the Gulf of Finland (part of the Baltic). The town houses the summer palaces of all the Tsars through Catherine II, starting with Peter the Great (hence the Peterhof).

One the metro ride, Anatoli drew our attention to the fanciness of a few stops. They were gorgeous and extremely decked-out, with chandeliers and marble and glass cut to look like crystal. He said this was a good example of Stalin's taste for decoration and the Soviet effort to make the metros extremely attractive unlike those evil Americans' grungy public transpo stations. I thought that was interesting (I took a picture for evidence).

Waiting in line for the palace tour was kind of an adventure. There were several solicitors with souvenirs speaking in limited Mandarin, Spanish, French, and English. It was quite an impressive display of linguistics. Plus, we saw Anatoli's temper really tested, because the line was pretty much a blob, and the lady in control of entrance was basically just picking groups at random to enter. Note: It was funny because Anatoli kept yelling at her in English, even though she only spoke Russian. He couldn't tell me why he spoke in English when he was angry. Perhaps because he might get more sympathy? Dunno.

They didn't allow any pictures inside, and they were actually watching, so I didn't get any pictures of the palace, which was a bummer. Several of the rooms were baroque style, with the gold leafed accents on all the walls. Most impressive, though, was the many types of silk wall paper. There were at least 8 different kinds.

The palace was part of the area occupied by Nazi troops during the Siege of Leningrad, so the palace was blown up and abandoned before the troops arrived. Those that cared for it saved samples of every different type of silk wall paper and it was reproduced after the war.

The palace was beautiful, but the real attraction was the gardens. We arrived just as they were turning them on, so we witnessed the fancy pomp that went with it. They played a song that was about St. Petersburg over the speakers, and turned the fountains on little by little. There were so many beautiful fountains, you guys. I tried to take pictures of as many as I could, but I know I missed several. And OMG the tulips! May really is the best time to visit St. Petersburg, because there are so many tulips everywhere, and they were so beautiful. The gardens were all gorgeous.

There were several smaller palaces on the grounds, including Peter the Great's favorite, Mon Plaisir. It was RIGHT on the ocean front and had such a beautiful view, it's no wonder he loved to spend time there.

We took a bazillion pictures with all the pretty sights, and moseyed our way through the gardens. After about 2 hours, we had walked by MOST of the fountains. We headed back via bus.

This evening, a few of the others and I went for sushi at a Japanese place across the street. It was good! I have only had sushi once before, but I really liked it! It had crab this time. The sushi place was attached to a liquor store (yeah, we thought that was weird too) so we bought one bottle of vodka to share between 7 of us. It was not tasty. I've heard that vodka is a lot better in Russia, but it still tasted like vodka. We played a lot of Fool.

Now I'm ready for bed! Be sure to look at the pictures from today (posted in a few minutes) because the pictures rather than the blog will be the most amusing today! :)

Nighty night.