This is going to sound spoiled, but I hadn’t been to a museum or something along those lines in a while (at least it felt like it), so I decided that I wanted to try to go to Peterhof on Saturday. My week was stressful, and the idea of leaving the city, even if it was just to the suburbs of Petersburg, became increasingly more appealing as the week neared its end. Three guys from my program wanted to come too, so we all met around 10 am on Saturday at the metro to begin our journey to Peterhof.
We took the metro down the red line, almost to the bottom, and from there we took a marshrutka, or minibus, to Peterhof. The drive took 50 minutes, but it went surprisingly well. Marshrutka drivers don’t have the best reputations for their smooth style, and after getting really car sick the day before, I freaked out more than I would have normally when I realized I left my dramamine in my other backpack. The marshrutka wasn’t that packed, however, and the seats faced forward this time, so thankfully I didn’t get nauseous at all.
Unfortunately I don’t know that much about Peterhof, so you are spared 3 lengthy paragraphs filled with probably-pretty-boring information from me. What I do know is that it was a summer residence of the Tsars (the earlier ones in particular I believe), and it was built during Peter the Great’s time. A bunch of my other friends wanted to go to Peterhof too, but they wanted to wait until later in the spring when the trees were all in bloom and the famous fountains were working. I thought about how that would probably be the better option, but I really just wanted an excursion right then and there.
The drive to Peterhof was nice and... eye opening. Smolny is located pretty much in the city center, and I’m lucky to live right on the Neva at a diagonal from Winter Palace. My point is that most of the time I’ve spent here in Petersburg has been mainly in the really nice areas. It’s not to say that the areas outside the city aren’t nice, but you could definitely tell, even once we left the metro, that less attention has been paid to the surrounding areas of the city. I will mention that Saturday was cloudy and grey, so that definitely added to the whole gloom of it all, but lets just say I felt relieved to make it back home, to familiar places with all the lights and palaces and cobblestone streets and cafes and bars everywhere.
There were houses spread out throughout the drive, but the buildings we passed on the way there along the highways were usually giant apartment buildings. Some buildings looked random and out of place next to each other (an attempt by some architect or engineer to spice up the edge of the city perhaps?), but I still appreciated seeing what other parts of Russia looked like. There were also lots of Lenin/other communist related statues/monuments (hammer and sickles galore).
One last thing I will say about the suburbs - at one point during the drive I wondered what all this looked like before communism in Russia. Was it all forest? The occasional wooden house in the middle of the field? These apartment complexes don’t look THAT old... I don’t know, it amazes me to think about how much was accomplished during the Soviet Union (ohhh it hurts to commend “communism”). Oh communism, you may have starved and murdered millions of people, but you weren’t messing around. You have a lot to show for it!
Enough of that madness. When we first walked onto the Peterhof grounds, it felt like a ghost town. The naked trees were all planted in symmetrical, geometric patterns on the sides, and the fountains looked lifeless and sad without any water, but boards and tubing instead twisting about in the pools. The palace, a long, light yellow rectangle, stood straight ahead with white church like towers on either end. There were golden onion domes, of course, with golden double headed eagles to complete them. We walked up to the fountains and past the rows of trees before we ended up at the back of the palace.
The back of the palace, which faces out to the Gulf of Finland, is actually more like the front of the palace. The back of the palace is still grand and impressive, but the back is so much more Tsar-like. You realize once you get behind the palace that it is located at the top of a hill. You walk along the back patio and overlook a forest with a long canal running right up through the middle. There are so many stairs and steps you have to walk down to get to the woods, but it doesn’t take long. It kind of made me feel like I was walking down the steps of a Greek amphitheater, but the view of the trees and of the gardens are still really pretty, despite it being only the beginning of March. We saw more people as the day went on, but for the most part it was not busy at Peterhof. We walked past the fountains and took pictures of the golden statues, which stand out and shine brightly, for the contrast between the gold and the grey winter colors everywhere else is striking.
We continued to walk along the canal, through the trees and over the small bridges, until we reached the ocean. We walked off the path and onto the “beach” there, where we walked onto the ice and skidded and slid around in our boots for a little bit. The view out onto the Finnish Gulf is vast and sort of uninteresting, seeing that it was just one giant eye-full of grey fog. It made me a little claustraphobic, in a way, to look out into the Gulf. There was nothing but a big cargo ship out in the distance; you couldn’t see anything else. It felt like the world might as well have ended at that point. Looking out into the distance was yet another reminder that I’m a LONG way away from home, and at this point, that realization still makes a strong impression.
We all started to get cold shortly after, so we headed back towards the palace. We walked along some paths, took more pictures of random fountains and garden structures, and then had a fun run-in with a squirrel that had really large, tall, cone-like ears. I have never seen a squirrel like that before, and boy did this little guy have a personality. He came right up to us, and he definitely knew that we were enjoying him. He started climbing up a nearby tree, showing off, and at one point I swore he was going to jump onto my friend Will’s jacket when Will walked up to the branch the squirrel was on with his hand extended.
Ohh, nature. It was really nice to walk through trees and see grass, even though it was pretty brown and lackluster. When we walked back up the stairs to the palace, we bought tickets to go inside. Just like all the other palaces I’ve been to here, this one was covered in gold. More naked statues. More religious depictions on the ceilings. But it was still very cool. This palace was a lot smaller than the other one’s I’ve visited thus far, but there were some unique rooms. There was one full of mirrors, and because the room was a little smaller in size and the lights were slightly dimmed, the reflections of the gold totally electrified the room.
There was room where the walls were made up of identically-sized portraits. They were of both men and women, and they kind of all looked the same. They looked like they were painted by Johannes Vermeer, the guy who did the Girl with the Pearl Earring. And then there was another room that had the comfiest looking, light blue L-shaped bed. Needless to say, I WANT ONE.
We continued to walk past more rooms filled with fancy china, a few rooms with Chinese themes, a Tsar’s study with a german-made alarm clock from the 18th century, and more bedrooms and other empty rooms that make you wonder what they’re function was when people actually lived in the palace for real. When we had seen it all, we said that we’d probably come back here during the spring, and decided to head back home. I was back at the apartment (my host parents were at the dacha) eating my lunch by 3:45 pm.
Because I had a good chunk of the afternoon left, I decided to go to the gym. And then my food coma set in, so then I decided to take a nap instead. And then instead of taking a nap, I decided to watch some House of Cards, and so on and so forth. Before I knew it, it was time to go out. A few of us went to a bar not too far from Smolny and played the card game called “President.” It was fun and relaxing, but I was dog tired from everything going on in these past few days that I made it home before midnight.
Speaking of fatigue, I need to try and go to bed early tonight. I didn’t even get to write about what I did today for Maselnitsa, but I will write about that soon! Until next time.
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